Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Flirt
Chasing Hope Series
Book One
By Lavinia Leigh
Flirt
Copyright © 2017 by Lavinia Leigh.
All rights reserved.
First Print Edition: July 2017
Limitless Publishing, LLC
Kailua, HI 96734
www.limitlesspublishing.com
Formatting: Limitless Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1-64034-164-7
ISBN-10: 1-64034-164-1
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
For Debbie, who planted the seeds.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
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Chapter One
Garlic bread and chili were on the menu in the cafeteria, and the smell turned Emmeline’s stomach, sending her hurtling back to the bathroom for the second time that day. No one told her morning sickness would last well into the afternoon nearing the middle of her ninth month. The irony of the misnomer taunted her, adding another sting every time she felt her stomach lurch. She rubbed her belly as she came out of the bathroom, and found Nicholas still waiting for her outside with a bottle of ginger ale. With a grateful look at him, she grabbed the bottle and took a big sip.
“What would I do without you?” The nausea was slowly ebbing away, but the baby, heavy in her belly, was doing somersaults. “Oh, little one,” she muttered, wishing she could find some level of comfort.
“Is she kicking?” Nicholas asked, placing his hand on her stomach. He was always asking her questions. Was she okay? What was the baby doing? What could he do to help?
“Why are you so sure it’s a girl?” Emmeline asked, grinning.
“Because I just know. Besides, I want a girl. I want one who looks just like you, with your big blue eyes and that little mole on your cheek.” A goofy smile crossed his face as he passed his hands through his rich dark hair. Emmeline loved it when he did that; it sent chills up her spine. No wonder she ended up pregnant.
“Yes! A baby girl!” Callum popped up between them, wrapping his arms around their shoulders. He was Nicholas’s best friend, known schoolwide as a terrible flirt, and surprisingly tall. “How’s my little girl doing?” he asked, leaning in low to kiss Emmeline’s stomach.
“Listen!” said Nicholas, playfully rehashing a scene they had gone through a thousand times. “That’s my baby in there!”
“A guy can dream, right?” Callum winked.
“Yes, and only in your dreams!” Emmeline was so used to this, she surprised herself by even responding.
“Are you ready for the test, Nicky?” Callum asked.
“Don’t remind me!” Nicholas breathed out heavily. “It was so busy at work last night, I hardly got a chance to study.”
The words ate at Emmeline, who already felt guilty. The entire reason he was working so many hours was because of her and the baby. The last thing she wanted was for his marks to suffer on top of everything else. Thankfully, Nicholas was smart and usually found a way to keep up with his assignments, which always astounded her. These days, simply putting on her shoes seemed to require more brain power than she cared to muster.
“Ah, knowing you, you’ll ace it without even cracking a book.” Callum’s mossy green eyes darted away, sparkling as he noticed a short-skirted brunette walk by. Emmeline couldn’t remember her name, but smirked as the girl’s cheeks flushed under Callum’s much-sought-after attention. Emmeline remembered when she felt like that about Callum. It seemed like a million years ago, and she never let anyone know—not even her best friend Ginny.
“Here’s hoping. I’ll see you up there,” Nicholas said.
As Callum strutted off to class, Emmeline saw him link arms with another girl, who giggled the moment he touched her. Emmeline turned to Nicholas, her mind full. Callum was an easy distraction, but even his silliness couldn’t push her th
oughts away from the baby today. “How can you be so relaxed? I spend most of my time being terrified,” she confessed, gulping down a breath. “You just take this all in stride, like it’s no big deal. Not even a test you’re unprepared for fazes you.”
“Listen, I’m not an idiot. A baby is a big deal, and the timing isn’t exactly ideal.” He paused for a moment, and Emmeline sucked in a breath. At the back of her mind, she was always fearful that he was going to turn and run. “But, this is my baby, and I’m going to do everything I can for her,” Nicholas continued. “As for the rest of it, we’ll get through it. We’ll find a way.” The last few words he over-pronounced in a staccato fashion. Emmeline appreciated his confidence and determination. It made her feel better, as if she could almost believe him.
