Best Man to wed

Chapter Six

"Dany, can you come down to my office please? There's something we need to discuss."
Dany could feel the palms of her hands growing clammy with nervous perspiration as she clung tightly to the telephone receiver.
"Does it have to be now,Jon?" she asked tersely. "Only I'm just in the middle of working in those japanese documents you want and....."
"Now, Daenerys," Jon interupted her curtly.
As Dany replaced the reciever she stared unseeingly through her office window.
They had been back from Kingslanding almost ten weeks......long enough, surely, for her to have atleast begun to get over the shock of what had happened when they were there. But instead she had taken to avoiding Jon as much as possible and suspected that he was doing exactly the same with her.
Pushing her chair away from her desk, she stood up, gritting her teeth against the nervous dizziness making her head swim and her heart pound with sick tension.
Unlike most heads of businesses, Jon preferred to have his office on the ground floor. It helped to keep his feet on the ground, he had once told Dany sternly when she had questioned such unusual behaviour. A successful business was like a pyramid, he had added obliquely, and whoever stood at its peak was in a very vulnerable position unless he or she knew that the base on which it was constructed was stable and able to support the rest of the structure.
Then, as a teenager, Dany hadn't truly understood what he meant, now she did and albeit rather begrudgingly, had to respect him for it.
As she hurried down the two flight of stairs to the ground floor she wondered nervously why Jon wanted to see her. It couldn't be anything to do with the documents she was working on, they hadn't reached the deadline for those yet.
Walking along the corridor to Jon's office, she saw that the door to Robb's office was open, but, true to the vow she had made to herself on the day of his and Margaery's wedding, she refused to give into the temptation to look to see if he was there.
There was no sign of Jon's secretary as Dany hovered outside his closed office door. She knocked reluctantly and then went in.
Jon was seated behind the desk which, like all other furniture in the room, was strictly utilitarian. He did not believe in wasting company money on non-productive luxuries, and yet, disconcertingly, the lack of normal, status symbol fitings seemed to emphasize the aura of leadership and power that emanated from him rather than diminish it.
He was a friend of her family as well as her boss and it was ridiculous that she should feel like a child summoned before a disapproving teacher, Dany decided as she waited to hear why he had sent for her.
There were some papers in the desk in front of him at her heart missed a beat as she saw the familiar letterhead of the Kingslanding spa.
"Samwell Tarly asked to see me this morning," he told Dany, referring to the company's accountant.
Dany's heart started to thump more heavily. She had submitted her quarterly expenses to the accounts department the previous week. She was always painstakingly careful with them, but ever since Jon had hauled her over the coals for inadvertently putting a private petrol bill through her expenses she had lived in nervous dread if accidently repeating the error.
"If it's about my expenses," she began quickly. "I......."
"No Dany, it's not about your expenses," Jon told her. "It's about this." He picked up the letter infront of him as he spoke and pushed it across the desk towards her.
Uneasily Dany picked it up.
"It's the bill from the Kingslanding hotel," she acknowledged. "I......I understood I didn't have any expense for that. You......"
"This isn't about your expenses Dany,"Jon repeated grimly. "Atleast not in the way you mean. Take another look at the bill and this time read it properly, or would you prefer me to do it for you? Perhaps I should, that way we might atleast save some time," he told her curtly, flicking the paper away from her hand and reading out the words. "Mr and Mrs Snow. One double room."
Dany stared at him, the colour leaving her face, driven out as much by the acid nite she could hear in his voice as by what he had actually said.
"But.....but it was a mistake...They made a mistake," she told him huskily. "You said so yourself....you said....."
"It doesn't matter what I said," Jon told her. "What matters is the interpretation that Samwell Tarly and no doubt anyone else who happens to have seen this is going to put on it. The mere fact that he felt that he ought to bring it straight to me says it all...... don't you agree?"
Dany felt sick.
"But you paid the bill before we left. They gave you a receipt and......"
"And now they've sent a copy of it here," Jon told her. "God knows how many people had already seen it before it reached Sam's desk."
