Page 61 of Spiralling Skywards
“I don’t care about any of that shit. It’s not mine. I don’t believe you.”
They were just words. Words that I was using to try to convince myself, her, anyone that would listen that it wasn’t true. The baby wasn’t mine. She wasn’t even pregnant.
I suddenly felt so tired. I wanted to go back to my flat. I wanted to go back to my flat and find Sarah waiting there for me in our bed.
“Fair enough.” Olivia interrupted my thoughts. “You don’t have to care and you don’t have to believe me.”
“Then why the fuck are you here?”
There would be more to this. I knew her and how her brain worked. She wouldn’t have flown twelve thousand kilometres just to drop that bomb and leave.
She flicked her dark hair over her shoulders, and my stomach rolled. She was so different from Sarah, who was relatively short, curvy, and gorgeous. Sarah’s skin was like porcelain, with just a smattering of tiny freckles on her cute little nose and her shoulders. Her dress sense swung from total vamp to tomboy, and I fucking loved it. I loved her. I should’ve stopped her. I should’ve told Luke what was going on between us and confessed everything before Olivia had even had chance to speak, but I didn’t. I stood there and did nothing. I simply stood by and watched from my peripheral as Will held out his hand to her. Fucking Will. He held out his hand and she took it. She took it because I stood there and didnothing, fuck all. I didn’t even look at her. I didn’t even watch her leave.
I had just kept my eyes on Olivia, who was nothing like Sarah andnotwhat I wanted. Olivia was tall, slim, and dark. Everything about her appearance was groomed and polished. Olivia would never have let her hair get wet unless she knew her hairdresser was on hand to dry it for her. Olivia would never have gone shopping with me today, she would’ve sent her interior designer out with her personal shopper and had the goods delivered. Olivia most definitely wouldn’t be caught dunking her Hob Nob into her tea. Fuck, Olivia probably didn’t even know what a Hob Nob fucking was.
“I’m here because I thought it only right and proper to tell you in person that you’re going to be a father,ifthat’s what you want.”
“Wha’d’ya mean, ‘if that’s what I want’?”
She let out a long sigh before lacing her fingers together and holding them in front of her chest.
“I’m not raising a child on my own, Liam. If you don’t want to save our marriage and bring up our child together, then I’ll terminate the pregnancy.”
And there it was.
That was what she’d come for. She would use this baby as leverage.
“Of course, termination goes against everything I believe in, so I will obviously need the support of my family.”
“Your family? You’d tell your family that you’re having an abortion? Why the fuck would you do that?” But I knew before I’d even finished speaking why she’d do that.
Her dad would forbid it. He would tell my dad.
I felt pressure on the top of my head. A weight forcing me into the ground, making my legs feel heavy and my chest so tight that I could barely breathe.
“You need to go, Olivia. You need to leave me the fuck alone. If youarepregnant, which I doubt, butifyou are, then that baby isnotmine. You don’t even want a baby, you never have. So, if you were to have an abortion, there is no way in the world that you would be telling anyone, least of all your family.”
She stood looking at me, like she was a saint, like Mother fucking Teresa.Sorry, God and Saints!
“Oh, I’ll tell my family, and I’ll also tell every journalist from every tabloid looking for some gossip how you abandoned us. How you abandoned me and our baby and told me to terminate the pregnancy, which of course I’d do, because I’m so sad, lonely, and desperate to win you back.”
She picked up her handbag from the floor and put the straps over her shoulder.
“I can’t imagine that there’ll be many companies out there that would want to do business with you or your family oncethatstory hits the trash rags and magazines. What a shame when you’re just in the process of setting up something new.”
She moved to walk past me, but I grabbed at her arm, halting her exit.
“Why are you doing this, Olivia?” I almost cried as I asked her. I hated myself, hated that she would know that she’d got to me.
“Because I can, Liam. Because I fucking can.” She jerked her arm out of my grip.
“You’ve got my number. I’ll be here until Tuesday, if I don’t hear from you by then, I’ll fly home, arrange the procedure, and drop a few lines to Monet Baxter. Her magazine’s always looking for a scoop.”
I let her leave before I rushed to the downstairs toilet and threw up just about everything in my stomach.
***
I stood at the kitchen sink in Luke’s house and attempted to stop myself from shaking. I wasn’t sure if it was shock or anger that was causing my entire body to tremble the way it was, but it was likely both.