“Well, you can spend as much time with him and her as you want.” Emmeline scrunched up her nose as she heard the scrambled words escape from her mouth.
“Twins now!” he teased.
“No, I meant him or her! I wish for once I would say what I mean instead of what just comes out. This pregnancy seems to make it so much worse!”
“It’s adorable.”
“Don’t patronize me,” Emmeline said, and playfully pursed her lips together.
He reached over, grabbed her hand, and then kissed her on the nose. “Well, it is. I better go. See you after chem class, okay?”
“Sure. Good luck!” She held on to his hand until the last second as he turned the corner to go up the stairs. All morning, she hadn’t quite felt like herself, and admittedly was acting a little clingy. Who could blame her? She had seen the sideway judgy looks a few girls had given her in the hall earlier that morning, saving the googly eyes for him. She knew why they looked at him like that. Every time he walked into the room, he made her heart skip a beat—even now. But the fact that they were judging her and not him was annoying.
Fortunately, not everyone treated her like a pariah. A lot of people in her school had been supportive, even if that support had some shades of pity to it. Still, she couldn’t help but let it get to her sometimes. While the other girls looked like dreams in their private school uniforms, in their short greenish-blue kilts and white blouses unbuttoned as low as they dared to emphasize their perky boobs, Emmeline’s giant stomach barely fit between her chair and the desk. They didn’t even have a uniform available to accommodate her current blossoming form, so she was free to wear whatever she liked, which just made her condition all the more obvious.
Emmeline joined Ginny, her totally put-together best friend, in the hallway, and they walked the rest of the way to English class, chatting. Emmeline still felt uncomfortable, and Ginny put her arm around her, rubbing her back. Between the snarky looks, the nausea, and the anxious feeling settling into her gut, Emmeline couldn’t wait for this day to be over.
They sat down in their normal seats, side by side in the middle row of the classroom, and their teacher began his lesson a few minutes later on whatever he was teaching. Emmeline couldn’t be quite sure exactly what it was. Her mind refused to concentrate. A worrisome ache started in her back and refused to go away no matter how she tried to sit on the old wooden seats.
“Ms. Hope, the blackboard is this way,” her professor grumbled halfway through the class as he tapped the board.
She tried to smile and straightened so she was facing more forward, hoping he would turn his attention to someone else, but a sharp pain blindsided her, threatening to tear her in two, and she gasped.
Ginny’s head shot round, her eyes going to Emmeline as she called out.
Oh God, what’s happening? This can’t be it! There were still two weeks to her due date, and Emmeline had been praying all along that she wouldn’t give birth until the end of the school year at Clifton Hill. If everything went according to plan, she would just make it.
“No, not now,” she begged quietly, wrapping her arms around her stomach. “You can’t be coming now.”
Ginny jumped up from her desk and started to collect her things.
“Miss Waddell, sit down!” the professor ordered. He was wearing an oversized eighties-patterned sweater that pilled badly. It was decidedly out of place in the private school, with its stately architecture and the other teachers who were as impeccably dressed as one would expect.
Ginny started to argue with him as Emmeline let a small sob escape her lips. The pain started somewhere around her knees and shot all the way up her back. She instinctively doubled, whacking her head on the desk. She was sure it was going to leave a bruise, not a good way to start her life as a mom. She groaned.
The entire class stared at her, jaws open.
“Ms. Hope, this is a classroom, not a circus. Would you please keep it down!” ordered the professor, who seemed to barely tolerate Emmeline’s presence in his class these days.
“Can’t you see she’s going into labour?” Ginny shot back.
“You and I both know that she’s not due until sometime this summer.” He looked triumphant, like he’d just crushed a mosquito that bit him.
“Apparently the baby isn’t aware of that.”
“Ginny,” Emmeline moaned. Little beads of sweat were breaking out on her forehead, and her heart constricted as her professor continued to dig in his heels, refusing to admit they needed to go.
“Listen,” Ginny started in again, “you don’t need to go out of your way to punish her. It’s not like she was the first girl in high school to get pregnant, and she won’t be the last. Now, whether you like it or not, we’re leaving.” Ginny turned her back on their professor. She sent a girl in the front row to tell Nicholas to meet them at the office, then helped Emmeline into the hallway.