"But.....but you explained to him what had happened....? That the hotel had made a mistake, that they were overbooked."
"Oh yes, I told him," Jon agreed. "But......" He stopped speaking as his office doors were unceremoniously pushed open and Robb hurried in, looking uncertain and confused.
"Jon, I don't know what's going on, but I've just heard....." He broke off, when he saw Dany, looking frowningly from her stricken white face to Jon's grimly angry one.
"Yes Robb, what have you overheard?" Jon probed.
"Well, I don't suppot it means anything, but as I walked past the general office I heard one of the girls talking about the fact that you and Dany had.... were......they were saying that the two of you were lovers," he finished awkwardly. "The whole place is buzzing with it," he added. "What in earth's going in?"
While Robb had been talking Jon had stepped out from behind his desk and was now Dany realised, standing next to her.
As Robb looked at them both, to Dany's shock Jon reached out and took hold of her hand, linking fingers with hers and then squeezing hers warningly as he said, "We had hoped to keep it to ourselves a little while longer but...... yes it's true.... Dany and I....."
"But this is wonderful," Robb interupted him enthusiastically. "Just wait till I tell Margaery. When did all this happen and why haven't you said anything? Too preoccupied with other things I suppose," he chuckled. "I know how it was with me and Marg when we first fell in love and I've no need to ask if you are in love, you must be, Jon, if you are idiotic enough to think the pair of you could get away with booking into a double room without anyone finding out. Have you told the family yet, or......"
"We didn't," Dany began quickly, anxious to make him understand that he had got it wrong, that there was nothing between her and Jon, that it was all a horrible mistake, that......
But Jon stopped her, the pressure of his grip on her fingers silencing her denial in her throat, his voice over riding her's as he told Robb smoothly, "we didn't want to say anything to anyone yet. It's all so new to us that we wanted to keep our.......feelings to ourselves."
"Well you can hardly do that now," Robb laughed. "Not with the whole place knowing that the two of you have spent four nights in bed together."
Dany had to bite down hard vin her bottom lip to prevent herself from crying out with the pain as she heard the amusement in his voice. Didn't he know, didn't he care that he was the one she loved, not Jon?
"Just wait till I tell Marg," he repeated.
Dany burst out frantically, "No....."
"No," Jon concurred, giving Dany's tender fingers another warning squeeze as Robb gave her a surprised look. "Nit yet. We still need a little more time to ourselves."
"Well, your going to have to go public with the family soon," Robb warned him. "They're bound to hear the gossip that's going around. I know that Mother and aunt Rhaella only come in once a month or so, but....."
"Thanks Robb," Jon interupted his brother. "I hear what you are saying but....."
"But it isn't anything to do with me," Robb finished cheerfully for him. "Well I doubt you'll get either mother or aunt Rhaella to agree with that, and you know that it's aunt Rhaella's annual birthday lunch on Sunday. You're not going to find it easy to keep them from guessing the truth, after all the family is used to seeing the pair of you either quarrelling or ignoring one another, not holding hands and....."
Immediately Dany tried to pull her hands away but Jon refused to let her go.
If he wasn't going to tell Robb the truth then she would just have to, Dany decided, turning away from Jon to reach out imploringly to Robb with her other hand as she began, "Robb, please there's......"
"Robb, that call has come through for you from Stannis," Robb's secretary interupted, putting her head around the door to give him the message.
"Thanks......I'm on my way," he responded, pausing only to say ruefully to Dany and Jon, "You might as well tell them, you know...... there's no way you're going to be able to keep it a secret now....."
Dany could hardly contain herself long enough for Robb to close the door behind him, before she turned on Jon and demanded furiously, "why didn't you tell him the truth? Why......"
"What truth?" Jon Interupted her. "Is that really what you want me to do,Dany?" he asked curtly. "Do you really want me to tell Robb what happened...... exactly what happened, everything that happened?" he emphasized cruelly.
Humilated, Dany looked away from him.
"No, you know that's not what I meant," she admitted, white faced, adding in a choked whisper, "but you had no need to let him think, to let him believe that......"
