I smell the coffee before I open my eyes. 

When I open them I see the wooden tray on the bedside  table.  There's a steaming coffee pot, a tall glass of orange juice, and a plate with a heap of scrambled eggs.  God he really is determined to feed me.   He comes through the bedroom door a second later carrying rack of toast. 

"Morning sleeping beauty,"  He smiles as he sets the toast on the tray.  He lifts a triangular slice to his mouth and flops down next to me on the bed as I rub my eyes and sit up.

"How are you awake and cooking?"  I ask.  "Did you go shopping?" He looks very fresh and completely divine in a crisp white t-shirt and slightly baggy grey jeans - his hair mussed and tuggable. He looks remarkably relaxed and casual.

"I walked back down to that Bakery again. The owner thinks I'm new in town, Ken is it? Told him I was fucking the hot doctor from up the road senseless," he winks.    "Nice guy - West Ham supporter too," He nods approvingly.

"Are they a rugby team?"  I smile.  He pretends to look shocked, and then hurt.

"Baby if we're gonna do this thing, you need to know that after you and Cale they mean everything to me."

I give him serious look and nod.  "Got it.  You really like rugby.  You have my full and complete support with this, don't worry."

The side of his mouth curls up. "You're lucky I'm in love with you you know that?"

I sigh dreamily.  "I do know that.  I'm a very lucky woman," I move across the bed, leaning up on my elbows to touch my mouth to his cheek, before reaching across to lift a slice of the warm moist toast.  He strokes his hand down my arm and then moves it across my naked back.  As I take a bite of toast he leans back against the headboard.  "Thanks for going shopping," I say as I move to lie against his chest.

"I didn't get much.  Bought bread, milk and eggs from the bakery. But you had next to no food downstairs you know that?" he frowns down at me.   

"I know, I've been away - I'll go shopping today mother." I smile. 

"Eh, no you wont," He bends his head and kisses me. 

"I wont?"

"No, cause today you're staying naked,"

"Oh, am I?"

"Mhm.  I've got six fucking weeks to make up for,"

"That is a lot of sex..." I blush.  "But you'll want me to eat at some point I presume?" I take another bite of the toast. 

"They deliver takeaway to the country I presume?" He asks, lowering his mouth to take a bite of the toast in my hand. 

"Yes, they deliver takeaway to the country smart arse." 

"Smart arse?" He cocks an eyebrow at me.   My grin threatens to break out over my mouth but I keep it in check and nod up at him.   "Oh you shouldn't have said that baby," he shakes his head in warning and tuts a disapproval. 

He moves suddenly, so that his body disappears from beneath me.  Then he moves over me and pushes me back into the bed. 

"You really shouldn't have said that.   You're gonna pay for that Alex.." He growls against my stomach before biting me softly on the hip.   

***

It was easy to ignore things when we were here like this.   It was easy to pretend we were just a normal happy couple when we were here like this.  When we'd spent a day doing normal happy couple things.  When the only decision we had to make was what to call in for dinner.  When Jake's world was miles away in the city, and his secrets that weren't secrets anymore were too.  

God he works hard to keep that side of his life far away from the one we had together - now I fully appreciated the lengths he'd gone to before, when we were together before. Before I knew.

Aversion, subterfuge and evasion had been a skill he was a master at - rarely had I realised the extent of what he kept hidden from me.   Of course before I knew, I had  suspected another side to him, a side he didn't show to me, the side he showed to the rest of the world. But the actual reality of living both of those lives at once must have been hard for him.  

Now he was going to have to teach me how to live two lives at once like he used to.   At least now we had each other.  At least now this life was both of ours. 

As promised, we had spent most of the afternoon in bed, a naked tangle of limbs between cotton sheets as we'd made up for six weeks apart.  He was hard and rough to begin with, desperate lovemaking and coarse sexual language which sounded as erotic as ever as it dripped from his wicked tongue.  After, he was slow and tender as he'd kissed his way across my body and recited promises and words of love against my damp naked skin. 

Around 2pm he'd finally let me leave his arms.  We'd showered and dressed and then migrated downstairs, where we'd pottered around like a normal happy couple at home on a bank holiday Monday.  

