A Model Mother

Chapter 17

In the quiet of the early morning, he could see his message was likely to be interpreted as just some stupid, manipulative move. He should never have sent it.

The thing was, he had felt so emotional after spending a day with her and LLoyd that all he could think about when he got back to his flat alone was the fact that he was alone and that it was his lack of trust of her and misplaced trust in Max that had put him in this position. He’d had a couple of beers, another mistake, and had been desperate to tell Rose how much he still loved her. Why the hell hadn’t he called her instead?

Even after just a couple of days in the company of their baby son he felt a tender and unquestioning love for him and being apart from him and Rose made his heart ache. When she had let rip at him in the Aquarium he had felt momentarily hopeless. How was he ever going to overcome her distrust of him? Even now, her words kept replaying in his head.

“you denied that LLoyd was yours……when I was hospitalized did you give a shit about your son then?........Lloyd may only have been a three month old foetus, but he was as much your son then as he is now and you walked out on both of us…….when are you going to have an honest and up front conversation with me about your intentions towards Lloyd?”

He stripped and sat on the edge of the bed. He knew that it may take a long time to win back Rose but he was determined that he would; he had never easily ceded defeat in his life and now, with the future of his son at stake he was not about to start.

He wanted the three of them to live together as a family and that was what he was going to work towards, whatever it took. He didn’t want Rose to bring up their son alone or with anyone else. He wanted all legal rights to his son. Lloyd would have the Seton name and all the privilege it entailed.

Suddenly it occurred to Miles that he had no idea what surname Lloyd did carry, or in fact whether Rose had named him as father on the birth certificate. God, what a botch he’d made of the whole thing. What it came down to was that he had to find a way to persuade Rose to marry him; he wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less. Rose had loved him once; surely she would learn to love him again.

He changed into the sweats he used for working out and headed to the gym in the basement of the residential block he lived in. It was open 24 hours, to reflect the needs of the residents, a fair proportion of whom lived and worked abroad like Miles or had jobs that demanded long hours.

 As he worked out, easing in to the routine that his personal trainer had designed for him he mentally compiled a list of tasks for the day ahead. He would have to contact Rose to tell her he may not now be able to come over today or if he did, it might be very late. He felt a slight unease about calling her, would she be mad after the text he sent her. He wondered if he should mention it or not and decided to play it by ear.

At 0600 Miles got a text from Bill to say that Francesca had secured an appointment at the clinic for 11am and she wanted to set off at 0800 to be sure of making it. Miles finished his workout, took the lift back to his apartment, stripped and showered.

He knew that Rose would be up by 7am and he called her at 0730 to give her time to make a coffee and see to Lloyd. She was slow to answer and when she did he could hear Lloyd crying in the background.

“Hi, can you talk? Is Lloyd ok?”

“He’s fine, he’s only just woken up and he’s starving. Just hold on will you, whilst I get his milk sorted.”

Miles heard various noises in the background that he was now able to decode as milk being warmed in the microwave and then shaken in the bottle. Eventually it went quiet except for the sound of Lloyd sucking on his bottle and issuing various sighs and gurgles. Once he’d finished his bottle Miles knew he would get some mashed up cereal, but the milk seemed to be doing the trick for the moment.