The Baby Swap Miracle Read Free Page A

didn’t sign up for this either, Emelia. You were supposed to be having your late husband’s baby, with the support of his parents. Now, there’s no possibility of that ever happening, and you’re pregnant with a stranger’s child—a stranger who’s very much alive and involved with this, and I can’t imagine how you feel about it. About any of it. Or how your in-laws will feel, come to that.’
    Good question. How did she feel? She didn’t know yet. It was far too complicated and she needed time to sift though it and come to terms with it before she could share it with Sam. Her in-laws were another question altogether, and she had a fair idea how they would feel.
    ‘It’s going to be horrendous breaking it to them. They’ve grown so used to the idea that this was James’ baby, and they keep feeling my bump, Julia especially. Really, you’d think it was hers the way she just assumes she can touch me.’
    He felt a stab of regret, because he’d wanted to ask ifhe could feel it, felt a crazy need to lay his hands on the beautiful, smooth curve that held his child, but of course he couldn’t. It was far too intrusive and he had no right to touch her. No rights over her at all. Lord, what a crazy situation.
    ‘So what do you do? When she does that?’
    ‘I let her. What can I do? She smiles this proud, secret little smile, as if it’s all her doing, and she’s constantly buying things—the nursery’s so full I can hardly get in there.’
    ‘And they’re all things for James’ baby, not mine,’ he murmured, realising that this mix-up was going to have a devastating effect on so many people.
    She nodded.
    ‘That’s right. And they need to know.’
    She swallowed. She couldn’t put this off any longer, and she needed time alone to think. Sam sitting there simmering with anger and some other emotion she couldn’t get a handle on wasn’t helping at all. ‘I ought to get back and tell them.’
    ‘Do you want me to come?’
    She stared at him, wishing he could, knowing he couldn’t, and he realised that, obviously, because he went on hastily, ‘No, of course you don’t. Sorry. You have to tell them alone, I can see that, but we need to talk sometime, Emelia. This won’t go away.’
    She nodded. ‘I know—but not yet. I need time for it to sink in, Sam. Give me a while. Let me tell them, try and explain, and let me think about my options, because this changes everything. My whole future.’
    Sam searched her soft, wounded eyes. She was being so brave about it, but what if it wasn’t what she wanted? What if, when she’d considered her options—?
    ‘If you don’t want to go through with this, if you wantto take the clinic up on their offer—it’s your decision,’ he said brusquely, a painful twisting in his gut as he said the words—words that could end his child’s life. Words he’d had to say, even though they went deeply against his every instinct.
    Her eyes widened, her hand flying down to cover the little bump that he so wanted to lay his hands against, and she stood up abruptly.
    ‘No way. This is my baby, Sam,’ she said flatly. ‘I haven’t asked you to get involved in its life, and I don’t expect you to if you don’t want to, but there’s no way I’m taking them up on their “offer” , as you so delicately put it. I’ll have it, and I’ll love it, and nothing and nobody will get in the way of that. And if you don’t like it, then sue me.’
    And lifting her chin, she scooped up her keys, grabbed her bag off the other chair and walked swiftly out of the café, leaving him sitting there staring after her. The relief left him weak at the knees, and it took him a second, but then he snapped his mouth shut, got up and strode after her.
    ‘Wait!’ he said, yanking open her car door before she could drive off. ‘Emelia, that’s not what I was trying to say. I just thought—’
    ‘Well, you thought wrong,’ she retorted, and grabbed the door handle.
    He held the door