He'd read the sports section of the paper until he'd dozed off on the couch, and I'd gone next door and finished washing and hanging out the rest of my holiday clothes in the garden.  I'd been pulling the ever persistent weeds up from the garden path when he'd appeared at the kitchen door, rubbing sleep from his eyes and scratching at his head.  

"Afternoon, sleeping beauty," I smiled up at him, shading the sun from my eyes with my hand.  

"Why'd you leave me sleeping so long?"

I shrugged.  "You looked peaceful,"

His mouth softened, and he stepped out into the garden in his bare feet and walked up the path towards me.   Discarding the weeds, I stood up and slid my arms around him, rising up on my tiptoes to press my mouth up to his.  He moaned softly as he pulled me into his body. 

"Your grass needs cut,"  he said as he pulled back from my mouth, casting a look around the garden.

"Is that a euphemism?" I giggled. 

He turned back to me and smirked.  "You're fucking filthy Doctor Marlowe."

"Your influence.   You know, I used to be a polite, well mannered girl before you came along?"

His eyes were full of love and warmth as he smiled down at me.  "What are you saying here?" He asked, bringing his hand up to pinch my chin softly in the way he often did.  "I've ruined you?"

"Hmmm Maybe," I smiled.   But I'd be lying if I said I hadn't enjoyed every minute of it..."

Jake had then offered to mow my back garden.  He'd seemed  quite eager about it too.  I'd given him the key to the garage and he'd disappeared to get the lawnmower - which I was worried might not actually work anymore because it had been in there rusting and unused since Ben.   Ed normally cut my grass for me when it needed done. 

I'd watched in loved-up awe as Jake had walked the lawnmower back and forth across the errant green lengths of my garden which seemed to have shot up astronomically while I'd been in France.  The noise had brought Ed to the side gate, curious at who I had doing "his job" as he'd called it, and apologising that he hadn't come over himself to do it sooner. 

When I'd introduced him to Jake it had been comfortable and friendly, and it made me feel positive and hopeful about how the meeting with my mum and dad would go when it eventually happened.  I'd almost forgotten how charming and affable Jake could be, he did it in much the same way he could be deviant and threatening - with veritable ease.

Ed had chatted with us for about ten minutes before leaving with a promise to have us both over for a barbecue the next time the family were up, which he said was in a few weeks.  Jake had accepted on both our behalf and as he shook his hand goodbye he'd apologised for stealing his keys. 

Our pretence at normalcy and domestic bliss had lasted most of the day - until I ruined it. 

As we lay in bed later that night, me reading and Jake lying next to me with his eyes closed, stroking his hand across my thigh hypnotically.  I'd chosen that as the moment to ruin the pretence. 

"So...  What happens now?  What are we going to do?" I ask, placing the book face down on my lap.  

His eyes flutter open and he gives me a long intense stare without saying a word.   He continues to stroke his fingers across my thigh while staring up into my eyes.  For a few long moments he circles his finger over my thigh, feather like scrapes across my heated skin. Finally he takes a deep breath.

"Baby, we aren't going to do anything," he says.  "I'm going to sort it."

I open my mouth in partial shock and widen my eyes.  "Jake, I'm involved now. You cant keep me from this.  I want to help you, I can't just sit here and wait for something awful to happen to you.  I need to know what's going on - I'll go insane otherwise." I say.  How can he not understand this? 

He lets out an impatient breath and turns onto his back and looks up at the ceiling.  "Nothing is going to happen to me Alex, I know what I'm doing.   Just trust me yeah,"

"Trust you?" I wasn't going to bring this up but I have to now.    Because he wants to keep me in the dark again and it's not where I want to be.  "Trust that you know what you're doing when you're lying to Mark and me?"

He turns his head and narrows his eyes on me. "When have I lied to you?" he asks.  

"Okay not me.  Mark.  Yesterday you lied to him didn't you?" 

He turns his head away and stares at the ceiling again and begins nibbling his lip hard.  From here I see the tension move over his face, creasing his brow further. 

