Read Online Babies in Waiting by Rosie fiore - Free Book Online Page B

Angela was staring at me. Sometimes, she gave me the creeps . . . it was like she was watching me like a spy. Didn’t she have work to do, for God’s sake? You might think I had work to do, but there was no hope of that, not that day. I thought for a minute longer, then I sent a quick text to James. ‘Lunch? Tx.’
    My office was in Holborn and James’ office was a ten-minute walk away in Covent Garden. We didn’t often geta chance to have lunch together: he’d have to work through, and I was frequently out of the office or lunching with clients. He fired back a text within two minutes. ‘Sure. Jack’s at 1? Jx.’
    For the first time that morning, the tumble-dryer that had been churning in my stomach stopped moving. I’d go and have lunch with my husband. We’d make sense of this together and everything would be okay.
    I got to the sandwich shop ahead of James and grabbed our usual table in the back corner. Jack, who knew us well, brought me a tuna-and-salad on wholewheat and a cheese-and-pickle on white for James, without being asked. The smell of my sandwich made me want to heave, but I was really hungry, so I switched sandwiches. James would have to eat the tuna one and like it.
    James rushed in fifteen minutes late, dropped a kiss on the top of my head and slid into the chair opposite me. ‘I’m starving,’ he said, grabbed the sandwich and took a huge bite. His eyes widened. ‘Yuck! This is yours,’ he said, and pushed the plate across the table towards me.
    ‘I swapped. Sorry, didn’t get a chance to tell you. I can’t eat the tuna. It smells awful to me.’
    He looked put out. ‘Well, thanks for telling me.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Shit. I’ve only got a few minutes. I haven’t got time to get Jack to make another.’ He started eating the sandwich in big bites. I was a bit surprised about the ‘only got a few minutes’. He’d been fifteen minutes late to meet me after all. It seemed if we were going to talk, we’d have to talk quickly.
    ‘So, how are you feeling?’ I said tentatively.
    ‘Oh, it’s been a mad busy morning. A new brief came through – a billboard for a deodorant campaign. Ed and I have till four o’clock to scamp up three concepts.’
    ‘I meant about . . .’
    ‘Oh.’ He took another huge bite. ‘I don’t know, Tones. I mean . . . I’m a bit in shock, I suppose.’
    ‘In shock?’ I felt a knot in my stomach. That wasn’t the response I was hoping for. Joy, yes. Excitement, definitely. But shock? Shock sounded not good at all.
    ‘Well, I mean, it kind of changes everything doesn’t it?’
    That sounded a bit better. It did change everything. I had a million thoughts I wanted to share. After all, there’d be a new person in our relationship . . . we’d be a family now. We could have the baby in our little house for six months or a year or so, but after that he or she would need their own room. We’d have to think about buying a bigger house . . . if we’d conceived one so easily, could we think about having more than one child after all? I was about to start sharing some of this, but James was still talking.
    ‘I mean, we’ve got that snowboarding trip booked for April. I suppose you won’t be able to go now.’
    There was so much wrong with what he’d just said, I didn’t know where to begin.
    I ended up just saying, ‘Snowboarding?’
    ‘Yeah, I mean, I’ve been really busy this morning so I haven’t had a chance to check the terms and conditions of the trip. Maybe someone else could have your air ticket,if the name change isn’t too expensive. Alex – or Dave, maybe. He was keen to go.’
    I was really, really tired of bursting into tears in front of my husband. It would have been just too pathetic to do it again, so I just got up and left. I heard him say ‘Tones . . .’ in an exasperated voice as I walked out of the door, but I just put my head down and kept walking. I knew he wouldn’t follow me. He was too busy. He had scamps to