Their Secret Baby by Kate Walker

quite where she had overstepped some line that she hadn’t even been aware of him having laid down, but it worried her. She just wanted to go back, retrace their conversational footsteps to a point where they were relaxed together again.
    ‘I—I know that. Why do you think I told you about my cousin in the first place? I have to be pretty wary. I mean, I know that Amelie told me her husband didn’t want children—but I’ve always been scared that he might just turn up. Demand that I hand her over.’
    ‘Ah, so that’s it? That’s why you reacted to the suggestion of a simple date as if I’d asked you to sell your soul.’
    Embarrassed colour washed Caitlin’s face. Leaning forward to put her cup down on the coffee-table, she twisted in her seat so that she was facing him, one leg curled up under her on the settee.
    ‘I think I owe you an apology.’
    He swallowed down his coffee in something of a rush and once more studied her intently over the top of his cup.
    ‘You do?’
    Caitlin nodded firmly, sending her hair flying so that it distracted him, his dark blue gaze following the movement. With nervous fingers she smoothed it behind her ears once again and switched on a flashing smile.
    ‘When you first arrived, I wasn’t exactly polite. It’s just I was thrown off balance. I—I haven’t been asked out for a long time.’
    This time the look he slanted at her from beneath thick black lashes was one of frank disbelief.
    ‘You don’t have to fish for compliments…’
    ‘I’m not! I mean—that isn’t what I meant. People don’t ask you out when you’re in a long-term relationship.’
    ‘You have someone in your life?’
    Caitlin thought of the space that Josh had left in her life. A space that his daughter now filled for her.
    ‘Very much so.’
    ‘I see.’
    She couldn’t mistake the message in the way that Rhys stiffened, moved away slightly, setting down his half-drunk coffee with the obvious intention of getting to his feet—and walking right out the door.
    ‘I don’t get involved with anyone already in a relationship—there are too many complications there.’
    ‘No!’
    Impulsively Caitlin reached out, caught hold of his arm to still him when he would have got to his feet.
    ‘I mean we were together—once. We’re not now.’
    For a second he tensed as if about to shake her hand off, then he subsided back down amongst the cushions.
    ‘Go on,’ he said, though his tone had nothing encouraging in it.
    ‘He—he met someone else. In fact he was seeing her—sleeping with her—while we were still together.’
    She stumbled over the words, the bitterness burning on her tongue, making it almost impossible to force the words out. She didn’t want to remember. But she had to explain.
    ‘He—was unfaithful to me for months before I even suspected.’
    ‘I see.’
    It was cold, flat, unemotional.
    ‘And your fiancé…’
    ‘Joshua…’
    ‘This Joshua—is he with this woman now?’
    ‘Oh, yes…’
    Cruel tears pushed at the backs of Caitlin’s eyes but she refused to let them fall. Joshua and Amelie had died in the same accident. They couldn’t be much more together than that.
    ‘Yes. He’s very much with her now.’
    ‘But he’s still a part of your life.’
    It was only when the man beside her drew in a deep breath and pushed both his hands through the gleaming darkness of his hair that she realised how she had been staring into the distance, her unfocused eyes seeing nothing, trapped in the bitterness of her memories. His sudden movement made her jump slightly, turning her wide, startled gaze on his shuttered face.
    ‘It’s a permanent thing,’ she managed with brittle cynicism.
    But he wasn’t listening.
    ‘Caitlin,’ he said, something dark and secret roughening his tone, ‘there are some things I have to tell you. We have to talk.’
    ‘No!’
    It spilled from her instinctively, without a hope of being held back. It was an instant, uncontrollable impulse,