His Other Woman: A Renny and Rachel Christmas Romance by Nancy MacLaren

children.”
    “Oh. And you did?”
    “Not necessarily.”
    “You have to be clearer than that. I speak Urdu not Taylor.”
    He clasped his hands in front of him and bowed his head. What was it? What couldn’t he say? I began to get nervous. Could I handle what he had to tell me? Would it change everything between us forever?
    “She… we got pregnant.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “She had an abortion.”
    “Oh.”
    “Yeah. She left and then had an abortion without telling me about it.”
    “But you found out. How?”
    “Claire. She was furious with Jasmine and when Jasmine tried to come back to the marriage Claire felt I needed to know the real reason she had left. It wasn’t another man as I had feared. Or another woman, that had crossed my mind. I wish it had been. I could have forgiven that. Maybe.”
    I was speechless. So was Renny. He sat back in the chair, looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. We stayed that way for what seemed a century. I finally went to kneel in front of him and took his hands.
    “Why did she do it?”
    “She didn’t want to stop her career. She thought a baby would ruin everything she had worked for. And you know what, she was right. It would have. Now that I see Claire with Claudine I know she was right. I didn’t at the time and I just felt rejected. So completely rejected. I thought she didn’t want a child with me. What was I to do with that?”
    Tears formed in his eyes but he shook his head to clear them.
    “I thought I was over it. I really did.”
    “Oh, baby,” I said as I wrapped my arms around him and he slid to the floor into my arms. He put his head on my shoulder and wept. Not like a child weeps; like a grown man weeps; with sorrow, anger, betrayal and confusion.
    When he had spent his bitter currency he leaned back against the chair but kept hold of my hands.
    “Think about it Rachel. She had started playing the violin at 5. At 5! All those years, all that practice. She had no real childhood. It was always about becoming famous.  And we were just beginning to hit it big, just to feel a little of that fame, and she gets pregnant. She had also defied her parents by becoming a country fiddle player as well. The music was all she had. How could she ever give that up? Why should I have ever expected her to?”
    “That isn’t all she had, my darling, she had you.”
    “Would that have been enough for you?”
    He got me there. Was it enough for me to be loved by a man like Renny? Would I have wanted to give up journalism to stay home and change diapers? I surely hadn’t taken to it earlier in the day. Truth be told, I don’t like babies, or even most children. Would I have resented any man who made me stay home and take care of them?
    “I thought it was, once. I wasn’t given a choice so I don’t know what I would have decided. But I do know one thing, the decision would have been ours, not mine alone. I would have told you. It was half yours too.”
    “What would I have done, Rachel? Told her she had to have it? Ruin my marriage, her career, and both our lives? Told her to have the abortion? A thing I abhor with all my heart? She saved me all that. She knew I couldn’t make the choice so she did it alone. I should have thanked her. Instead I shut her out, of my life, the band, her whole life. I took it from her and for what? A child I wasn’t even sure I wanted.”
    “Oh Renny,” was all I could muster. Here was the man I loved with all my being, a good man, one I would do anything to keep and here he was showing my how little of a hold I had on his love. He was not only mourning the loss of the child, he was mourning her, the loss of her. It was clear it wasn’t over between them. Reade had been right to warn me, I was just a rebound, a distraction, an also-ran.
    Renny stood up and offered me his hand. I took it and followed him to bed. I knew we were going to make love and I wanted to have this one last time with him. I wanted it to remember what I almost had.