Read Online Eggshell Days by Rebecca Gregson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Rebecca Gregson
Ads: Link
Their baby daughter, Toby supposed. The evidence for his paternity was all there. What man would offer to change the dirty nappy of another manâs child?
Heâd promised himself to take the secret to his grave, but not before dancing on another one. The Victorian family values that had so damaged his own life were being swept away by a demographic tidal wave before his very eyes. Heâd caught wind of the blast of heartfelt disapproval over Emmyâs untimely pregnancy and was furious. If Emmy chose to be a single parent and Niall respected that, then good for them. Why should she name the father if she didnât want to? Why should they live like man and wife? It was after that short weekend visit that he made up his mind. Bodinnick was Emmyâs if she wanted it, and if she didnât, well, the money would help her stick two fingers up to the lot of them.
Toby took his unswerving belief about Mayaâs parenthood with him, never suspecting that he could possibly have read it wrong. The truth was that she couldnât have been Niallâs child, much as they all might have wished it. By the time her little seed had been sown, so much water had rushed under the young coupleâs bridge that the timing wasnât just out, it was long gone. Emmy knew it, Niall knew it, and, by osmosis, Maya knew it too. Not that minor details like that mattered.
Maya was the size if not the shape of a watermelon when Niall first laid hands on her, through the skin of Emmyâs tightening stomach. Feeling the familiar landscape of his ex-girlfriendâs torso with the touch of a friend and not a lover had been the only gesture in the whole reunion that hadnât come naturally. The effort not to slide his fingers round her widening waist and squeeze the flesh of her newly ample bottom again was superhuman, but he owed her at least that. Three years had been a hellishly long time without contact.
Her letter when it came had been short. Iâm pregnant again , sheâd written, and I need to explain to you why I am going to keep this one . But she never really had explained.
As soon as he realized the father wasnât going to feature, he was willing to listen. His first call, her first visit, their first laugh all came easily, without regret. But the hands-on-bump thing was different. It affected him in a way he couldnât describe.
âAre you the father?â the student midwife asked him as he helped Emmy count her way through a contraction. âNot this time,â he said. The midwife thought he meant that he would be the next, not realizing that he had been the last. âIf you play your cards right,â she joked.
Anyway, heâd seen Maya take her first breath, and no one, not even her real father, could take that away. Holding the baby while Emmy was stitched up, studying Mayaâs freshly peeled rawness, heâd fought a dark desire to merge her with the unborn one, the one that still existed between them. He never spoke about it, but for a split second in the delivery suite the two lives had become one. Mayaâs wet black hair had become even wetter as he put his head as close to hers as he dared, but Emmy was not only drugged, she was so completely out of sorrow by then that she didnât notice. It was a lifetime ago, literally.
âOw!â
The echo of a dusty collapse somewhere behind an old screen made the thick store walls shake.
âWeâre okay,â Maya shouted.
Now that she was so far removed from the image of that helpless prawn, Niall would look at her and recognize not the unborn but himselfâhis own tilt of the head, or his way of standing with hands in pockets, one hip lower than the other. The secret longing to hear her call him Dad was too corny even to contemplate, but the fear of another man standing a better chance still occasionally loomed. His usual comfort lay with Maya herself, who appeared entirely unconcerned about the
Heâd promised himself to take the secret to his grave, but not before dancing on another one. The Victorian family values that had so damaged his own life were being swept away by a demographic tidal wave before his very eyes. Heâd caught wind of the blast of heartfelt disapproval over Emmyâs untimely pregnancy and was furious. If Emmy chose to be a single parent and Niall respected that, then good for them. Why should she name the father if she didnât want to? Why should they live like man and wife? It was after that short weekend visit that he made up his mind. Bodinnick was Emmyâs if she wanted it, and if she didnât, well, the money would help her stick two fingers up to the lot of them.
Toby took his unswerving belief about Mayaâs parenthood with him, never suspecting that he could possibly have read it wrong. The truth was that she couldnât have been Niallâs child, much as they all might have wished it. By the time her little seed had been sown, so much water had rushed under the young coupleâs bridge that the timing wasnât just out, it was long gone. Emmy knew it, Niall knew it, and, by osmosis, Maya knew it too. Not that minor details like that mattered.
Maya was the size if not the shape of a watermelon when Niall first laid hands on her, through the skin of Emmyâs tightening stomach. Feeling the familiar landscape of his ex-girlfriendâs torso with the touch of a friend and not a lover had been the only gesture in the whole reunion that hadnât come naturally. The effort not to slide his fingers round her widening waist and squeeze the flesh of her newly ample bottom again was superhuman, but he owed her at least that. Three years had been a hellishly long time without contact.
Her letter when it came had been short. Iâm pregnant again , sheâd written, and I need to explain to you why I am going to keep this one . But she never really had explained.
As soon as he realized the father wasnât going to feature, he was willing to listen. His first call, her first visit, their first laugh all came easily, without regret. But the hands-on-bump thing was different. It affected him in a way he couldnât describe.
âAre you the father?â the student midwife asked him as he helped Emmy count her way through a contraction. âNot this time,â he said. The midwife thought he meant that he would be the next, not realizing that he had been the last. âIf you play your cards right,â she joked.
Anyway, heâd seen Maya take her first breath, and no one, not even her real father, could take that away. Holding the baby while Emmy was stitched up, studying Mayaâs freshly peeled rawness, heâd fought a dark desire to merge her with the unborn one, the one that still existed between them. He never spoke about it, but for a split second in the delivery suite the two lives had become one. Mayaâs wet black hair had become even wetter as he put his head as close to hers as he dared, but Emmy was not only drugged, she was so completely out of sorrow by then that she didnât notice. It was a lifetime ago, literally.
âOw!â
The echo of a dusty collapse somewhere behind an old screen made the thick store walls shake.
âWeâre okay,â Maya shouted.
Now that she was so far removed from the image of that helpless prawn, Niall would look at her and recognize not the unborn but himselfâhis own tilt of the head, or his way of standing with hands in pockets, one hip lower than the other. The secret longing to hear her call him Dad was too corny even to contemplate, but the fear of another man standing a better chance still occasionally loomed. His usual comfort lay with Maya herself, who appeared entirely unconcerned about the
Similar Books
