Lilly (Angel Series Book 3)

by Tracy Lorraine

  “Oh, you’re not—” Dr. Bennett starts looking at Dec, who is sat in the chair next to me, holding my hand.

  “No this is my twin brother. Apparently, it’s genetic.”

  “Oh of course, we’ve talked about that before. I’m so sorry, Lilly. No one ever told you that not being able to have kids was final. The evidence showed that it would be very unlikely, but not totally impossible. I have to say I’m very shocked, but obviously, the time was right.”

  “Or he has super sperm,” Dec helpfully chips in.

  I turn and glare at him while Dr. Bennett bites her lip to contain her smile.

  “Anyway, what happens next?” I ask, distracting both of them from their amusement.

  “Well, you’ve already had the scan, so I presume you know your predicted due date.”

  I hand over everything I was given at the hospital last night and we sit in silence as she reads it then taps the information into the computer.

  “Lilly, I know things aren’t easy right now. But clearly, this was meant to happen. I know it’s hard to believe after everything, but you need to embrace it and make the most of the next few months. No matter what happens with the father, life is going to get very…exciting for you.” She doesn’t need to tell me that; I’ve heard enough horror stories from my parents about how much work twins are.

  Before leaving the surgery, I book a midwife appointment for later that week, then Dec drives me home in my car.

  “You’re going to need a new car. This rust bucket isn’t any good for two babies,” he says, referring to my almost clapped out old Volkswagen Polo.

  I hear the words, but they don’t resister. Instead, I sit there with my arms wrapped around my middle as I think about how my life is about to change.

  Where am I going to live? Should I move home? How am I going to afford all the stuff I’m going to need? What about my career?

  Dec’s phone is ringing off the hook all the way home, so I convince him that I’m okay and that he can leave. He’s not happy about leaving me alone, but I can see he’s got a lot going on that he needs to deal with.

  “Honestly, Dec. I’ll be fine.”

  “And you’ll talk to Mum and Dad?”

  “Yes,” I say, but I have no idea when or where to even start that conversation.

  “Okay, I’ll ring you when I get back.”

  “Okay, love you.”

  “Love you too, Lilly. You look after yourself,” he says, gesturing to my belly before sliding his helmet on and swinging his leg over his bike.

  I stand there long after the sounds of his bike have faded. I feel like if I go inside, I’ve got all this stuff to think about and deal with. I realise that I can’t stand looking out over the car park forever though, and eventually head back up.

  I find my phone between two of the sofa cushions with a flat battery. It must have fallen down there and died while I was trying to get through to Lucas last night.

  I plug it in to the charger next to my bed and power it up. I’m hopeful that Lucas might have tried to get in touch, but I’m not surprised when the only voicemails and texts I see are from Dec, Imogen and Eve. I’d had loads of calls and texts from both Imogen and Eve after Lucas dragged me from the bar Friday night. I meant to get back to them; they must be going out of their minds wondering how I went from cleaning his room to dating him. But after his freak out that night and then everything else, I haven’t managed it.

  I go through them all and feel awful for not getting back them. I close down my messages and stare at the home screen. It’s a picture of Taylor and me from last summer. Before my life went down the pan. It suddenly starts ringing in my hand.

  “Oh my God,” I mutter to myself as I look at the caller. I should have been at work this morning. I never even gave it a thought.

  “Hello?” I don’t need to put on a sick sounding voice. I can already tell that my lack of sleep is making me sound rough.

  “Lilly, are you okay?” Hilary asks.

  “Yes, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t able to get to the phone,” I lie with ease.

  “Don’t worry about that. We were all so worried. Neither Eve or Imogen have been able to get hold of you, and then you didn’t show for work. We’ve been going crazy.” I feel awful—I didn’t even consider them in all of this.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m fine. I’ll be in tomorrow.”

  “As long as you’re well enough.”

  We chat for a few more seconds before we both hang up. I lie back on my bed and think about having to be inside Lucas’ suite at the hotel. The thought makes my stomach turn over and before I know what’s happening, I’m running to the toilet to be sick.

  I sit back against the cold tiles and let my head fall back with a light thud. “What am I going to do?”

  I don’t get a chance to ring Imogen and Eve back, because as soon as I leave the bathroom, the buzzer to the flat starts going crazy.

  I buzz them up and open the door for them. I head to the kitchen to kick-start the coffee machine, knowing they’ll want caffeine after their shift.

  “Lilly, what the fuck is going on? You have a lot of explaining to do, young lady,” Imogen announces as they enter the flat.

  I turn towards them and they both stop in their tracks.

  “Shit, what’s wrong?” Eve asks, starting to move again with her arms open. She wraps me in a hug and I burst into tears. Imogen follows suit, and that’s how Taylor finds us a few minutes later.

  “Oh, gang bang in the kitchen. Just my style, ladies,” he announces as he heads our way. That is, until the girls pull back and he gets a look at me.

  “Shit, chica.” He engulfs me in his arms and it’s almost as comforting as a hug from Dec.

  Taylor takes over coffee duty, seeing as he’s had Morrison training on how to use the machine, and I get ushered to the sofa.