Emmeline smiled weakly at Ginny. “Remind me to ground this child as soon as it’s born. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen.”
“Will do.”
“I’m not ready for this.” Emmeline took several shallow breaths. She clenched her jaw and rolled the muscles in her neck and back. It’s too soon, she thought, remembering the half put together crib in her bedroom. She walked stiffly, leaning on Ginny, hoping that this could be false labor. All the books she’d read said that often people mistook it for the real thing.
“You may not be ready, but it looks like this baby is,” said Ginny in her regular no-nonsense way. Her short, sassy pixie cut suited her perfectly. She was known as the kind of person who took life by the balls in one hand and came out swinging with the other. Ginny had been there, glued to her side, from the moment Emmeline first found out she was pregnant. It was Ginny who tore Nicholas a new one when he broke up with Emmeline minutes after he learned about the baby. They went from thick as thieves to strangers within the space of time it took to say, “I’m pregnant.” He’d been a complete jerk about the whole thing for the first couple of weeks, to the point of insisting Emmeline was lying.
For an entire month, after she broke the news, Nicholas avoided her like the plague. Devastated, Emmeline sobbed so hard at times she could barely come up for air. She couldn’t bring herself to accept that she would have to raise her baby all on her own. Once Ginny knocked some sense into Nicholas, he finally admitted how scared he was. After that, he did a complete turn around and apologised for being an insensitive idiot, embarrassed for treating Emmeline the way he did. Since then, he spent every minute trying to make it up to her, tending to her every whim or her cravings for Egg McMuffins at three in the afternoon, carrying around ginger ale with him wherever he went. He even convinced the cafeteria ladies to let him stockpile Emmeline’s favorite treats in the school’s fridge so that he’d always be prepared.
Nicholas had an irresistible presence, one that left you longing for more. Unlike Callum, he was calm and focused. He had a charisma people remembered, even if they had only spoken to him for a minute or two. This meant he got away with murder in the school, and pretty much the entire community for that matter. They loved him.
The walk to the office seemed like it took an eternity. Her old life was
flashing before her eyes, and she still couldn’t make sense of her new one that was about to begin. She tried to keep her tears from falling. She was scared. How am I going to do this? The pain was so much worse than she had expected, and labor was just beginning.
As an only child, Emmeline had no experience with kids. She didn’t have the foggiest clue what to do; even after reading stacks of books, she still didn’t feel prepared. Getting pregnant had been a shock only six months after she and Nicolas started dating, and after how horribly things had gone with him, she’d had a really difficult time telling anyone else. Her parents were so rigid and worried about appearances, and her becoming pregnant was the worst thing they could have imagined.
As they turned the corner next to the office, she saw Nicholas waiting for her, pacing in front a set of dark blue wing-back chairs.
“The baby, she’s coming, isn’t she?” he asked as he put his arms around Emmeline. She nodded, noticing how unusually sweaty his palms were. “We can do this,” he said. His confidence made Emmeline momentarily feel better until an unbearable pain shot up her spine, almost making her fall to her knees. Her stomach turned again, and she felt dizzy.
“Stay with her, Ginny, I’m getting my car,” commanded Nicholas as Ginny motioned for the school principal to come over. She nodded to him and led Emmeline toward the front door.
“I can take you to the hospital,” volunteered Principal Senlit. The kindness in her face was unmistakable. Emmeline appreciated how supportive she had been since she found out about her pregnancy; she was always encouraging Emmeline to stay in school and helping wherever she could. “Or would you rather wait for us to call your parents?”
“Nicholas has gone to bring his car around front,” said Ginny.
The principal took a step back and eyed Ginny suspiciously. “Is he in any shape to take her?”
“I think so; he’s been preparing for this day for months.”
Emmeline pictured the trunk of Nicolas’s sports car, where diapers, sleepers, her extra clothes, and a pile of other things he had collected were crammed in, ready for this precise moment.
Flirt (Chasing Hope Book 1) Page 1