Page 25 of Twin Surprise for the Italian Doc
In a matter of months she wouldn’t be simply a single mother with a baby. She’dbe a mother with an entire little family.
A smile was trying to break out but there was a prickle behind her eyes that was so unfamiliar it took a moment for Georgia to recognise the imminent threat of tears.
Tears? She had learned how useless tears were when she’d been five years old and she’d only cried once since then—at her mother’s funeral. Or, rather, well after the funeral, where therewas nobody around to witness the evidence of weakness.
Maybe that was the reason for this current threat. If there was one person she’d want to talk to about how she was feeling right now, it would be her mother.
Closely followed by Kate, of course, but throwing her rock in that direction would be more like aiming for a minefield than a pond.
Kate would be horrified at her flagrant disregardof how to achieve what she wanted within the rules of normal social behaviour. Wanting a family was no problem, but you were supposed to at least try to do it the right way. To be careful about contraception until you believed you had found a partner in life. Preferably until after you had married that partner.
There would be endless discussions. It was more than likely that Kate could home inon fears for the future that Georgia didn’t want to think about yet. Things like where she was going to live and how she would be able to cope financially. She would probably only be being a responsible friend if she pointed out that Georgia still had options at this very early stage of her pregnancy.
Even as she was still reeling at the news that Kathryn had delivered, Georgia knew that theidea of not going ahead with this pregnancy was completely unthinkable but she did need time to get used to this...this rather overwhelmingly unexpected miracle.
And itwasa miracle.
In the end, she hadn’t planned for this to happen. She hadn’t set out to seduce a potentially acceptable sperm donor on the off-chance of hitting the jackpot. She had been hugely relieved that an accidental pregnancyhad been avoided.
Because she’d known how complicated it could become if Kate knew the truth.
For the first time since the shocking moment when she’d seen that tiny heart beating on the ultrasound screen, Georgia felt a flash of fear.
Kate couldn’t know the truth. Not about who had fathered these babies anyway. The truth about the pregnancy would have to come out, of course. But not yet. Hopefullynot until she’d had time to get all her ducks in a row and would have a convincing argument to counter any objections that Kate could come up with.
* * *
It was the eggs that did it.
Ruined any plans that Georgia was still formulating about the quiet conversation she was planning to have with Kate when she was ready.
Something about the sight of that congealed egg yolk on the white platesstacked in the sink ready to be washed, combined with the weariness of having just completed a busy night shift, and the vague nausea Georgia had been aware of for some time suddenly tipped into something far more violent. She ran towards the bathroom in the hope that she would make it as far as the toilet before her stomach turned itself inside out.
She didn’t even notice that Kate had followedher until she felt the welcome touch of a damp facecloth as she finally let go of the cold, ceramic bowl of the toilet and sat back on her heels.
‘I’ll never eat eggs again in my life,’ she groaned.
‘You didn’t eat any in the first place. You just looked at the plates.’
‘I know...’ Georgia leaned back against the wall, the facecloth pressed against her eyes. Had she really reassured Sean thatshe wasn’t sick a couple of weeks ago? She had never felt this unwell in her life.
‘Are you sick? Running a temperature?’ Kate went into doctor mode, taking hold of her wrist to feel for her pulse.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Did you eat something dodgy on night shift? Like a kebab?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, my God...’ After a short silence in which the sound of pennies dropping was almost audible, Kate soundedhorrified. ‘Are you pregnant. Georgie?’
So much for picking her own moment to share this news.
Kate’s heavy sigh as she shifted to lean against the wall beside Georgia was exactly how she was feeling herself.
‘When were you going to tell me?’
‘When it was too late to have an argument about whether or not it was a good idea to go through with it.’