  Imogen and Eve hold the questioning until Taylor joins us with three coffees and a pot of tea for me.

  “Go on then. And start from the beginning; we want to know how you ended up shagging the King.”

  I give them a basic run down of how that happened, while Taylor waits anxiously to find out the latest development.

  “Is he as good as everyone says?” Imogen asks.

  “I can’t speak for Lilly, because I wasn’t in the room. But it sounded fucking hot. He’s a machine,” Taylor answers for me.

  When they both turn to look at me, I’m tomato red. It’s clear I don’t need to add anything to Taylor’s statement.

  “So what’s happened to get you like this?” Taylor asks, skipping over the detail of sex with Lucas.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  “You’re what?” Taylor screeches in shock. He’s the only one in the room who understands the significance of my statement, but he’s loyal to the core and won’t say anything until the girls have left.

  “Oh my God! The King got you pregnant,” both Imogen and Eve say at the same time.

  “And it’s twins.”

  “Of course it is,” Taylor mutters as he takes a huge sip of his coffee, burning his mouth in the process. “I think I need something stronger than this.”

  “Lilly, how many cups of tea have you had?” Eve asks me when Taylor disappears.

  “Uh…” I think about the answer, but I haven’t really been keeping track. “Probably five or six today. Why?”

  “You need to cut down. You can’t have that much caffeine while you’re pregnant.”

  “I haven’t had any coffee,” I say, trying to make it sound better because I feel awful that it hadn’t occurred to me.

  “You are going to need decaffeinated tea, Lilly.” The look I give Eve in response must tell her exactly how I’m feeling. “It’s okay, hon, you’ll figure it out. You’ll be better than me. I was clueless when I was pregnant with Elissa, but I managed and she’s still alive and healthy,” she says with a laugh as she squeezes my shoulders in support. “Any questions you have, just ask. I think I got every symptom in the
book so I should have an answer for you.”

  Two hours later, Imogen and Eve leave. Taylor has been giving me the eye since my announcement earlier, so I know I’m in for another round of questions any minute. All I want to do though is collapse in my bed.

  “Go on then, explain,” he says, the second I’ve shut the door behind them.

  “I can’t really, Tay. I spoke to my doctor earlier and she said that no one ever said it was impossible, just unlikely. If I was aware there was any chance, we would have been using protection.”

  “I can’t believe the prick’s just disappeared on you. I knew he wasn’t good enough for you. Didn’t I say that?”

  “No. I’m pretty sure you were too busy staring at him to say much,” I say, trying to bring some humour into the conversation. It’s only been a day and I’m already fed up of being in this strange mood.

  “I’ll see if I can put off my job for a bit,” Taylor says when he comes back in with another drink each.

  “Don’t be stupid. You are not putting your life on hold because of my bad decisions.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

  “I’m not alone, I have those two nutters,” I say, gesturing to the door where Imogen and Eve left a while ago. “Plus my family. I’ll be fine.”

  Taylor nods, but I’m not sure he’s convinced. I’m going to need to prove to him that I can cope with this.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lilly

  “Where did this come from?” Hilary asks when she finishes reading the letter I just handed over.

  “It’s been coming. Now I’ve finished uni, it’s time to move on,” I say in the hope she believes me.

  I got up bright and early this morning so I could beat everyone else in. I didn’t want to see anyone. I wanted to do this and get out—preferably without having to see or even have Lucas’ name mentioned. The girls said yesterday that he wasn’t there, so I was hopeful.

  “We’re really going to miss you, Lilly.” Hilary says before giving me a hug. I feel myself tear up but I refuse to get emotional because that will lead to questions. I don’t need questions.

  I feel like I’m at a complete loose end when I walk out of the hotel I’ve worked at for the last two and a half years. I may not know what I’m going to do now, but I do know that it needs to not be working there, where I have constant reminders of Lucas and risk running into him. Handing my notice in with immediate effect wasn’t a decision that took too long to make.

  I walked out of that place with my head held high. I might not feel all that brave inside, but I wasn’t going to let anyone see that Lucas Dalton had broken me. I’m stronger and prouder than that. I’m a Morrison.

  I walk down the street from the hotel and order myself a decaf tea and a Danish pastry. The smell of coffee, like always, settles my nerves about what I just did. I find myself a seat in the back corner where I have little chance of anyone spotting me and pull my phone out. I send a group text to Imogen and Eve to meet me here after their shift. When I saw them yesterday I had no clue I was going to leave, so now I think I owe them an explanation. And I’m sure they’ll have a load more questions to fire at me.

  Deciding it’s probably about time to learn about this pregnancy thing, I pull up the app store on my phone. I remember Connie and Molly showing me one they had that tracked the baby’s progress, and it looked pretty helpful.

  I find what I want and download it before putting all my details in.

  I sit and look at the phone as it loads, and when an image appears of a baby, I have to fight the urge to puke. This is so surreal.

  I look through everything I can find and by the time I’m finished, my tea is stone cold, but I have a bit more of a clue as to what’s going on inside my body. I roughly know what size they should be and how developed they are, along with all the really exciting things I should be expecting from my body. Nausea, headaches, bleeding gums, a change in sexual desire—well, that happened from the moment I got up close and personal to Lucas. I can only hope that it will decrease again now he’s gone, because I’m going to have an issue otherwise.