"Yeah well.  I don't owe him a fucking thing.  I'm doing what I need to do.  And yeah some of that is lying to people," he says.   When he turns to face me again his mouth softens. "But not to you, I won't lie to you.  So please don't ask me Alex, don't ask me what I'm doing.  After, when I've dealt with this, if you still want to know about all the things I've done, then I'll tell you. If that's what you want," he looks uncomfortable.   "But for now, just trust me and stay out of this, for me baby, please.  Please just trust me."  His voice is soft and pleading, his eyes the same.

I close the book and turn to place it on the bedside.  Then I lower myself down the bed so that I'm lying side by side with him.  He turns his body round again and I bring my hands up to hold his face, my fingers sliding into the thick wiry beard covering his face. 

"I do trust you Jake," I tell him quietly.   "I'm just scared.   I've never been this scared before.  I'm scared for you and for us and I feel useless because I cant help you. I feel like something else you have to protect and keep safe now.  I feel like a burden," I also feel guilty because part of the reason he was doing this was for me - because I  told him I couldn't love him before.  Part of it was about changing for himself yes, but would things be happening like this if not for me? Would Jake have done things differently if not for me?

"Are you kidding me?" he says.  "You think you're useless? You think you're a burden to me?"

"Yes. I don't want to just be another thing you need to worry about Jake, I want to help you but I can—."

"Alex, listen to me, listen to what I'm telling you," he says, cutting me off.  Reaching between our bodies he takes hold of my hands, squeezing them both in his tightly.  "You're not fucking useless.  You're not a fucking burden.   Do you know what it means to have you back?   Do you?  Do you have any idea what it means to be able to come home to you, to call you, to see you and be with you?   Baby, you're the light in this. You're the light in the pile of black shit that is my life.  That's what you are - that's what you've always been.  Do you have any idea how fucking lucky I feel because I have you?  How lucky I feel knowing that you're waiting for me?  Knowing that I get to come home to you?," he shakes his head.  "Knowing you know who I am and that you love me anyway?  I've no idea what I did to deserve you but here you are," he strokes his thumb down my cheek and across my lip softly.   "Alex, I love you.  And I need you.  I'm nothing without you.   How is that you being useless?  You're here.  Thats all I need you to do.  All I need is you,"

My heart seems to stop beating for a moment.  My voice absent like my breath.  What am I supposed to say to that?  I can't say anything to that.  Nothing I could say will ever be enough of a response to that. 

So I say nothing.  Instead, I bite back a swell of tears and move my body closer into him.  He's hard and warm like always, large and strong against my body.   The hairs peppered across his hard thighs tickle the skin of my legs, and then lower, between his legs, he's large and weighty.  Suddenly the need and desire for him floods through me.  I want him again.  I always want him.   Encased in the tight boxers his cock teases me with it's power as it pushes against my thigh.   It's possibly a little shallow to focus on that given what he's just said to me, given the depth of his words, but I feel closest to him when he's inside me.  When there is no space between our bodies at all and where the end of him meets the start of me.   I need him. He needs me. 

"I love you," I whisper.   

"Glad to fucking hear it," he smiles. As I draw my hands over his shoulders and then down his chest to his stomach I watch as a shiver of desire runs over his tattooed powerful body. 

I pull at the waist band of his boxers and then lift my eyes to his.  The heat in them makes the quickening in my blood increase.  "So then...  can you please make love to me?"

The side of his mouth lifts, and almost instantly the hardness announces itself further, his length growing under the fabric at my fingers immediately.    "There she is, my polite well mannered girl." he smirks.

"Looks like you haven't completely ruined me after all," I smile. 

"Nah, but theres still time," he chuckles before turning onto his back and pulling me down on top of him. 

***

Tuesday doesn't start well.  I wake up feeling achy and sore;  a good sore between my thighs though, a tight delicious tenderness, but my stomach is knotted and queasy.    I always feel nervous and sick when I come back to work after a break though - that back to school feeling never left me. Not through Uni or my residency and not when I started at the practice.  

