by Louise Hall
Cate pressed the palm of her hand against her abdomen. It was scary – she didn’t feel the same bond with this baby that she’d felt almost straight away with Lola.
What if I can’t love you?
Hot tears trickled down her cheeks, staining the pillowcase. She desperately needed Kian to reassure her but after the accusations he’d made against her tonight… How could he even think her capable of something like that?
She went downstairs to the kitchen for some warm milk and honey, hoping that it would coax her to sleep. As she walked past the door which led to the back porch, she changed her mind, deciding to sit for a while on the comfy daybed and look out at the expanse of blackness at the back of the house. She’d spent many nights there feeding Lola.
As she turned the handle, she could feel that Kian was already there. Heat coiled tightly around her spine.
“Darn,” Cate cursed, turning around.
“Don’t go,” Kian’s low, gravelly voice pierced the silence. “Please.”
He was lying on the daybed; his dark hair stuck up scruffily as if he’d been raking his fingers through it. “I can’t sleep with you.” Cate’s protests were hollow as she found herself inexplicably drawn to him.
“Lie down, angel,” Kian pushed back their wedding quilt. She lay down on her side, with her back to him.
Kian closed the gap between them, pressing up against her back. He felt that twist in his gut; he’d hurt Cate badly tonight. He could still see that look in her eyes… He brushed her hair to one side, pressing his lips against her soft skin.
He’d seen that same look twice before. He thought back to the night of his dad’s funeral, the night Lola was conceived, the night he’d taken Cate’s virginity. He could still hear her tears through Ben’s front door as he’d stood on the other side; the rain soaking his skin and gravel piercing the soles of his feet.
He thought back to that New Year’s Eve when she’d woken up in his arms as he’d carried her up the driveway to his Range Rover, the tiny snowflakes dotting her inky-black hair, the fireworks blistering above their heads. On Christmas Eve she’d found out that he’d cheated on her with one of his sister’s friends and on Boxing Day, she’d taken their daughter and sought solace at her mum’s house. It had taken her months to forgive him enough to come home.
He knew so many things about Cate. She painted her toenails with intricate designs but left her fingernails plain. The exact shade of her dusky-pink nipples and that they were pierced with silver barbells. The sweet sound of her laughter as she and Lola had raced hand-in-hand across the beach near Santa Monica Pier. How they’d both yelped when they’d felt the chill of the Pacific Ocean on their toes for the first time. Screw chocolate, Cate’s favourite food was hummus. You could fix almost anything by buying her one of those small, plastic tubs.
He knew what she tasted like; her lips, tongue, skin, her pussy. He knew how smoky her eyes became, the soft little noises she made when she was close to orgasm. He knew what the inside of her pussy felt like around his fingers, his tongue and his cock.
How could he have ever thought that she was capable of getting rid of their baby without telling him?
Kian slid the palm of his hand slowly from her bent knee, up her slender thigh to her hipbone.
There was a wisp of cool air as he lifted up the hem of her silk nightshirt, quickly soothed by the warmth of his hand caressing her abdomen.
“Kian, please don’t,” Cate begged. Her resolve was teetering on the brink of collapse.
He knelt above her, easing the waistband of her pyjama pants down a little. “I’m going to be a dad again.” His eyes glittered in the darkness. With such reverence, he wrapped his hands around her ribcage and bent his head, brushing his lips over the warmth of her stomach. He couldn’t stop thinking about how it would look in a few months, swollen with his child.
“I can’t do this,” Cate slid out from underneath him. She cursed her messed-up hormones.
CHAPTER 3
After she’d left the back porch, Kian couldn’t sleep. He needed Cate; she was and always would be his first half. He craved the feel of her soft curves against him. The scent of her blackberry shampoo, her delicate fingers intertwined with his, her bottom rubbing gently against his groin. He was like an addict craving a fix; the desire for her was so great.
He threw back their wedding quilt and got up from the daybed. He paced back and forth, fighting the urge to just go upstairs and climb into bed with his wife. He had to keep reminding himself that he couldn’t have that tonight. He’d hurt Cate badly by accusing her of having an abortion and not telling him.
Instead, he lay awake for hours, waiting impatiently for the sun to rise above the lush, green hills at the back of the house so that he could start to make amends.
When she’d been pregnant with Lola, Cate hadn’t suffered too badly with morning sickness but during the few bouts she’d had, the only food she’d been able to keep down were ginger biscuits. As soon as it was open, Kian drove to the supermarket in the village and bought their whole supply of ginger biscuits. He also bought countless tubs of Cate’s favourite hummus and the biggest bouquet of freesias (her favourite flowers) that he could find.
Unlike the heroes in the steamy romance novels she liked so much, Kian wasn’t good with words but he hoped that Cate would see from what he’d bought that he was truly sorry for what he’d said the previous night.
On his way home from the supermarket, he passed the row of Victorian houses on the outskirts of the village again and his fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He could still see the image of his wife as she’d walked to her car the previous day; she’d looked so pale and fragile. Although he was excited that he was going to be a father again, he still felt uneasy. There was definitely something that Cate wasn’t telling him.