"That what..... that you and I are lovers? What would you have preferred me to do? Tell him it was just sex..... just a four-night stand?"
"You could have said it was a mistake," Dany burst out. "You could have told him that the hotel was confused and overbooked."
"I could, yes," Jon agreed. "And then what....?"
"What do you mean?" Dany asked him in confusion.
"If I had told him that, Robb would have been bound to ask what had happened, how we had resolved the mistake. In other words Dany, he would have expected me to say that the mistake was put right and that we were given seperate rooms if not seperate bills."
"And whose fault was it that we weren't?" Dany demanded frantically. "We can't let people think that..... that we are lovers," she told him miserably.
"We can't let people or we can't let Robb!" Jon demanded. "Face it Dany, he couldn't care less. Infact he's probably relieved to have you off his back. It's time you started living in the real world, Dany. You and I......."
"There us no you and I," Dany debit fiercely. "I hate knowing what happened between us," she told him passionately. "I feel sick everytime I think about it. I know you've always hated and despised me Jon, well now you've made me hate and despise myself even more than you do." She headed for his office door. "No more Jon, I just can't take anymore."
****************************************************
"Dany, are you sure you're alright?"
Dany gave her mother a lackluster smile and fibbed, "yes I'm fine."
"She's probably missing Jon," Robb teased her. He and Margaery arrived minutes earlier, the first guests to arrive for her mother's annual birthday Lunch, and the four of them were standing in her parents conservatory whilst her father poured the drinks.
Dany shot her mother an anxious look, but she had appeared to have missed Robb's comment.
"Don't worry, he'll be here," Robb told Dany. "He rang me last night to say that he'd be bringing mother with him."
Fir the first time since she had fallen in love with him Dany found that she actively didn't want to be with Robb. She could tell from the look he and Margaery were exchanging that he had told his wife about her supposed relationship with Jon.
How many of the other guests her mother had Invited also knew about it? Dany wondered, her face burning. Where was Jon? What was she going to do if he didn't arrive....if she was left to face people's questions and curiosity on her own? A dizzy panicky feeling gripped her as she looked anxiously through the drawing room window, searching for some sign of Jon's arrival.
"Dany, what is it? Who are you looking for?" her mother asked her.
"N...nothing.... no-one," Dany stammered, bit she knew that her face was flushing guiltily and she could see that her mother was puzzled by her behaviour.
"Dany, my dear......and how was Kingslanding?" a friend and neighbour if her parents enquired heartily after he had greeted her mother. *A beautiful city, and ofcourse you went with Jon, who knows the city very well..."
"Oh you and Jon have been on holiday together?" a slightly deaf great aunt asked with intrest, picking up on the conversation. "How nice, I always thought that the two of you would be well suited."
"Jon and Dany went away together to Kingslanding on business," Dany's mother explained hastily.
Nearly all the guests has arrived now and Dany's heart missed a beat as she saw Samwell Tarly and his wife Gilly on the opposite side of the room. She had no idea that her mother had asked him and his wife to come. What was she going to do if Samwell said something to her mother about the hotel bill?
Panic seized her. Had Jon done this deliberately...... left her on her own to face the consequences of what she had done? She started to shiver as her panic turned to a cold sweat of sick fear. How was she going to face everyone.....her parents, her family?
Jon had to come, she reassured herself. He was bringing his mother. Robb had told her so.
A car drew up outside and Jon and Robb's mother stepped out, but Jon wasn't with her Dany realised in dismay as she recognised aunt Catelyn's companion as a long standing male friend.
"Oh dear, are we the last to arrive?" She heard Catelyn saying as her parents welcomed them in. "I'm sorry, there was a last minute change in plans, Jon was supposed to be bringing us."
"Don't worry it a cold lunch," Dany's mother responded. "Come in and have a drink."
Why wasn't her mother asking where Jon was? Dany worried frantically. Why hadn't Catelyn mentioned why he wasn't with her?