Part of it feels like that but part of it also like something else, and after Saturday's  fainting episode I feel like I should try and heed whatever it was my body was trying to tell me.  That would be all I bloody need - coming back to work after a three week break and having to take time off sick.  Hardly exemplary partner behaviour.  I'll muggle through today and re-evaluate it tomorrow. 

I arrive at the surgery just after 8am and head straight to the staff kitchen.  Anna, Katie and Sam are already in there and chatting animatedly about Sam's leaving night due to happen a week on Friday.   They'd booked out the mezzanine of the cocktail bar a few streets over and we were all going straight there after work. There was no way of avoiding it I'd decided. 

Unless of course I really am ill.  Every cloud I suppose. 

Work do's are not my thing - I'd planned on just buying Sam a leaving gift and making my apologies about missing his leaving party.

"She's baaaaaaack!" Anna exclaims as I enter. "And whiter than ever!" she says playfully.  Jokes about my lack of tan were unfortunately incessant and predictable.

Sam smiles warmly at me as I approach.  He honestly looks like a completely different person since he made the decision to go.  As though he was now free of some burden he'd been carrying around since birth.

"Bonjour," I smile, setting the French macaroons and sugar cookies I'd brought back for them down on the counter.  Every year they beg for more and every year I comply. 

"Good holiday Alex?" Sam asks, lifting his cup to his mouth. 

"Yes, great thank you, so relaxing -  lots of wine and sun. Was really good to see my sister too."   Oh I have to tell Tash about Jake.  I make a mental note to Skype her tomorrow. 

"Ugh, soooooo Jealous!" Katie exclaims.  "I bet the south of France is amazing in summer. Oh and how was Robyn's wedding?"

"Beautiful, the perfect day - everything was perfect," I smile, thinking of the instant I saw Jake on the patio under the sunset.  It really was the perfect day. 

After I fill them in on the holiday and the wedding, and Sam fills me in on the surgery lowdown, I take my black coffee and my paper files back to the silent comfort of my office.   My desk phone starts ringing just as I'm swallowing a large gulp of my black coffee and starting up my computer.

"Eastwoode Practice, Dr Marlowe speaking," I answer, wiping the coffee spill with my hand across my mouth. 

"Fuck, is that your professional voice?"  His voice is low and heavy with sleep.  

I smile.  "Is it different to my normal voice?" I sit back in my chair and press my hand to my still knotted stomach.

"A little.  It's deeper, more serious.  But very hot.  Would you use it in bed if I asked you to?" I can hear the smile on his perfect mouth.   

"I'd probably do anything you asked me to do in bed Jake.  You're extremely persuasive..." I whisper softly.

I hear him groan in frustration.  "You abandoned me.  I woke up alone.  I felt fucking used."  He chuckles.

"I'm sorry about that. But you did look very sexy lying there looking used, and if it makes you feel better, it was much harder than usual to get out of bed this morning." I admit. It really was.  I'd woken up in his arms and virtually had to peel myself out of them.  I'd stared down at him wishing I'd taken another three weeks off work before finally dragging myself into the shower.

"Talking of things being harder than usual..." he says quietly.  

Something coils in my belly, tight and hot. Okay I need to change the subject, now.  Before we end up having phone sex on my office line. 

"You got my note then?" I ask, curling the cord around my finger.   I'd left it on the bedside table propped up against his watch. 

"'Call me when you wake up you cover hogging, completely hot, sexual deviant.  Love, me,', yeah I got it.  What do you want?" He says, the smile clear in his voice.   God maybe the pretence would be easier than I imagined.  It was so easy to forget everything but him when he was being perfectly adorable like this. 

"Oh, nothing really, I just felt guilty not saying goodbye and I wanted to check your plans for later."

He makes a deep male stretching noise which makes me imagine the hard lines of his body and makes me think about his smell and his heat.  I miss him already.

"I should go see Cale because I haven't seen him for a couple of days.  Then I should go to the club to check it hasn't burned down, then I should maybe go to the gym."

"Busy day then?"

"I should do all of that, but really all I can think about is raiding your underwear drawer, having a wank in your bed and then having your dinner on the table for you coming home." He says. 

