Ally Blake - Happy Mother’s Day! - Accidentally Pregnant, Conveniently Wed / Claiming His Pregnant Wife / Meant-To-Be Mother

Aisling winced. Did Suzy really have to rub salt into the wound? ‘Yes. And yes! Oh, Suzy!’

‘For heaven’s sake, Aisling—what were you thinking of? And how long has this been going on?’ Suzy shook her short-bobbed head. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t notice.’

In a way, this was even worse, but Aisling couldn’t face telling Suzy that the reason she hadn’t noticed was because there was, in fact, nothing to notice—and that nothing had ever really begun. It had just been a bizarre pact fuelled by nothing deeper than a mutual desire. Viewed now with a dispassionate eye in the cold light of day—it seemed that she must have temporarily taken leave of her senses.

‘How pregnant are you?’ Suzy’s voice broke into her thoughts.

‘I don’t know.’

‘You haven’t seen a doctor?’

Aisling shook her head.

Suzy stood up and went and put her arms around Aisling’s stiff shoulders. ‘Well, that’s the first thing you need to do—to find out for sure.’

Was this helpless mass of conflicting emotions really her —Aisling Armstrong—or had some weepy impostor taken over her body? ‘And the second?’ she questioned weakly.

‘You’ll have to think about telling Gianluca.’

But just what was she going to tell him? That she was carrying his child—she who had been nothing but the briefest of flings in his busy life?

And when was she going to tell him? Now? When the little baby inside her was little more than a fast-growing bunch of cells, hidden by a gym-flat stomach? Or when those cells had begun to take on an undeniably human form—when she could show him the first amazing black and white photo of the thumb-sucking infant in her womb?

Those thoughts brought her up short. She could accept the pregnancy, yes—the pragmatic side of her knew that was what nature had designed her body for. But a baby?

‘It’s over, Suzy,’ she said.

‘I guessed that.’ Suzy’s voice was soft.

‘And how the hell am I going to manage to work?’ Aisling asked, suddenly scared.

Suzy frowned. ‘You’re putting the cart before the horse, Aisling. First, you’ve got to get yourself checked out, and then you’ve got to tell Gianluca. Work is the least of your worries right now.’

It was so easy to put off something you were dreading—like failing to revise before an important exam and hoping you’d get by on memory and luck. The doctor posed no problem—that was the easy part. He told her that she was in splendid health—and the only thing which made him frown was her workload.

‘You’ve got to cut back a bit on your schedule,’ he insisted. ‘I know how you modern women like to take everything in their stride—but you mustn’t forget that you’re growing another human being inside you.’

A human being who bore Gianluca’s genes. His dark, mocking face swam into her memory as the reality hit her like a cushioned blow. Aisling went to the coffee bar next door to the office and stared at the flattening clouds of froth on the top of her cappuccino.

So what did she do?

Just how did she tell him?

She wasn’t due to see him until after she’d found him a new general manager for his new hotel—but as the purchase hadn’t gone through she didn’t have a clue when that would be. It could be months. She thought about ringing him up—trying to imagine how she’d tell him she was having his baby—but some protective instinct made her want to shy away from the potential of his angry words raining down the phone-line. And over her.

In the end it seemed easier to do nothing. To let the baby grow inside her while she existed in the curiously detached state of well-being which seemed to have descended upon her, like a comforting cloud. It was as if she’d been given an important project to work on—and, being Aisling, she threw herself into it wholeheartedly.

As the weeks slid inexorably into months, she read every book on pregnancy which her local store had to offer. Her diet had always been healthy, but she went for it in a big way—and discovered a deep love of spinach. Once the morning sickness had passed, she found she had an amazing amount of energy, and so she swam at her gym before work, the gentle exercise calming her for the day ahead. It was as though she were living in her own little private bubble of a world—where outside forces had no place.

Only Suzy acted as the voice of her conscience. ‘Aisling—this is crazy. You’re ballooning by the day. You’ve got to tell him!’

‘And I will.’

‘When?’

‘I don’t know. When it’s the right time.’

‘But time’s running out!’ cried Suzy, eying the bump with a mixture of fascination and alarm. ‘You’ll be thinking about giving up work soon.’

Aisling stared down at her stomach as if it belonged to someone else and then gripped the desk with her hands, as if to steady herself. Not only had her body taken on a life of its own, but so had her emotions, and as the weeks passed they grew stronger and stronger. Night after night, she lay in bed while the face of her baby’s father swam into her mind’s eye and some deep yearning filled her with an inexplicable kind of sadness. ‘Some women work until they go into labour,’ she said hoarsely.

‘But it isn’t mandatory,’ said Suzy. ‘Anyway—that’s something we ought to talk about, too. How long you’re going to take as maternity leave—or whether you’re planning to give up work altogether.’

And that was what freaked Aisling out and brought her crashing to her senses. The sudden dawning that her life was about to change irrevocably—that everything she had strived for could be lost by this unplanned pregnancy. And that she hadn’t got into this predicament on her own.

The feeling which had been building and building inside finally burst out and she knew an overwhelming need to tell Gianluca. To connect. To let him know the momentous thing which was about to happen—no matter what had gone on between the two of them.

She looked at the calendar which hung by the little window in her kitchen and stared at the date ringed on it as if someone had crept in while she’d been sleeping and drawn it there. It couldn’t really be August, could it? She couldn’t really be due to give birth in a fortnight? What if the baby came early—before she had told him?

With a sudden sense of urgency, she lifted the phone and punched out the number of his office in Rome—although she had to speak to three different people before she got through to the great man himself.

‘Aisling,’ he murmured. ‘This is a surprise.’

But his voice sounded remote. Wary. As if he was trying to second-guess why she was ringing him—something which he had clearly not been expecting and definitely hadn’t wanted, by the sound of it. They both knew there were no outstanding contracts to be discussed—maybe he thought she was contacting him in a transparent attempt to get him into bed again? Aisling shuddered.

‘I’d like to see you, Gianluca.’

‘Really? Want to tell me why?’

‘There’s something I need to discuss with you.’

‘Go ahead—I’m free now.’

Aisling flinched. He couldn’t have made it more plain that he was no longer interested in her. She was past tense and he wanted her to understand that. But a sense of duty and of indignation and some biological imperative to share this with her baby’s father drove her on. ‘I’d rather not talk about it on the phone.’

‘Now I’m intrigued.’

Aisling ignored that. ‘Are you coming over to England at all?’

‘Regrettably not,’ he purred. ‘I’m pretty tied up here at the moment. Perhaps you’ve read that I’ve just bought a football stadium and it’s keeping me pretty busy?’