"Dany, you're looking awfully pale, I hope that son of mine isn't working you too hard. How was Kingslanding by the way? The country side in that area is just so magnificent. I haven't seen you since you got back."
Dany glanced nervously over het shoulder, before responding to her.  Samwell was standing within hearshot of their conversation, talking now to her own father.
"I......."
"Oh, I don't think Dany got an awful long time to look at the scenery," Robb informed hus mother, giving Dany a wicked look. "Although I do believe that she has become a devout admirer of a certain aspect of........."
"Jon!"
Dany couldn't contain her relief as she saw his striding into the room. The agonised, reproachful look she had been about to give Robb was forgotten as she hurried to Jon's side, her brain not registering the suprise on some people's faces and the more worrying knowledge and amusement on others until it was too late..... until she had reached Jon's side, until she had clutched anxiously at his arm, until she had by her own actions and in full view of everyone there confirmed all that she had told Jon so fiercely he had to deny.
"Dany," she heard her mother saying uncertainly, her face registering her disbelief that Dany should acknowledge Jon's presence, never mind rush across the room to virtually throw herself into his arms, to clutch at him as though he were her only life raft in a life threatening sea.
"You'll have to tell them now," Dany heard Robb chuckling. He and Margaery, as well as her own father and mother and aunt Catelyn, had followed her to Jon's side and we're all now looking to them.
"Tell us what?" Dany's mother asked puzzled.
Helplessly Dany looked at Jon.
"Dany and I......."Jon began quietly.
But Robb beat him to it, informing them happily, "Dany and Jon are in love, in fact......."
"At last! Oh Dany, I can't tell you how happy this makes me!" Catelyn exclaimed. "The two of you have always been so right for ine another. I still remember the way you used to follow Jon around when you were a child. Virtually as soon as you cout walk yy used to toddle after him, and now........"
"Abd now she's finally caught up with him" Robb teased, interrupting his mother who was dabbing the emotional tears from her eyes as she hugged Dany.
"How long have you known?"
"When did all this happen?"
"Have you made any plans yet?"
Dany stood like someone in a trance as her family's happy congratulations fell on her like blows, while at her side Jon was as still and cold as stone.
"I told you, you'd never be able to keep this to yourselves," Robb reminded them gleefully when Dany's father had gone to open some champagne.
"Now I know why you looked so disappointed when I arrived without Jon." Catelyn smiled as she hugged Dany a second time. "Oh Dany, I can't tell you how pleased I am......I thought that Jon....." She broke off and shook her head, smiling at Dany through her tears.
What was wrong with them all? Dany wondered dizzily as her father started to hand around glasses of champagne. They all knew that she loved Robb and yet they were behaving as though......as though her relationship with Jon was somehow expected.....a foregone conclusion.
She heard her father proposing a toast while someone else congratulated Jon and asked him when they were to be married.
"Well, you won't want to wait long, will you?" interupted Margaery. "And, after all, it isn't as though you need to look for a house or anything, you can move straight into Jon's....."
Could bshe see just the tinest hint of relief in Margaery's eyes? Dany wondered achingly as Robb turned to hug her. He didn't kiss her, she noticed. Did he suspect the truth....? Did he know that he was still the one she loved?
"So when did all this happen?" Dany's mother asked her when all the excitement had finally started to die down a little.
In Kingslanding Dany was about to say, but Jon got in before her, saying firmly, "last Christmas."
Dany turned her head to stare at him. Last Christmas they had one of the worst quarrels they had ever had, when he'd accused her of trying to make Margaery uncomfortable at the family's Christmas party, by 'mooning about' as he put it, over Robb.
She waited for her mother to laugh and accuse Jon of lying but instead she simply smiled and said that they had done very well to keep it to themselves for so long.
"We didn't want to steal Robb and Margaery's thunder," Jon fibbed smoothly.
"So now we've got another wedding to plan. When do you......"
A wedding! Dany gave Jon an appalled look and told her mother quickly, "oh, no, we can't....."
"We can't quite make up our minds when," Jon overrode her smoothly.
