Damn. She’d be every kind of fool if she thought that!
The consultant led the way, a clipboard on her arm with a list at least twice as long as Angie’s. ‘Your first baby?’ she asked, and Angie had no doubt the woman didn’t really care, she just wanted him to keep talking and enjoy the sensation of Dominic’s deep voice rumbling through her bones again.
‘It is,’ was all he offered.
She sighed wistfully as she looked over her shoulder. ‘I dare say it’ll be a beautiful baby then, if it takes after you two.’
Dominic scowled and Angie squirmed. The woman was right, the baby would be beautiful, but it had nothing to do with her.
Thankfully, they arrived at the nursery decor section and the consultant got distracted. For the next hour they got lost in displays and colour schemes. Angie forced herself to think of it as a job, as Dominic had insisted it was. It had nothing to do with her. Not really. She was merely an onlooker here. She had to think of what this baby needed functionality wise—and not think of it as the baby growing inside her at all. The baby she wouldn’t ever know…
She clamped down on the pointless pang of regret. She couldn’t afford to think that way. She’d done the right thing, hadn’t she? She’d reunited this child with its rightful father. She couldn’t afford to have regrets.
Though it was getting harder and harder not to.
She looked around this massive baby warehouse, looked at all the people shopping for their child, for their baby. Envied them. For she’d never realised it would be this hard. She’d imagined handing the baby over would be easy. She’d never realised this stranger growing inside her would be so interesting or demand so much of her attention. She’d never realised it would make her feel as if it was truly part of her.
That it was hers…
Just for a moment she allowed herself to wonder what it would be like if things were different, if this baby were truly hers and she was shopping now with the most devastatingly handsome man in the store, if not in the whole of Sydney, for their child. How would that feel?
But no. She shook her head to clear the wayward thoughts away. There was no point going there. The reality was cold and hard and stared her in the face every time she remembered how he had treated her because of who she was and where she had come from. There was no place for fantasy here. She was merely a means to an end. An incubator for his baby. A temporary inconvenience.
‘What do you think of this one?’ Dominic interrupted her thoughts with a picture of a brightly coloured themed room, filled with stuffed beanbags and a drum set and a red bed shaped like a Ferrari.
She blinked up at him. ‘It’s just a baby, Dominic. It might actually be a way off fast cars. And have you ever stopped to consider it might be a girl?’
He stared at her as if she were mad. ‘Of course it’s a boy.’
And he was so earnest she had to laugh. Finally, after poring over dozens of design books, they settled on a colour scheme. Walls of misty blue up to an animal frieze with the colour changing from blue to creamy clouds. White furniture, they decided, with accessories that would do for either boy or girl. After the baby arrived there would be plenty of time to add hints of colour.
Once the colour scheme was chosen, it was relatively easy. Furniture was selected to match the colour scheme and the existing decor of the house and meanwhile the list the consultant kept was getting longer and longer.
Dominic was having the time of his life. They’d covered bassinets and cots and bedding, made a brief foray into prams and strollers, and now they were looking at baths and changing tables. If this wasn’t bonding with his baby, he didn’t know what was. He lingered over a changing table that doubled as a baby bath and had drawers underneath for storage. The consultant assured him it was the epitome of efficiency. Efficiency he could relate to. He looked around to show Angelina but she was nowhere to be seen.
For a moment his gut clenched in fear. Where was she? How could he have lost her? And then he saw her in the clothing section a few metres away.
The tiny suit looked as if it had been made for a doll rather than any baby she’d ever seen. Softer than velvet, the white fabric felt like a butterfly’s kiss upon her skin. She smiled. The baby was bound to have its parents’ colouring, bound to be born with a shock of dark hair and dark features.
Boy or girl, his baby would look gorgeous in white.
Not that she would ever know.
The knowledge sliced through her like a knife and she hung the suit back on the rack. Now she was getting maudlin! It was pointless looking at clothes. Pointless thinking about how the baby might look. Pointless and painful. She swiped away a tear. She should never have come. She should never have let him make her. It was enough that she would be able to picture this baby’s surroundings after it was born—its grand house, the seaside where it would grow up exploring the rocky shore. It was enough that she could already see Rosa feeding the toddler in a high chair in her massive kitchen. It was enough that she could see the baby being cradled against its father’s chest…