Free Soliman, Wendy - The Name of the Game (BookStrand Publishing Romance) by Wendy Soliman Page B

latched on to me. In retrospect, that was the worst possible thing she could have done from Charlie’s perspective. I know he begged her to marry him, but she wouldn’t give him an answer. I thought she was being unnecessarily cruel, started to see through her, and backed off a bit. I was dating other girls at college and didn’t want to get tied down. She obviously sensed that I was losing interest, which only made her more determined to get her claws into me.”
    “Charming!”
    “Not quite the word I’d use.” Matt offered her a tender smile. “Still, my approach is the one Charlie should have taken. I tried to tell him that, but he wasn’t about to take advice from me. The more she backed off, the more he pursued her.”
    “I’ll bet she just loved that.”
    “Oh, she lapped it up,” Matt said, rolling his eyes. “One evening we’d been to a concert and a party afterward. When I took her home, neither of us was exactly sober. Her mum and Peter were out, and well, one thing led to another, and the next thing I know, she’s telling me she’s carrying my baby.”
    Ashley’s soft heart went out to him. “Oh, Matt, what a thing for her to have done.”
    “Well, it takes two, and I wasn’t about to shirk my responsibilities. Looking back on it, I think it was a deliberate ploy to trap me. She told me she was on the pill, you see, and I didn’t query it. I mean,” he said, lifting his shoulder, “why would she lie about it? Anyway, I did the right thing and married her.”
    He looked so forlorn that Ashley wanted to get up and hug him. Instead, she clasped her hands together and hardened her heart. Eve was conniving, but Matt had yet to convince her that the baby really wasn’t his.
    “It was the first time that I actually felt sorry for Charlie,” he said. “He genuinely loved her, I knew that, and once again I’d usurped him. What’s more, he was forced to act as my best man, which really must have rubbed salt into the wound. My father expected it of him, and he wasn’t about to do anything to upset his relationship with the old man.”
    “What happened after that? Did you go back to college?”
    “Initially. Jack was born, and at first, Eve played the part of the devoted mother. But, as with everything she does, the novelty soon wore off. We were living in a tiny flat, I was studying all the hours God sent for finals, working part-time jobs to bring in the bacon, and sleeping no more than four hours a night. Then Eve got ‘ill,’ and I found myself changing nappies and getting up at night to feed the baby because she was too unwell to cope.”
    “That should have told you something.”
    “Yeah, it probably should have. I guess I was just too tired to piece it all together. I just lived for one day at a time.” He sat down, then stood again, too agitated to settle. “Six months after Jack was born, my father had his first stroke, and it was obvious he wasn’t going to be able to carry on with the company until he recovered. Charlie thought his day had come, but my father was adamant that he wanted me to take over.”
    “But what about your studies?” Ashley could hear the indignation in her own voice. “You wanted to be a barrister. You’d worked so hard.”
    “Yes, but we were all on emotional overload, especially my mother. She begged me not to upset Dad when he was so ill. It would only be a temporary measure, and when Dad recovered, I’d be able to finish my degree and go my own may.” Matt shrugged. “What choice did I have? Philip Roker worked there, so did Charlie. They both knew the business backward, so they didn’t really need me. I’d just stay for a few months to put Dad’s mind at rest. At least the salary meant that we could move somewhere better and get help with the baby. I worried about him, left all day in Eve’s unpredictable care, and felt a lot better once we had a reliable au pair. It was the final nail in the coffin as far as my relationship with Charlie