"Well, atleast you won't have to look for a house," her mother continued, repeating what Margaery had said earlier, giving Jon a rueful look as she added, "I thought at the time it was rather odd for a single man to be buying what was obviously a family home. I suppose I should have guessed then, Dany gas always had a weakness for those Victorian houses down by the river."
While Dany bit back her shocked response.... that she had nothing to do with the choice of Jon's present home.....Jon himself responded with a calm, "yes I know, I remember how as a little girl she used to insist on taking the long way home from school so that she could walk past them."
It was true, she did love the magnificent terrace of large Victorian houses whose long gardens backed onto the river, and had even fantasised about living in one, but with Robb, not Jon.
She had been angry when Jon had bought one of them, resentful almost, refusing to go to the small house warming party he had given.
All through lunch Dany was conscious of the intrest they were causing. She herself didn't have any appetite, she had lost weight since her return from Kingslanding but she was so stressed, so in edge that it was no wonder that she didn't want to eat.
"I want to talk to you." Dany tensed as she heard Jon speaking softly in her ears.
"We can't.....Not now. Not here."
"I'm leaving in half an hour," Jon told her, glancing at his watch. "And when I do you're coming with me."
"No!" Dany protested. "I can't.... what will people think?"
"They'll think that we are in love and that we want to be on our own to......."
"Stop it!" Dany hissed, her face starting to burn. "Why did you have to say....to let them think......"
"Why the hell do you think?" Jon demanded grimly.
Dany's flush deepened as she remembered that all too betraying 'Jon!' and the way she had virtually flung herself into his arms.
"Where are we going?" Dany asked Jon after she had fastened her seatbelt. She had tried to get out of leaving with him, using the excuse that her mother would need her help to clear up, but Jon had refused to listen and now here she was, seated next to him in his car, wondering why on earth she had been so stupid as to allow the curious glances of a few people to drive her into seeing Jon as an allly.....a refuge.
"Where do you think?" Jon asked her drily as he turned the car in the direction of his own home.
"Nit there," Dany protested as she realised where they were going.
"Why not? Where else is there where we can talk without being overheard?"
"We don't have to go to your house. You could just park the the car and...say....."
"Oh, yes, and have anyone who saw us..... and certainly someone would.......put it about that the pair of us are so hot for each other that you'll let me have you in the back seat of my car?"
"Stop it!" Dany demanded, hot cheeked. "Don't talk about me like that. I would never....." She stopped the words of denial choking in her throat. How could she tell Jon that what he was saying made her feel cheap? It was too late to argue with him anymore. He was already turning into the road to his house, which was right at the end of the terrace and had a large expanse of garden to the side of it as well as to the rear.
The house, three storeys high, possessed cellars as well as attics, most of which had been converted into garages and storage spaces respectively. As Jon parked his car in his garage, she shivered a little, dreading the interview ahead.
"This way," Jon instructed her, opening the car door for her.
As she followed him up stone steps and through a door into the main hallway she tried not to betray any interest in the house which she had so far refused to visit, even though her eyes were immediately taken by the elegance of the plaster work ceiling and the generous portions of the hall and stairs.
"In here," he told her opening one of the doors.
Dany blinked as she stepped through it and was momentarily blinded by sunlight. The room was huge, running the whole length and half the width of the ground floor, with windows overlooking both the front and the back, and Jon had furnished it with a mixture of antique and modern furniture, which somehow made it look both elegant and welcoming.
"Now," Jon began as he followed her into the room and closed the door behind him. "Do you mind telling me exactly what you're playing at?"
"I.....I don't know what you mean," Dany said.
"Oh, come on, Dany, don't give me that. What the hell were you doing coming up to me like that and making it obvious that........
"That what?"  Dany defended herself. "That we'd been to bed together? They already knew that.....or they would soon have known," she amended more honestly.
Jon was frowning, "What do you mean? Surely Robb......."
