The Baby Deal. Alison Kelly

      All colour drained from Patricia’s face. ‘Dear Lord! Have you no shame? No morals at all?’

      Since it was a question Amanda-Jayne’s own conscience had berated her with all too often of late it was a struggle to keep her voice flippant and cool. ‘According to you, apparently not. However, neither do I have my last three months’ trust fund allowance. Since that is my immediate concern, and I won’t leave until I have it, I think it should also be yours.’

      It took all of Amanda-Jayne’s willpower to remain stony-faced as she crossed the room and opened the door for her stepmother. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Patricia, I have packing to do and you have a very large cheque to write…’

      Patricia fled the room muttering unintelligibly; in the wake of her exit, Amanda-Jayne locked the door and then dissolved into tears, uncertain of precisely why she was crying, but not able to stop.

      Thirteen days later, surrounded by the white-on-white luxury of her harbourside penthouse, she was again fighting tears, but on this occasion she knew they had nothing to do with her pregnancy-erratic hormones and everything to do with her impossibly desperate situation and her inability to find any solution to it.

      When she’d driven away from the family home in the pre-dawn hours on January the first, she’d allowed herself to believe that not only was she starting a fresh year but a fresh phase in her life. There had been enormous satisfaction in taking Patricia’s cheque and stating that she wouldn’t be returning until the day she turned thirty and assumed control of the house.

      Her exit line had been intended to remind Patricia that ultimately it would be she who’d be calling all the shots—except the reality was that she’d shot herself in the foot and was rapidly bleeding to death.

      ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered, tears dropping onto the letter she held in her hand. ‘What am I going to do?’

      She was a fool. An arrogant, useless, unemployable, nearly three months pregnant fool.

      She should have anticipated that Patricia would stop payment on the cheque. Just as she should have known that the fuddy-duddy family solicitors would side with Patricia when she claimed that Amanda-Jayne’s pregnancy violated the clause in her father’s will stating, ‘…if in the opinion of my wife either of my children act in a manner which invites scandal, or in any way damages the good name of the family, their trust allowance is to be suspended for whatever length of time my wife sees fit, up to but not beyond the age where they are eligible to gain full control of their individual trusts.’

      Amanda-Jayne tried to muffle the half sob, half laugh which broke from her as she gazed out at her multi-million-dollar view of the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge. She was the heir to a fortune, with one of the most expensive roofs imaginable over her head, and she’d be lucky to be able to pay her next electricity bill, much less pay the sum overdue on the lease agreement for her car. Her credit cards were already maxed out and unless she could find a way to keep up the cost of her private health insurance she was going to be facing an enormous medical bill in just over six months’ time.

      The idea of having her baby under the public heath scheme terrified her, not because she didn’t believe it was more than adequate, but because she wanted her own ob-gyn. Dr Geermaine knew her complicated medical history, he knew how important this pregnancy was to her. He was the one who’d said it may well be her only chance at motherhood. Maybe if she explained her predicament when she went to deliver the medical records Reb Browne had sent he’d agree to keep her on as a private patient.

      After all, it’s not as if I’m a welfare case, she thought with bitter irony, tossing the letter of demand onto the desk already scattered with a host of other bills with ‘URGENT ATTENTION REQUIRED’ stamped in red. Oh, no! I’m too ‘asset-rich’ to qualify for any social security!

      After days of hanging out at the unemployment office and attending countless interviews, which had only highlighted her total lack of employment skills, she’d today swallowed every last vestige of her pride and made an appointment at the local social security office. It had turned out to be the most humiliating and humbling experience of her entire life. It had never occurred to her not to dress well for what in her mind was a business appointment, but the way her expensive clothes had contrasted against those of most of the other welfare applicants had consumed her with guilt. Had she been able to think of any other way to solve her immediate cash problem, she’d have walked straight back out of the office the moment she arrived. Which would have at least saved her two and a half wasted hours and achieved the same results.

      After presenting the required copy of her tax return from the previous year, bank statements and evidence of all stock and property in her name, they had been shoved back at her by a teenage clerk with too much make-up and no manners.

      ‘Ms Vaughan, I can understand how someone like you would be ignorant of the social security system,’ she’d said, making little effort to hide her amusement. ‘But the Government isn’t in the habit of giving money to people who clearly don’t need it.’

      ‘But I do need it,’ Amanda-Jayne had protested, swallowing even more pride by admitting, ‘I’ve got bills coming out of my ears—’

      ‘Then I suggest you do what the rest of us do—get a job.’

      ‘I’ve tried! For your information there’s an unemployment problem in this country.’

      ‘I can assure you, Ms Vaughan, I’m in a better position than you are to know about that. However, government assistance is only granted on the basis of a means test. It’s not given out to wealthy women with more assets than brains.’

      ‘Excuse me!’

      ‘Gladly,’ the girl quipped. ‘Next, please!’

      When Amanda-Jayne had demanded to see a supervisor, she’d had to wait twenty minutes for a harried-looking man in his late thirties. After complaining firstly about his junior clerk’s attitude and then pleading her case, the man had quickly scanned the documents she’d brought, then slid them back in the folder and grinned at her. ‘Lucky you, Ms Vaughan. Stop wasting both our time.’

      It had taken every bit of her resolve not to dissolve into tears on the spot, but in the wake of the letter of demand from the car dealership they now flowed freely, blurring her scenic view until the harbour seemed to swallow up everything—everything except her fears. What was—?

      She jumped as her front door reverberated from a series of loud thumps. Followed by an incessant ring on her doorbell.

      ‘Let me in, A.J.! I know you’re there!’

      Reb Browne.

      Her heart had dropped into her shoes, but all her brain could assimilate was that after the day from hell she really should have been expecting that the devil himself would pay her a visit.

      CHAPTER THREE

      REB hastily ‘pulled his punch’ when the door, towards which his fist was again heading, was reefed open and Amanda-Jayne stepped into its path.

      ‘How on earth did you get in here?’

      Her tone implied people wearing jeans and carrying leather jackets and bike helmets were usually shot on sight by the doorman, but what gave Reb pause was her face. There was no question she was every bit as beautiful as he remembered, but despite her cool, controlled expression and regal poise there was also no question she’d been crying. A lot.

      For some reason the notion of Amanda-Jayne Vaughan crying was as incongruous as it was disturbing and it took him several seconds to refocus on what she was saying.

      ‘…security block. Now how did you get my address and who let you in?’

      ‘The guy on the door seemed to think this qualified as a pass key.’ Grinning, he handed her the business card she’d previously given him. ‘It was the back that impressed him most,’ he added as she frowned at the card.

      “‘Hoping to hear from you soon,’” she read, the