3

After a sleepless night and a college exam which he would definitely fail Tony called Kathleen the following morning, went over to her apartment and told her they should get married. She was overwhelmed, flung her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately. "I'm soooo happy, Tony", she whispered into his ear. "We should set a date pretty soon, before my belly will be too big. I don't want to look like a walrus on my wedding pictures." Kathleen was blissfully happy at the prospect of marrying Tony. She was very fond of him and had always dreamt of a husband like him; funny, good-looking and masculine, with a soft heart, compassionate and considerate. She was well aware he didn't love her as deeply as she loved him but she thought they might get closer as soon as they were a little family of three. She was sure he would be a wonderful father. His relationship to his almost grown-up daughter, whom he had raised without her mother, had always impressed her. Her father had been the demanding and strict kind of father and had shown her his warm and loving side only very rarely. She had also been brought up without her mother and had wished her father could have been a bit more like Tony. Her child would have a magnificent father!

Kathleen was also pleased that she had managed to keep Tony for herself. His relationship to his boss had worried her. The first time she had been in that house and had seen the two of them together she felt there was far more between them than just a business relation. And when Angela had invited her over after her first night with Tony, not knowing they had slept with each other, she had observed how uneasy Tony was, being in a room with her and Angela at the same time. And she didn't need to eavesdrop at that swinging door to guess what sort of talk the two of them had been having. When Tony had come out of the kitchen to let the rest of their study group in, she could practically read "I betrayed her" in his eyes. And when Angela had followed a short time later, excusing herself and hurrying towards her study, the agony and disappointment in Angela's eyes hadn't gone unnoticed by her either. Her eyes had spoken volumes too and they said "he betrayed me". At that moment the last penny had dropped; they would be three people in this relationship. But she had been very positive to be able to come up with a strategy to come out on top.

This strategy hadn't included making him the father of her baby from the very beginning. First, she had just lured him out of that house and had tried to spend time with him far away from Fairfield. She had suggested to spend the weekend sleeping over at her place as he usually had the weekends off. But sure enough, he didn't have strictly scheduled working hours like in an office. You could never exactly tell when his working day was over and when it started. That kept annoying her. Meeting Angela had become more and more uncomfortable and she could sense how Angela's first friendliness slowly turned into dislike and eventually even hostility. Well, their resentment of each other was two-sided. Kathleen had finally realized she had to pull off the silky gloves and figure out a way to drag Tony out of Angela's range of influence.

She hadn't forgotten to take the Pill on purpose the first time. But when she had failed to bring it on a romantic two-day-trip with Tony to the mountains, a plan had begun to form in the back of her head. Only after her ugly argument with Angela in her agency, when Tony had cared more about her working too long than about spending the weekend with his girlfriend, she had started to consciously implement this plan. And being as young and healthy as she was she didn't have to wait too long and continuously lie to him about her contraceptive efforts. She knew she had been deceiving him, but what had her father always told her cutting off every argument they had about untruthful military strategies? "All's fair in love and war, Dear!" So, she had used a trick not fully fair but why did men always rely on women for contraception? If he left birth-control totally to her, well, then he would have to live with the consequences ...