Bound by a Baby Bump. Ellie Darkins
Rachel wouldn’t settle for someone drifting in and out of her life on a whim or desire. Whoever she decided to share her life with, she’d want him as predictable as the tide—she’d never stake her luck on waves and weather.
If he wanted more of her, it would mean dates and calendars and plans. And contingency plans and comparing schedules and an itinerary agreed months in advance. The thought of those constrictions, of being tied into someone else’s expectations, demands...suddenly it was hard to breathe.
Since the day he’d left school, he hadn’t encountered anything, whether it was a woman, a job, or the thought of family, that had made him want to tie himself down, to trap himself into any situation where he didn’t have a clear and easy way out. He’d spent too many years in a hell he couldn’t escape, trapped in a boarding house with his bullies, and no one to listen to him, to believe him. And all the time, the person he should have been able to go to for help, the person who should have been unquestionably on his side, had been the ringleader.
He’d counted down the days until he could leave school on his calendar, and then had never used one again. He’d sworn that he would never allow himself to be trapped as he was at school. Never find himself in a situation where someone had the power to hurt him, and he couldn’t get away. So why was he gripping Rachel’s hand as if she were a life buoy to a drowning man?
When he looked over at her fidgeting on her heels, all the reasons he knew he should walk away seemed to fade. He knew the dangers, knew that he couldn’t hold on and expect to live untethered. He couldn’t want a future with her in it, but his body refused to accept it. He turned to her, until they were shoulder to shoulder and toe to toe, just millimetres separating their bodies. He could feel the draw of her skin, pulling him towards her, and his fingertips brushed against her cheekbones of their own accord. As his hands moved to cup her face, to turn her lips up to meet his, a screech of brakes broke into his thoughts. He glanced across and saw the train pull up to the southbound platform.
‘I have to go.’ The words came from his lips, though he couldn’t make himself believe them. But the train doors were closing, and with every piercing electronic beep he felt the walls of the station draw closer, his escape window closing.
With a wrench that he felt deep in his gut, he swept his lips across hers, pulled his hands away and then jogged down the stairs and through the doors of the train before either of them had a chance to say another word.
* * *
Rachel stood at the top of the stairs, watching as the train, and Leo, left the station. It was what she had wanted—him gone, and everything back to normal. But watching his train pull out of the station, she recognised the panicky feeling in her chest. He was gone, and she had no way of getting in touch with him. Despite everything, all the reasons she’d given herself that letting him into her life was a bad idea, despite the sense of panic that the thought of that man in her life caused, she wanted more of it. More of him.
Something caught her attention from the corner of her eye, and she started when she realised her train had already pulled up to the platform. She raced down the stairs, but the doors shut and locked with her on the wrong side. Even on his way out of her life Leo was disrupting her schedule. On second thought, she mused, maybe it was a good thing she wasn’t in touch with him. He’d caused quite enough chaos in the one night she’d known him. She glanced up at the information screen, wondering how long the next train would be. Typical Sunday service. She’d be stuck on the platform for an hour.
But maybe she could do something useful with the time. A quick search on her phone showed a pharmacy just around the corner that should be open. Walking quickly, she headed to the chemist—a few minutes and several rather personal questions later, she had emergency contraception and a bottle of water. She read quickly through the information on the packet as she waited in a quiet corner of the station. Ninety-five per cent effective. Not ideal—but in the circumstances, the best she was going to get. She swallowed the pill then forced the issue from her mind, and looked through both hers and Will’s schedules for the next week.
There were a couple of things she’d need to look into once she got to the office. Meetings that had been added at the last minute, when she was too busy with organising the fundraiser to pull together all the research and paperwork that she knew Will would need in order to prepare.
She worked through a few of her emails, making adjustments to her plan for the week as she went and slotting in new items for her Monday morning meeting with Will.
After the meeting she’d be able to plan out the rest of her week almost to the last minute. And her regular ‘contingency’ and ‘AOB’ slots meant that even the unexpected would have to bend to her plans and not the other way around.
She’d come to rely on that order, needed those careful plans to make her feel safe. Because without them what else was there?
It had been the only way for years that she’d been able to quiet her feelings of chaos and panic. The men who’d broken into her childhood home hadn’t planned to hurt anyone, the court had heard: they’d thought the house would be empty, had no idea that a fourteen-year-old Rachel was home alone. So when she’d startled one of them as he’d been rifling through the video collection, he’d panicked and lashed out at her. It was a pretty unpleasant knock to her head, but nothing serious. And eventually the nightmares she’d suffered had stopped, but that hadn’t stopped her parents’ guilt at leaving her at home. They’d fussed and smothered and, on occasion, wailed, insisting that Rachel inform them of her whereabouts at all times. Curfews were to be observed to the minute, unless she wanted to afflict a full-on panic-attack meltdown on her parents.
So she could be flexible if she had to be. ‘AOB’ and ‘unexpected’ had their own places in her plans, and that was all last night had been. But perhaps she shouldn’t do it again. Those slots should be kept strictly for emergencies. Not for blonds who were hard to forget in the morning.
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