It was like a jigsaw missing a key piece. He’d seen her coming out of an abortion clinic but yet she was still pregnant? She’d insisted when he’d confronted her the previous night that she hadn’t gone there intending to get an abortion and then changed her mind and he believed her. But she’d looked so utterly broken when he’d seen her outside the clinic?
Lola’s birth had been extremely traumatic. Cate had been found by the landlord of their local pub collapsed on a bench, barely conscious and haemorrhaging badly.
Kian jerked the Range Rover to a stop at the side of the road, his heart beating wildly inside his chest. The specialists that they’d been to afterwards had all assured them that there was no reason why they couldn’t have a normal, healthy pregnancy the next time but… what if there was something wrong with Cate or the baby? Was that why she’d hesitated about telling him?
When he arrived home, Cate had already showered and dressed and was coming down the stairs. She was wearing dark-blue skinny jeans and a navy-blue and white long-sleeved t-shirt. She’d tied her inky-black hair up in a messy bun. She looked like she’d hardly slept – there were dark smudges under her black eyes and she was almost translucently pale.
“Where are you going?” Kian asked. He was disappointed because he’d hoped that he could surprise her with breakfast in bed and they could talk properly about the unexpected pregnancy.
Cate flinched at his words; he saw the flicker of hurt in her black eyes before she quickly looked down at the carpet. Kian only realised when it was too late that after what he’d said the previous night, his simple question had probably sounded to Cate like yet another accusation. “I’m going to pick Lola up from Mum’s.”
Kian looked at his watch; it wasn’t even 7am. “It’s still early, she won’t be awake yet.” Ever since she was a newborn, Lola had always liked her sleep.
Cate shrugged, “I don’t mind waiting.”
He’d expected her to still be angry with him but she was so quiet and still, it was like she’d retreated into herself. “I’m so sorry for what I said last night, angel.” He didn’t like seeing her so closed off; she wouldn’t even look at him. “I’ve boug
ht you some things.”
He reached into the carrier bag and handed Cate the packet of ginger biscuits. “I know they helped when you were pregnant with Lo.”
“Thank you,” Cate said quietly, still looking down at the carpet. “I’ll put them away.” Kian followed her into the kitchen. He ached with how much he wanted to hold her.
“I got you these as well.” Kian handed her the bouquet of purple and white freesias. “They’re your favourites, aren’t they?” He realised as he handed them to her that he didn’t buy her flowers nearly often enough. Although she was married to a Premier League footballer, Cate had never been obsessed with material things. But that didn’t mean that she didn’t deserve to be spoiled.
“They are,” Cate brought the large bouquet up to her nose and inhaled their sweet fragrance. “They’re beautiful, thank you.”
“I really am sorry, Cate.”
Kian reached out, knowing that he had no right to but needing to touch her anyway but she quickly stepped back, banging her hip on the edge of the kitchen counter.
“Angel?”
“I’d, um… I’d better go.” She rushed to the front door, almost tripping over the shopping bags Kian had discarded by the front door, in her haste to get away from him.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s really early,” Cate said when her mum, Irene opened the front door.
The cul-de-sac was so still and quiet that she’d almost felt like apologising for the intrusive sound of her car’s engine as she’d parked up in front of her childhood home. Even though they were currently in the midst of a mini-heatwave in the north-west of England, the grass on the front lawn was still damp with dew because the sun hadn’t risen high enough yet to dry it off.
Fortunately, it didn’t look like Irene had just woken up; she was dressed in a pink and black sports bra and matching leggings and had a towel slung around her neck.
It had been really sweet of Kian to buy the ginger biscuits and her favourite flowers but she was still so hurt by what he’d accused her of the previous night that Cate just couldn’t tolerate being in the house with him for even a minute longer than necessary.
“Don’t worry about it,” Irene reassured her. “I’ve been awake for a couple of hours already. You know how antsy I get if I stay in bed past 5am. I was just catching up on some e-mails and running on the treadmill.”
She looked down at her watch, “I’ve actually got a couple of calls I need to make. Are you going to be OK down here by yourself?”
“That’s fine, you go ahead,” Cate insisted. She reached for the banister at the bottom of the stairs, “I’m going to go upstairs and check on Lo.”
“I think she and Liv slept downstairs last night,” Irene said.
“Oh, OK.”
Her heart might still have been hurting but she had to smile when she went downstairs to the basement and saw that Lola and Liv had built a blanket fort just like she and Liv had done so many times when they were younger. She peeled back the sheet and her two favourite people in the whole world right now were fast asleep inside the fort. There were DVD boxes and an empty bag of popcorn scattered on the carpet in front of the TV and Liv’s hair was tied up in lots of different plaits. It looked like they’d had so much fun at their sleepover.
“Hey,” Liv said groggily. “What time is it?”
“It’s still early,” Cate reassured her, kneeling down in front of the fort.
Liv scratched her head but her fingers got snarled up in one of her Bjork-style braids.
“Thanks for looking after her last night,” Cate gestured towards Lola, who was still snuggled up against Liv’s side.
