One Night with Morelli(81)

                What if I’m bad at it?

                Oh, God, she was so not ready for this!

                If I’m not ready, imagine how Draco will feel.

                Eve had imagined it; she imagined his reaction a dozen times a day.

                She had worked through every possible emotion he might display, every accusation he might fling in the heat of the moment and she had her responses worked out…cool, calm understanding. She wouldn’t be hurt; she would be grown up. You’re going to be a mother, Eve, she told herself. It’s about time you grew up, don’t you think?





                                      CHAPTER FOURTEEN

                SHE WAS READY and totally prepared.

                Every night she had gone to bed thinking she would contact Draco tomorrow, and on the following morning she had woken up and thought of a perfectly valid reason to leave it another day…and on the one day she had actually picked up the phone and dialled his number it had gone straight to messaging. Determined not to wimp out once she had got that far, Eve had rung his office, where she had got through to a particularly superior-sounding female who had left her on hold for what felt like hours and then told her Mr Morelli was not in the office today.

                The moment she put the phone down Eve thought of the things she could have said…and thank you was not one of them! She had worked herself up into a state of fury, mostly aimed at herself for being so damned meek and not telling that snooty woman where to get off!

                Why settle for the messenger? she had asked herself. Out of the office indeed! Sure he was! The man should do his own dirty work and someone should tell him that. She had actually got as far as putting on her jacket to go and confront him about avoiding her, when she lost her courage.

                She’d have to find it again pretty soon!

                ‘I’m sorry about not correcting that midwife’s assumption we were the parents,’ she said.

                Hearing the tears clogging her voice, he took a long deep breath and exhaled, expelling with the warm air the images the nurse’s comment had inserted in his head. As a parent he knew that empathy could take you only so far. Happily Josie had always been a healthy child, but the couple of times she had been really ill…not times he wanted to relive.

                Sombre-eyed, he looked at the cot. What if they were the parents and this were their baby lying there?

                ‘Sorry, I know I should have explained to her but—’

                A hissing sound of exasperation left his lips as Draco moved around the chair until he faced her, then, squatting down on his heels, he looked into her pale, unhappy face.

                ‘Will you stop apologising and will you stop imagining everything is your fault? It isn’t.’

                ‘Isn’t it? I had no idea how Mum felt. I just decided how I thought she should feel… I made it up as I went along.’

                Draco gave a dry laugh. ‘Pretty much like being a parent…I’ve been making it up for fourteen years.’

                She looked at him, her chest swelling with the level of love she felt when she looked at him. ‘You’re a good father.’

                And he would be to their baby too. In her calmer, more rational moments Eve knew that, and she also knew that when he got over his anger and got used to the idea, which might take a bit of time, he would step up.