Business Deal

Chapter 14 - The whole truth, and nothing but the truth

Later that evening, Melissa was relaxing in the six foot round tub. She'd had an indulgent afternoon, after a meal served to the room, she'd been pampered in the spa. A massage, facial, manicure and pedicure, then some sort of seaweed treatment that was meant to feed the skin. Hence the bath. She wanted to phone Liam now. He said he'd be away for a few days, but she oudln't imagine repeating this day tomorrow. She wanted to see him, talk to him, and then decide what their future held.

When the phone rang, disturbing her train of thought, she snapped back to the here and now. Expecting it to be Liam, she grabbed the cordless phone ready to beg him to return she could no more turn down his proposal as she could imagine a life without him in it. She didn’t just want him and miss him, she needed him.

"Hello?" she was almost breathless in her rush to speak to him.

"What the hell are you doing?" It was neither the tone, nor the voice she expected. 

"Lettie? I thought you were in Paris!" She was always glad to speak to her friend, but today she sounded angry.

She heard her friend laugh, "I was, but after putting my foot in it, you seemed so sad. So I flew back to London and headed to ‘chez Hart’ ready to draw blood!"

"Ah!" She'd seen him, probably shouted at him, torn more than a strip off him.

"Yes! Ah! I turned up there, all anger and indignation, all set to chastise him for abandoning you.....but you haven’t told him! He didn’t know and he still wanted to marry you. And you turn him down!"

Melissa was quiet, trying to fight back tears, "I was shocked, I didn’t know how to deal with things Lettie."

Suddenly Lettie's voice calmed, "You love him Liss, you want to be with him, for God’s sake you’re having the man’s baby. The answer you’re looking for is ‘yes’, ‘yes Liam love of my life and father of the child you know nothing about, yes I will marry you’."

Melissa tried to fight back the tears, "I’ll consider myself told. But I..."

Lettie laughed, cutting her off, "keep thinking of those excuses cos there’s a very angry man winding his way back to you as we speak."

Her heart seemed to stop, "he knows?"

Lettie sighed, "I didn’t intend to tell him, I just thought that he was rejecting a pregnant woman, so I lashed out.There was me ranting and raving like a banshee, and the poor man looked like he’d been hit by a sledge hammer!"

Despite the warm water of the bath, Melissa started to shake, she was SO unprepared to deal with him and the discussion she knew she’d have to have.

"I’m going to phone you in an hour or so, just to check how things are, ok?"

"Thanks Lettie, I do love you!" Melissa was almost begging her friend to believe her.

"You can say it so easily to me, hey?"

Now it was panic stations. Telling Liam that she was pregnant was something she'd never visualised in her head. Saying that she had no intention of making him feel guilty, obligated. She'd decided when she found out that she came as a person, he had to want her, not just the baby. And after their dreadful parting back in New York, she never thought their paths would cross again. Instead, here she was a sitting duck, waiting for him to return.

Climbing out of the bath, she dried herself and then wrapped up in a hotel robe. Then spent the vacuum of time waiting trying to think of the words to explain how this had all happened.

She was curled on the sofa, her hair still damp, eyes fixed on the door when it suddenly flew open, and eyes blazing, face flushed, Liam stood there.