I giggle out loud as I lift my coffee and take a long sip.  "Mmm, I like the sound of all of that a little too much.  But you could do them all, especially go see Caleb, and still have my dinner on the table waiting for me when I get home. I'll be home around six." I smile.

"Yeah I know, but Cale means Vic, and Vic means a fucking headache," He groans.  His use of the nickname for his ex doesn't wound me the way it previously did.  That was definitely progress.   Maybe at some point in the next five years I might be somewhat able to endure her company.  Maybe. 

"Then you should take some paracetamol from my medicine cabinet and go see your son.  Doctors orders," I say. 

He's silent a moment and then. "Have I told you that I love you today?" He says. 

My whole body blooms with something warm and comforting, it ripples out from my chest and fills out my body with contentment. 

"No," I smile.  "but it is very early."

"Then I'll say it once more today.  At least."

"I love you back.  Give Caleb a big hug and kiss from me?"

He sighs softly.   "I can't wait to see you do that yourself you know?"

"I can't either,"  I whisper.  "Let's make it happen.  Soon." 

Suddenly I'm impatient to hold Jakes child in my arms.  To pick out the gestures and features that belong to Jake, to watch Jake with him and to see him look up at his father with love and adoration. Which I'm certain he does.  How could he not?  Yes.  There's a deep part of me that feels like I've been waiting forever to witness that.   

Sudden. Loud. Rushing.

A paroxysm of blinding realisation slams into my chest.   From nowhere and everywhere all at once. It makes sense.  Everything makes sense.  Perfect, utter sense. 

"I will definitely make it happen soon.  So I'll see you later then doctor, I assume I'm staying over again?" He says but I'm not really listening, or  hearing, or processing, or breathing. 

"Yes, later, after."  I mutter, before saying goodbye. I replace the receiver with shaking hands.

I sit there immobile watching them shake, willing them to stop shaking, willing the colour to drain back into them.  Is my face the same? 

How the hell could I have been so bloody oblivious?  Denial? Ignorance? Plain stupidity?  Oh, but the stupidity came before didn't it, long before. Almost seven weeks before.   

I take a deep breath and stand.  I feel sick again.  Of course I do.  Obviously I do.  On uncertain, unstable legs I cross my office to the cabinet where I keep my supplies and unlock the lowest cupboard on the right.   Reaching in, I take out three. There's an almost pointlessness to this, because the moment I allowed the thought to enter the rational part of my brain I felt sure about it. I knew it.  I felt it. The truth.

I cross the office and go into the small windowless bathroom and close the door.  Then I follow the instructions to the letter.  Of course I don't need to read the instructions because I must have instructed 100 or more women on how to do this.   It's not difficult.   After the first, I repeat the process.   I decide to stop at two because three is probably overkill. 

I sit back down at my desk and do some more not thinking.  My mind seems to have gone into some sort of serene catatonic state as I sit there and wait.  It's the strangest thing.  There isn't even panic in there.  There's just a calm ethereal quietness.  My life is on the cusp of a monumental change and my mind is the calmest clearest ocean.

I check my watch again, and after seven minutes I turn them both upwards to face me. 

And there it is. 

The answer.   The answer that I knew already, so in essence  - the confirmation.  I close my eyes and lean back in my chair.

Now what?  How on earth am I supposed to tell him this?  Now? Where do I squeeze this in?  How the hell do I explain that in the middle of all of this, in the middle of our whole lives hanging in the balance that somehow I've gone and got myself knocked up.   Okay that's not technically fair.  I didn't do it by myself - technically he helped.   Actually,  if I was going to split heirs about it - which is apparently how I'm dealing with this at the moment - then technically he got me knocked up. 

Also, why am I even using the term 'knocked up'?   Do people even say that anymore?  I'm carrying a baby.  I'm expecting.  I'm with child.  I'm parturient.  Okay no one says that.

I'm pregnant.  With Jake's child.  

Oh my god.

Well done Alex.  Well bloody done. 

The sound of the buzzer announcing my first patient goes and so I shove the two positive tests into my top drawer and stand up.  

I decide to put the pregnancy issue in the pile along with everything else life changing for the moment. 

The pile was large and close to tipping over now.  But I'll manage that later.