Chapter 61: Chapter 61

Five weeks later, Sharon realised that she was pregnant. She woke one morning with a feeling of nausea in her stomach. She climbed out of bed wondering if it was something she could have eaten at dinner with Oliver the night before.. In the kitchen, she spooned coffee into the percolator and switched it on and as the fragrant smell of the beans filled the room, she knew she was going to be sick. She staggered dizzily into the washroom and vomited into the basin. She seemed to lean for ages against the cool tiles retching violently but the sickness and dizziness finally subsided and she splashed her face with cold water.

Back in the kitchen, she switched off the percolator, unable to face the thought of coffee and mentally went through what she had eaten the previous night.

She and Oliver had dinned very late after a particularly long day at the office. Sharon had chosen cold dick and salad, followed by fresh raspberry tart. She hadn't eaten much at all, Her appetite was small these days. Surely it couldn't have been...?

Her eyes lighted on the calendar and the glass of water she had been sipping, slipped from her fingers, smashing on the tiled floor. She looked at the date and for a moment, she could not breath. Two weeks overdue she hadn't even noticed. She had been so caught up with avoiding Bryan, with concentrating on her work....

Defeated, she tested her head in her hands, the full implication of the situation sinking in and burst into tears. She didn't hear Gabriel entering the flat.

He strolled into the kitchen, whistling, 'I did knock...' he began cheerfully, and then, 'Sharon, what on Earth's the matter?'

He looked round the kitchen, at the shattered glass on the floor, at Sharon, deadly pale, crying her eyes out. 'What is it?' he demanded again when she didn't answer.

Sharon made an effort to pull herself together. 'I think I am Pregnant... again'. She blurted out and immediately wished that she hadn't.

Gabriel was surprised but his voice was casual as he said, 'Are you sure? Have you seen a doctor?'

'No, I only... no'. She hadn't even thought of it. She would have to have a test. Itight be a false alarm, afterall her periods had never been regular, that was why she had not known earlier that she was pregnant with Deborah when she was still with the bank. And in any case, she hadn't been eating or sleeping properly, she could be coming down with something. It could be that she was run down or anaemic. She could be jumping to conclusions.

'I'm scared', she admitted folding her arms across her breasts, hugging herself.

'It will be okay', Gabriel smiled and bent to kiss her forehead. 'Go and wash your face and I will make some tea'.

Sharon did as she was told, numbly staring at her red eyes in the bathroom mirror. She looked a positive sight and even the cold water did not help. She touched the flatness if her stomach with her fingers. Was she really carrying Bryan's child again? What was this? fate or something? She was still trying to hide the first from him, now it would seem that another was already on the way. Two children out of wedlock. Was she jinxed to be his slave for all eternity? Hysterical laughter rose in her throat. It couldn't be true. It just couldn't.

She had not seen him since the night at the flat. With a sense of desolation, she recalled waking in the darkness, lying still in his arms, her auburn hair against his naked shoulders and throat. She had felt drained. Utterly miserable. Beneath her cheek, she had felt the deep, strong rhythm of his heart. She lay still for an hour, his powerful arms holding her tightly, his hands curved over her breast, possessively. It had been the worst kind of agony to leave but she would not have been able to face him in the clear light of the morning.

She realised that she had dreamt that she woke and found him gone like on the previous occasion. And that he had dug her car out and brought it close to the flat for her convinence.

She was happy that that had not been so but she could not face him and had to leave before he woke or she doubted that he would allow her go and he had such persuasive power over her that she would have had no choice but to stay and staying would have meant going against her principles if not her desire to make steamy love with him again.

So, she had crept in the dark, hardly daring to breath, dressing, collecting her things. She had left without waking him.

Luckily, it had not been snowing and with the help of a passing farmer, and his tractor, she had finally managed to get her car back on the main road.

Back in London, she had been staying with a friend. Running away, hiding, she thought with self contempt.

Bryan had tried to get in touch with her, he had telephoned a number of times. He had been to the flat she shared with her cousin Gabriel. He had been angry. Gabriel had told her. Angry because he knew that she was delibrately avoiding him.

Two weeks ago, he had stopped telephoning. She had heard from Brenda that he was in France on business, so she had come back to the flat with her daughter. She felt so foolish, do weak. Her daughter had asked her why they were staying with her friend instead of with uncle Gabriel and she had cooked up an excuse that satisfied her. She knew that in the end, she would have to face him. After the night at the other flat that night, they would have to see each other again but she just didn't feel strong enough to face him just yet.

He would know now that she loved him and that was too humiliating to bear. She couldn't put him out of her mind for a single second even though she knew that her love wasn't reciprocated. He wanted her as she wanted him. It was an all consuming explosive desire. She couldn't deny that any more than she could resist it. Knowing in some deep secret part of her that he would follow her to Windermere, she had gone there because she needed to see him because she had needed to experience the soul -- destroying satisfaction of his lovemaking one more time.

Now she had and had had to hide due to the humiliation she felt and the soul rendering experience she had been yearning for that she had eventually experienced had had consequences which she was not prepared for. Drawing her in to him when she wanted to run from him.

He was right it would never be over between them. There would be nobody else for her, not as long as she lived.