“I know in the past we’ve banned this question but are you OK, sis? You still look like crap,” Liv mouthed the last word.
“Yeah, I think I’m still in shock about the whole you know…”
“Up the duffness?”
“Yeah,” Cate smiled, “and then Kian and I had a bit of a… disagreement last night.”
“Hence why you’re over here at silly o’clock instead of enjoying a lazy, child-free morning with your hubby?”
“Yup.”
“Mummy,” Lola stretched out, wiggling her little, pink-socked toes, “you’re here.”
“I am, sweetheart,” Cate grinned, “I just couldn’t stay away, I missed you too much.”
“Do you like our fort?” Lola asked.
“I love it.”
“Come inside and lie down with us.”
“OK,” Cate kicked off her shoes and climbed inside the fort. It felt so good to pretend to be Lola’s age again for a minute and just forget all about her adult-sized worries.
“I’m just going to nip upstairs to the bathroom,” Liv clambered out of the fort.
“You’re not going to take your braids out, are you?” Lola asked.
“Of course not, Lola Bear,” Liv promised, “I love them so much, I’m going to keep them in all day.”
After she’d gone, Cate said to Lola, “It looks like you and Auntie Liv had lots of fun last night.”
“We did,” Lola nodded, “I always have fun with Auntie Liv.”
“You’re avoiding going home, aren’t you?” Liv asked Cate later that morning. They were sat on a wooden bench watching Lola in the fenced off children’s playground at the Memorial Park.
“Kind of…” Cate admitted, taking a sip of tea. “Kian must have seen me coming out of the clinic yesterday and he thought that I’d had an A-B-O-R-T-I-O-N without telling him.”
“So of course when he came home you had a nice, calm conversation about it and sorted everything out, right?”
“Not exactly,” Cate’s lips twitched with a smile. “He slept on the daybed in the back porch last night.”
“You two have been married for six years; you’ve already got one child and another…”
“Burrito,” Cate interrupted, nodding at Lola.
“… another burrito on the way and you are the absolute worst at just sitting down and talking to each other.”
“I know but…”
“No,” Liv insisted, “did you at least tell him the truth?”
“Kind of.” Liv narrowed her eyes at Cate. “I told him that we were having a burrito.”
“But you didn’t tell him the real reason you were at the clinic yesterday?”
“No.”
“Cate!”
“I’ll tell him eventually but I was just so hurt that he’d accuse me of doing something like that and not telling him about it. He was so freaking angry with me.”
“I didn’t know that Kian was so pro-life.”
“He’s not,” Cate insisted. “I mean, we’ve had conversations about it in the past, you know if it’s been in the news or something like that, and he definitely respects a woman’s right to choose. I have no doubts about that. I think what made him so angry is that he thought I’d done it without even talking to him about it first.”
“I guess I can understand that. If he hadn’t caught you coming out of the clinic yesterday, when were you going to tell him about the whole burrito situation?”
“I don’t know, maybe last night after Lola had gone to sleep? I wasn’t purposely keeping it from him, you know? I tried calling him when I was driving home from the clinic yesterday but his phone went straight to voicemail, I thought that he must still have been travelling back from Zagreb.”
“Tell me the truth, do you really want this burrito, sis? Because the very first thing most women in your situation would have done after the doctor told them that they were having a burrito was call up their husband and tell him the happy news.”
“I guess…” Cate took another sip of tea, to give her a couple of seconds to organise her thoughts. “I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster right now, like sometimes I’m so freaking happy that I could cry and then I start thinking about all the things that could go wrong.” She looked over at the playground where Lola was happily clambering up a spider’s web of blue ropes. “I want this burrito
because it’s a part of me and Kian but I don’t feel that bond yet that I felt straight away with Lo. I love her so much, what if I don’t have any love left over for this new burrito?”
“You were so young when you had Lo that the two of you have a really special bond but that doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to love this new little one just as much but in a different way. Look at Mum, I don’t think that she loves Remy or Ben any more than she does you.”
“I guess…”
Cate leaned over and gave her sister a big hug. “What’s that for?” Liv laughed.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, sis. You have this way of always making me feel so much better about everything.”
“Auntie Liv,” Lola came running over to them, “please will you push me on the swings?”
The playground was empty so Cate sat on the swing next to Lola’s while Liv pushed her higher and higher making her kick her little legs and squeal with delight.
“So what are you plans for the rest of the weekend?” Cate asked. She’d twisted up the chains of the swing and when she lifted her feet up, it spun around making her feel a little dizzy.
“Not much, I might meet up with a friend for breakfast tomorrow. They’ve been out of town for a while so it’ll be nice to catch up.”
“That sounds fun. Who is it?”
“I don’t think you know her. She’s called Taylor, we used to work together.”
CHAPTER 4
That night they’d already arranged to have dinner with their friends, Sara and Yoakey at Fiore in Manchester city centre. Yoakey was one of Kian’s team-mates at Rovers.
When they arrived at the Italian restaurant, the hostess looked uncomfortable. “You’re a few minutes early?”
Kian frowned, “is there a problem?”
“No,” the hostess flushed, “your table’s ready. It’s just…”