"Not Robb," Dany interupted. "No one had said anything, but mum had Invited Samwell Tarly and I could tell by the way he and Gilly were looking at me ......." She bit her lip, unwilling to tell him how vulnerable she had felt, how afraid and alone it had made her realise she was when she had seen the way Samwell and Gilly were looking at her and had known what they must be saying.
"It's all right for you," she told Jon fiercely. "No-one would think any less of you for....for what happened....but it's different for me...."
"Why did all this have to happen?" She demanded passionately, tears clogging her voice.
"Do you really have to ask?" She heard Jon saying roughly. "It had to happen because of this, Dany. Because of this........" And then he was holding her, kissing her, his mouth almost brutal as he devoured hers, but even more shocking than the raw sensuality of his kiss was her response to it.....her body's response to it. Avid, eager, hungry, shamelessly accepting, urging, inciting him to....
Dany gave a small moan of panic as she felt his hand move towards her breast. Once he touched her there she would have no hope of stopping the frightening, out of control rush of sensation that she could feel building inside her, threatening her. As she panicked and started to pull away from Jon, she was engulfed by the return of the dizzy sensation she had felt earlier on, only this time it was accompanied  by a surge of nausea of weakness.
Helpless to escape it, she closed her eyes and gave a small moan.
"Dany..... Dany what is it?" She heard Jon demanding forcefully as she fell forward against him. When his arms locked around her to support her, she felt the dizziness start to recede and mercifully, with it, her nausea.
"How long has this been going on?" Jon asked her curtly. He was still holding her, still supporting her, and inexplicably it was simply easier to stay where she was, leaning against him, than to make herself move away, her legs still felt oddly weak and she couldn't get out of her mind how afraid and vulnerable she had felt when he hadn't been there, how relived she had been to see him standing there in her parents drawing room.
"How long has what been going on?" she asked him weakly.
"You know what I mean, Dany" Jon warned her harshly. "Are you pregnant? Are you carrying my child?" he asked her grimly.
Carrying his child. The colour came and went from Dany's face as the importance of what he was saying struck her.
"No, no, ofcourse I'm not," she denied. "How.....? I can't be pregnant, Jon," she told him piteously. "I can't be...."
"You may not want to be," Jon corrected her bitingly.
Pregnant! With Jon's child..... Dany swayed shakily. Ofcourse she couldn't be..... could she? As she mentally counted the weeks and then slowly recounted them since they return from Kingslanding and acknowledged what she had previously ignored..... namely that her period was now months overdue.....she went cold with shock.
"Dany," Jon demanded gratingly.
"I......I don't know," she whispered through numb lips, and then as panic exploded inside her she told him frantically, "Jon, I can't be pregnant......we can't....."
"It's perhaps just as well that we've already warned everyone that we intend to get married," Jon told her curtly, ignoring her shocked denial and coolly interpreting the reason for her panic.
"We can't get married," Dany protested, her eyes glazed with shock.
"We can't not," Jon corrected her. "Not now."
"But I may not be pregnant," Dany told him. "And even if I am....."
"If you are, what?" Jon asked her harshly. "If you are, you'd rather destroy my child than......"
"No!" Dany told him vehemently. "No, I could never do that..... never."
"Then we don't really have any other option, do we?" Jon told her. "If you are carrying my child, we have to get married."
"Yes," Dany whispered, knowing that it was true. Had they been strangers then she could have contemplated bringing her child up alone, but under the circumstances....
"I may not be pregnant," she repeated, but she could hear the lack of conviction in her voice and knew that Jon could hear it too.
As she closed her eyes, she had a vivid memory of feeling Jon deep within her body, of experiencing that fierce, female surge of triumph at knowing that he was there, without realising then just what that feeling meant. Now she suspected, that she did. She'd have to get one of those test things from the chemist, she decided bleakly, either that or visit their family doctor.
"I never wanted this to happen," she told Jon bleakly. "I never wanted......"
"Either me or my child?" he suggested. "No, I know that.......I.....no doubt you'd rather fantasise that it was Robb's child you're carrying, just as you wanted to fantasise that he was the one making love to you. Unfortunately.....for both of us.....it wasn't him! It was me!"