The Contract by Marsh, Nicola (read aloud books .txt) 📕

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Steve needed to talk to someone. Badly, and the only person he trusted in the world was his grandmother. He’d booked a flight to Melbourne as soon as Amber left last night, needing to do something other than curse his own stupidity at letting the best thing that had ever happened to him slip right through his fumbling fingers.

As the two-hour flight from Brisbane to Melbourne drew to a close, he sat back in his business-class seat and pondered his dilemma. Technically, his grandmother wasn’t the only person he’d grown to trust. Amber had insinuated her lively presence into his life and knocked down every one of his defences, bar one.

If only he’d recognised his feelings earlier, he could have told her the truth behind his grandma’s fortune and why he had to have it. She would understand; hell, she would probably help him do what he had to do. He’d been a fool. For someone with an outstanding IQ, he sure knew diddly-squat when it came to matters of the heart.

And he was through blaming his mother for the way he’d turned out; he controlled his own emotions now. So what if his mother had been a cold-hearted cow and still was? He’d given up on her a long time ago. Amber would be another matter entirely...

He still pondered his dilemma as he knocked on the door to his grandmother’s bedroom an hour later.

“Come in.”

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door, bracing himself for the worst. It had been several weeks since he’d seen his grandma and she’d looked terrible the last time, the ravaging cancer eating away her flesh, leaving her pale and gaunt. “Hi, Grandma. It’s me.”

Surprisingly, Ethel St. John sat upright, propped by a mountain of pillows, her eagle stare as acute as ever. “So, what have you done this time?”

He bent down and kissed her wrinkly cheek, marvelling at how well she looked. “Why can’t a man pay a visit to his grandmother without having done something?”

She waggled a bony finger at him. “I may be dying but I’m not senile. You’ve got that look, Steven. The one you always had when one of your infamous chemistry experiments blew up in your face. Now sit and tell me all about it.”

He perched on the edge of her bed. “I will, but first tell me how you’re feeling. You’re looking much better.”

In fact, her appearance startled him, with her cheeks more filled out than he’d seen in a long time, with a tinge of healthy colour.

She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “Codswallop. Must be those damn vitamins I’m taking. Can’t cure me but they’ll make sure I look good in my casket. Now tell me what’s going on.”

Her attitude amazed him; she’d accepted death with the aplomb she’d shown her entire life and true to form, her razor wit couldn’t be tamed.

“It’s about Amber—”

“Is she pregnant?” Ethel interrupted, a shrewd gleam behind her cataracts.

He nodded, wondering how he could tell his grandmother that though his wife carried his child, she probably wouldn’t speak to him ever again.

“Well done, my boy. I knew you could do it. Now I can die happy.”

“Gran, there’s more.”

She ignored his concerns. “There always is with you Rockwell’s. Thank goodness your mother had the good sense to have you, otherwise what would’ve happened to the St. John fortune? It’s about the only thing she’s done right in her miserable life. When’s the baby due?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What? You don’t know when your own child is to be born? What sort of a father are you?” Her look of incredulity shook him.

“About the same type of husband I am. Rotten.”

He’d never had a hankering to be married but now he’d had a taste of it, he’d become addicted, and he had no intention of attending a divorce support group any time soon.

Her eyes narrowed, like the time he put snails in her bed about twenty years ago. “You’ve hurt that nice young woman, haven’t you? And probably botched your marriage in the process.”

He had the grace to look sheepish. “Something like that. I didn’t tell her about the proviso in your will and she found out from Mother.”

His grandmother paled. “How could you be so stupid?”

He’d backed himself into a corner and the only way to get out was to come clean. About all of it. “I didn’t love Amber at the start, that’s why I didn’t tell her.”

“But why did you marry?” Confusion marred his gran’s face and he wished he didn’t have to put her through this. He’d screwed up, big time.

“Mother told me you didn’t have long to live, so I wanted to give you the one thing you wanted before you...” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word ‘died’. “I liked Amber, she needed me as much as I needed her, so we married.”

“What do you mean, she needed you?”

He sighed, knowing she wouldn’t like this part, not one bit. “Her father’s business needed money to stay open so I provided it. I knew she could have kids, so—”

“You bought her? Like some brood mare?” The disgust on her face made him want to hide out in the pool-house, like he used to do as a six-year-old after one of her tongue-lashings. “What were you thinking?”

He shook his head, wishing he didn’t have to have this conversation. “I wasn’t.”

“Is the money that important to you, Steven?”

“Hell no!”

“Then why?” The pain he heard in his gran’s voice tore him apart.

“I wanted to make you happy, to give you one tenth of the happiness you gave to me growing up. If you could’ve just seen your grandchild, surely it would’ve made everything easier?”