Raye Morgan - Baby on Board - Secret Baby, Surprise Parents / Her Baby Wish / Keeping Her Baby's Secret

‘Is she coming to see you?’

‘—Posie’s grandmother,’ he said, his face set, his expression grim, ‘who will be here some time this morning.’

On the point of objecting to his rudeness, she thought better of it. He clearly had something on his mind.

‘Thank you. Now I’ll finish what I was saying when the phone rang.’ He looked so angry, so fierce. ‘When I was telling you that I was the last of your worries.’

‘Last? When did you ever come last in anything?’ she demanded.

Least of all where she was concerned.

‘Last,’ he repeated. ‘I come a long way down the list of next of kin. The only person who’s lower than me on this particular list is you. After my father, my mother, your mother even…’

He let the words hang, giving her time to work it out for herself. And, when she did, her heart stopped beating, her legs buckled and there was a crash as the pack she was carrying fell to the floor.

If Josh hadn’t reached out and caught her, she’d have followed it but, his arms around her, he supported her, held her close.

‘I won’t let it happen,’ he said fiercely, as she subsided weakly against his naked chest, a rock in a world that was disintegrating around her. Stroked his hand over her hair in a gesture meant to calm her. ‘Trust me, Grace. Whatever it takes. You have my promise.’

The temptation to stay in the safety of his arms almost overwhelmed her. To call him on that promise. Leave him to fight her corner. But he wasn’t always going to be around to make things right for her. If there was to be a battle, she would fight for her daughter. But she didn’t think it would be necessary.

‘It’s all right, Josh,’ she said, lifting her cheek from the steady beating of his heart, the warm silk of his skin. ‘They wouldn’t want her,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘They didn’t want us.’

‘No,’ he said, his face grim. ‘But then, neither of us had the legacy of a fine house, a couple of generous life insurance policies and whatever Michael’s partnership in his architect’s practice is worth. Even after the Chancellor has taken his cut in inheritance tax, it’s still going to provide a very nice expense account for anyone who can prove their case for bringing up Posie.’

‘What?’ Then, ‘Are you suggesting any of them would take her just for the money?’

‘There are other factors. My father has a second family. A young wife. Three little girls who would no doubt welcome a baby sister.’

‘But she’s my baby!’ The betraying words flew from her lips and in that instant she knew he’d spoken no more than the truth. She’d given her sister her baby, but she hadn’t been able to totally let go.

‘My mother would, I’m sure, give up her present precarious existence for this house, a steady income. She would, of course, employ a first-class nanny to take care of Posie. Might even offer you the job.’

Grace shook her head. ‘She’s mine,’ she repeated. ‘If it comes to a fight, any court would have to recognise that.’

He shook his head. ‘I spent a long time last night researching this on the Internet. You carried a fertilised egg for your sister but, once you’ve completed the formalities, that’s it. In law you’re no more to Posie than her aunt. Nothing changes that.’

‘No…’ That small word held a world of pain, of loss. First her sister and now this. Then, as his words filtered through, she said, ‘No. That’s not right. You don’t understand. I didn’t… It wasn’t…’

‘What?’ He was looking down at her, but now his forehead was furrowed in a frown, his grip tighter and, when she didn’t answer, he gave her a little shake. ‘It wasn’t what, Grace?’

She looked up at him. She’d promised Phoebe she’d never tell, but her sister would want her, expect her to do whatever it took to keep her baby.

‘It wasn’t Phoebe’s egg, Josh. It was mine.’

‘BUT…’ Now it was Josh who looked as if he needed something to hold on to. ‘They’d been going through IVF,’ he protested. ‘There were eggs available. Michael told me…’

‘Michael…’ She swallowed. ‘Michael didn’t know.’

Grace was propelled back by the shock that came off him in waves. She grabbed for the back of a kitchen chair, then sank down on it as her shaking legs finally refused to support her.

She gestured weakly at the chair beside her. ‘Sit down, Josh.’ He didn’t move and she said, ‘Please.’

For a moment she thought he was going to ignore her plea, turn around, walk away, just as he had when she’d told him she was pregnant with her sister’s baby. That there was nothing he could do or say to stop her going ahead with the surrogacy.

And so he’d said nothing.

But, after endless seconds, he pulled out the chair beside her and sank down onto it.

‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me everything.’

Grace looked across at the crib, then back at Josh.

‘I couldn’t bear to see what they were both going through after the failure of that last cycle, when the consultant called a halt, saying that Phoebe wasn’t strong enough to go through any more.’

She reached out, wanting him to understand, but there was something about the way he was holding himself, something so taut, so close to cracking, that she didn’t quite dare cross that line.

‘You have to understand how hard it was for them,’ she pressed, wanting him to feel their pain. ‘It was as if someone had died.’

‘I understood,’ he said tersely.

‘Did you?’

Josh understood only too well.

Maintaining that cheerful, positive front for Phoebe had been tough on his brother. Michael had taken to calling him late at night when Phoebe had been asleep, pouring out his desperation, his sense of failure. There had been one call, when his brother had sounded so desperate that Josh had dropped everything and flown home, seriously concerned that he was on the point of a breakdown. Something Phoebe had been too wrapped up in her own loss to recognise.

Grace pressed him for an answer. ‘Did you really, Josh?’

‘I understood that it had become an obsession, that it was destroying them both,’ he said. ‘I wanted Michael to put a stop to it. Let it go. Adopt.’

‘That seems such an obvious choice to the outsider,’ she said. ‘For a woman yearning for a baby of her own…’ She let out a long shuddering sigh. ‘I loved them both so much, to see them hurting like that was unbearable.’

‘So it was you who suggested the surrogacy?’

‘Not until I was sure it was a possibility. Like you, I did my research on the Internet, found a Web site run by and for people who’d already been through this. Then I saw my doctor, talked it through with her. Had all the health checks. I didn’t want to raise Phoebe’s hopes, not until I had the medical all-clear.’

‘You should have had counselling. What if you’d found you couldn’t give up the baby? It happens.’

‘I know.’

‘But then you weren’t really giving her up, were you?’

She didn’t argue. She could see how it must look to him, but he hadn’t been the one lying in the upstairs flat listening to her baby crying in the night, screwing the sheet into knots as she clung to the bed, waiting for Phoebe to call her, ask her to help. A call that she knew would never come.

‘When I told them I was ready and willing to have one of Phoebe’s fertilised eggs implanted, they both wept.’

‘They didn’t try to talk you out of it? Either of them?’

Her eyes flashed impatiently. ‘Of course they did. Michael said that it was time for them to take the adoption route.’

‘But Phoebe was hooked.’