* * *

Cam looks up at me from where he’s sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, and as much as I hate it, the sight of him brings a small smile to my lips. We used to sit and eat like this at his old flat above the wine bar. Fuck, I thought my life was complicated then. What the fuck did I know?

I sit cross-legged on the floor opposite him as he pours me a glass of wine.

“Try the wine. It’s from New Zealand.” I smile a little again. We used to do this too. He was always trying out new wines for the restaurant he was about to open. Now look at him, look at us; we’ve both come so far and yet, here we are, full circle, together, sitting on the floor, eating takeaway off the coffee table and trying a new wine. I take a sip.

“Mmm, it’s good. Is it a Sav Blanc?” He raises his eyebrows in surprise and tilts his head slightly,

“Well done, Kitten. It is.” His praise warms my belly.

“Marlborough region?” I ask.

“You looked at the label.” I open my mouth to protest, but stop as my head spins slightly from the alcohol and complete lack of food in my stomach, so I serve myself up Singapore noodles, chicken curry and chips. My plate is piled high and I’m just contemplating whether my eyes are bigger than my belly, when Cam says, “You’ll never eat all that, Kitten.” I raise my eyebrows, deep down from somewhere, G has appeared.

“You wanna bet, Tiger?” He arches one eyebrow at me.

“I’ll bet you anal that you don’t finish that.” I spit a half chewed, chunky Chinese chip back onto my plate, but quickly compose myself,

“You’re on.”

I eat slowly but surely. There is no way I’m losing this bet, and even if I do, there is no fucking way he is putting that monster of a cock inside my arse, no way.

I just finish the very last noodle on my plate when his phone vibrates and lights up on the coffee table beside him. He picks it up and looks at the screen. He looks up at the ceiling for a few seconds then at me.

“I need to take this. I’m sorry.”

“Go for it,” I say with a shrug. He gets up and I expect him to leave the room, but instead, he sits up on the edge of the sofa.

“Tamara,” he says and my heart sinks. I start putting lids on the takeaway containers, but I’m listening to what Cam is saying too. Although at the moment, he just seems to be listening. “You need to calm the fuck down, Tam. Getting yourself in this state isn’t doing you or the baby any good.” I stop what I’m doing and take a few deep breaths. I really don’t want to vomit up what I’ve just eaten so I keep still until the moment passes. Cam’s hand reaches out and grabs mine. I turn and look at him while he pulls me to sit down on the sofa next to him.

“Stay here,” he says. “Don’t go anywhere.” He moves the phone away from his ear and puts it on loud speaker, placing it down on the coffee table. Very quietly, he says to me, “I want you to listen to this conversation, so you better understand what I tell you later on.” I nod at him

“Who are you talking to?” A well-spoken, whiney, female voice says from the phone. “Cameron, have you got someone there with you? It’s her isn’t it, that fucking McCarthy whore? Don’t lie to me, Cam. It’s been all over the news today. It’s been on all the gossip shows.”

Cam lets out a long sigh. “Tam, it’s none of your business who I’m with. We’re not together, remember.”

“I’m carrying your child.”

“Says you.”

“I’ve not slept with another man in almost a year. This is your baby, Cameron, and when it’s born and you get your little paternity test done, then you’ll see, then you’ll realise, then we’ll be together, as a family.”

“No, Tamara, we won’t.” He sits back into the corner of the sofa, drapes one arm along the back behind me as he lifts his right leg and rests his ankle on the knee of his left. He reaches out and twirls a piece of my hair in his fingers and my nipples become so hard they feel like they’re actually going to explode, reassuring me that I’m the most fucked-up person in the world. The man I just had mind blowing sex with, right here on this floor, is talking on the phone to a woman who’s apparently carrying his child, while he plays with my hair, and I’m so turned on, I’ve developed a case of exploding nipples.

“Why did you lie to me?” she asks in her horrible, whiney voice. “Why did you lie and tell me you were out of the country till Thursday, when you knew you were coming home today?” God, was it only today we got home? I suddenly feel tired. I just want to sleep and the bitch’s voice on the phone is really starting to piss me off. I get up and clear away the mess from the coffee table as I hear her say, “What’s that noise? Where are you, Cami? Are you in a restaurant? I can come and join you if you’d like, Cam? You can come back here and have my arse if you want, baby. I can call Maddie too. We can play.” I rinse the plates under the tap, then load them in the dishwasher, trying to drown out the conversation going on behind me.

“Where’s Robyn, Tam? Where’s your nurse?”

“Oh, fuck off, Cam, why’d you want to speak with her?”

“Because I don’t like the way you sound. It’s getting late. You should be in bed.”

“I’ll go to bed when you get here.”

“Tam, I’ve not been in your bed for over four months and I won’t ever be again. Please stop all of this. I’ll look after you. I’ve told you this. I’ll look after you, and when the baby comes, if it turns out to be mine, then I will look after the both of you, but we are not, and will not, ever be together. Now I need to go. Tell Robyn to call me. If she doesn’t, I will call her anyway, so I’ll find out if you’re playing up.”

“Don’t go. Don’t go. I love you, Cam. I love you. Be with me, not her, why her, be with me,” she screams like a deranged person down the phone. He ends the call and looks up at me. I’m still in the kitchen leaning back against the dishwasher.

“I swear to God, I have never had sex without a condom with anyone other than you and my wife.”

He sits on the edge of the sofa again, his eyes wide and pleading; his hand runs over his jaw and then through his hair.

“So why are you giving her the time of day, if there’s no possible way the kid can be yours, why are you taking her calls?” He leans forward and takes a gulp from his wine glass.

“She has a coke habit. What if, by some chance, that baby’s mine? What if the condom split and I did get her pregnant? I can’t take that risk, George, just in case that baby is mine. Then I have to do everything I can to keep it safe.” I nod, totally understanding that.

“So is she using now, while she’s pregnant?”

He shakes his head. “She was in the beginning. I had to get her on a specialist program so they could monitor the baby while they got her off the shit. Now I pay for a nurse and a minder to be with her twenty four seven, one to look after her and one to make sure she doesn’t get the opportunity to get her hands on gear of any kind.”

I shake my head in disgust. I’d do anything to be able to carry a baby again. I’d give anything to be a mother, yet here’s this pathetic excuse for a human, snorting lines of Charlie and taking untold risks with the health of her baby. I’ve no idea what the effects of cocaine are on a developing foetus, but I’m pretty sure they’re not good.

Without realising it, I’ve crossed my hands across my belly, protecting something that’s not there, something that will never be there again.

“Come over here, Kitten. Let’s talk.” I go and sit at the opposite end of the sofa to him.

“I didn’t know you’d lost two babies. I’m so sorry you went through that.” I don’t want to hear his words of sympathy. I’m fine until people start telling me how sorry they are.

“I had an ectopic. I’d only known I was pregnant for a day or so.” He nods, but doesn’t say any more for a few seconds. I reach over to the coffee table and pick up my wine glass. He tops it up for me and then puts the cream throw back over me. “How long have you lived here?” I ask.