  I feel the first waves of excitement about my pregnancy begin to bubble up as I sit and look at the app. So much so I decide to spend the rest of the morning while the girls are at work embracing it. I quickly eat my pastry and order another decaf tea to go before wandering down into town and looking around every shop that has either maternity or baby stuff in.

  I buy myself some maternity leggings and a couple of tops but I don’t go crazy. Reading the app, it looks like my little tadpoles are going to do some serious growing in the next few weeks so I think another shopping trip will be in order before long. I’m achingly aware of my financial situation though, so I’m hoping I may be able to borrow some stuff from Molly or Connie to make it a little easier. Just thinking about how much stuff the babies are going to need brings me out in a sweat, especially as I’ve just jacked in my only source of income. I ask myself for the millionth time what I’m doing, but just like all the other times, I don’t have an answer.

  I check the time on my phone and notice that Imogen and Eve should be finishing soon, so I grab my bags from the counter and begin walking back to the coffee shop. I stop at a cash point along the way to see how dire my situation is. I punch in my code and go to the balance area of the screen. I brace myself for how pathetic the amount is going to be, but when the figure appears my eyes nearly pop out of my head.

  “What on earth?”

  I cancel the transaction and pull my card out before marching inside the bank.

  “Hi,” I say in a rush when I get greeted by the assistant behind the glass screen. “I think there’s been some error made on my account. I just checked my balance and it’s got over twenty thousand pounds in it. I was expecting a couple of thousand at best.”

  “Okay, let’s have a look. Pop your card into the machine.” I do as I’m told and wait while she clicks around on her computer. “No, that seems to be correct, Miss Morrison. A payment was made into your account from an L Dalton about an hour ago, with a reference of babies.” I lean forward with my elbow on the small counter and put my face in my hands. “Are you okay, Madam?” the assistant asks.

  I lift my eyes and look at her though my fingers as I think about my answer. “Yes, I’m fine,” is what I go for in the end as I pull my card out and walk away.

  I don’t know why I’m so shocked really. I almost feel stupid for not expecting something like this. Lucas isn’t a horrible person. He wouldn’t allow me to struggle. His presence would be much better than his money, mind you. She said the money only went in an hour ago, so I’m presuming he already knows about my resignation.

  I find myself an empty bench outside the bank, pull my phone from my bag and dial his number. Just like all the other times, it goes straight to voicemail. Red smoke descends around me as his voice enters my brain.

  “Lucas,” I bark, sounding very unlike me, “you’d better ring me back when you get this. I’m outside the bank. What the hell do you think you’re playing at? You don’t get to just throw money at me in an attempt to clear your conscience. Money will not solve any of this. If you don’t want anything to do with me and your babies, then that’s fine, but at least have the decency to show your face and tell me in person. You don’t get to buy me off, Lucas. You are just as much to blame for this situation as I am, so stop running away.” I end the call with a sharp stab to my screen. I lower my hand and see that it’s shaking. I’m so angry with him. How dare he treat me like this?

  I’ve calmed down slightly when I get back to the coffee shop. I’m late though, so Imogen and Eve are already sat at a table with my tea. I plonk myself down in the seat and hold the mug in the palms of my hands, letting the heat soothe me.

  “What’s happened now, and why have you jacked your job in?”

  I explain to Imogen and Eve the best I can, but it’s hard when I really have no idea myself what I’m doing. They
both look concerned, but don’t question my decision.

  I pull into my space outside our building just as an ambulance pulls in. My nosiness gets the better of me and I sit and wait to see what’s going on. When I see paramedics wheel my elderly upstairs neighbour out of the back, I rush out of the car. Shelia has lived upstairs forever. I thought it had been quiet the last few days. I guess this explains it. As they turn the wheelchair around, I see that she has a cast on her leg.

  “Lilly, my dear, how are you?” she asks with a smile as I rush over.

  “I’m fine, what have you done?

  “Oh, I slipped in the bathroom a few days ago and broke my damn ankle. On the plus side though, I’ve had a lovely young nurse looking after me,” she says with a wink that makes me smile.

  Shelia and her husband never had any kids. She’s been alone since he died a few years ago. Taylor and I try to stop in and see her every now and then. I feel awful that I got swept away by Lucas and haven’t managed to see her.

  “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to come up and help get you settled in. Perhaps I can bake something for you?”

  “That would be lovely, dear.”

  I’m thrilled she says yes, because it means I’ll have something to focus on for the next few hours.

  The second I step into her flat, I realise that she might need a little more doing than just a pot of tea and a cake. The shock on my face must be evident as I look around, because Sheila cringes before saying, “Things have got a little on top of me recently.”

  I just about manage not to say, you’re telling me. Instead I go with, “We can get it sorted in no time.”

  I spend the afternoon making some space in her living room so she can sit comfortably before blitzing the kitchen. It’s a health hazard. By the time I’ve finished, every surface is gleaming and I’m brave enough to grab some ingredients from my flat and make Shelia her favourite lemon drizzle cake.