The Bridesmaid's Baby Bump

by Kandy Shepherd

  Eliza’s shoulders slumped, and when she looked up at him her eyes seemed weary and dulled by defeat. In colour more denim than sapphire.

  She took a deep breath and the rising of her chest showed him that her breasts were larger too. The dress she’d worn the previous night had hidden everything.

  ‘Yes, I’m pregnant. Yes, it’s yours. No, I won’t be making any claims on you.’

  Jake didn’t mean to blurt out his doubt so baldly, but out it came. ‘I thought you couldn’t conceive.’

  ‘So did I. That I’m expecting a baby came as a total surprise.’ She gestured for him to follow her. ‘Come in. Please. This isn’t the kind of conversation I want to have in the street.’

  The cottage had been gutted and redesigned into an open usable space, all polished floors and white walls. It opened out through a living area, delineated by carefully placed furniture, to a kitchen and eating area. Two black cats lay curled asleep on a bean bag, oblivious to the fact that Eliza had company. At the back, through a wall of folding glass doors, he saw a small courtyard with paving and greenery. A staircase—more sculpture than steps—led up to another floor. The house was furnished in a simple contemporary style, with carefully placed paintings and ornaments that at another time Jake might have paused to examine.

  ‘I need to sit down,’ Eliza said, lowering herself onto the modular sofa, pushing a cushion behind her back, sighing her relief.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Jake asked, unable to keep the concern from his voice. A sudden urge to protect her pulsed through him. But it was as if there was an invisible barrier flashing Don’t Touch around her. The dynamic between them was so different it was as if they were strangers again. He hated the feeling. Somehow he’d lost any connection he’d had with her, without realising how or why.

  She gave that same ineffectual wave she’d made the night before. It was as if she were operating at half-speed—like an appliance running low on battery. ‘Sit down. Please. You towering over me is making me feel dizzy.’

  She placed her hand on her bump in a protective gesture he found both alien and strangely moving.

  He sat down on the sofa opposite her. ‘Morning sickness?’ he asked warily. He wasn’t sure how much detail he’d get in reply. And he was squeamish about illness and female things—very squeamish.

  ‘I wish,’ she said. ‘It’s non-stop nausea like I couldn’t have imagined. All day. All night.’ She closed her eyes for a moment and shook her head before opening them again. ‘I feel utterly drained.’

  Jake frowned. ‘That doesn’t sound right. Have you seen your doctor?’

  ‘She says some women suffer more than others and nausea is a normal part of pregnancy. Though it’s got much worse since I last saw the doctor.’ She grimaced. ‘But it’s worth it. Anything is worth it. I never thought I could have a baby.’

  ‘So what happened? I mean, how—?’

  She linked her hands together on her lap. ‘I can see doubt in your eyes, Jake. I didn’t lie to you. I genuinely believed I was infertile. Sterile. Barren. All those things my ex called me, as if it was my fault. But I’m not going to pretend I’m anything but thrilled to be having this baby. I...I don’t expect you to be.’

  Jake had believed in Eliza’s honesty and integrity. She had sounded so convincing when she’d told him about her ruptured appendix and the damage it had caused. Her personal tragedy. And yet suddenly she was pregnant. Could a man be blamed for wanting an explanation?

  ‘So what happened to allow—?’ He couldn’t find a word that didn’t sound either clinical or uncomfortably personal.

  ‘My doctor described it as a miracle. Said that a microscopic-sized channel clear in a sea of scar tissue must have enabled it to happen. I can hardly believe it myself.’ A hint of a wan smile tilted the corners of her mouth. ‘Though the nausea never allows me to forget.’

  ‘Are you sure—?’

  She leaned forward. ‘Sure I’m pregnant? Absolutely. Up until my tummy popped out it was hard to believe.’ She stilled. Pressed her lips together so hard they became colourless. ‘You didn’t mean that, did you? You meant am I sure the baby is yours.’

  Her eyes clouded with hurt. Jake knew he had said inextricably the wrong thing. Though it seemed reasonable for him to want to be sure. He still thought it was reasonable to ask. They’d had a four-day fling and he hadn’t heard a word from her since.

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  Her face crumpled. ‘Yes, you did. For the record, I’ll tell you there was no one else. There had been no one else for a long time and has been no one since. But feel free to ask for a DNA test if you want proof.’

  He moved towards her. ‘Eliza, I—’

  Abruptly she got up from the sofa. Backed away from him. ‘Don’t come near me. Don’t touch me. Don’t quote your dating after divorce handbook that no doubt instructs you about the first question to ask of a scheming gold-digger trying to trap you.’

  ‘Eliza, I’m sorry. I—’

  She shrugged with a nonchalance he knew was an absolute sham.

  ‘You didn’t know me well at Port Douglas,’ she said. ‘I could have bedded a hundred guys over the crucial time for conception for all you knew. It’s probably a question many men would feel justified in asking under the circumstances. But not you of me. Not after I’d been straightforward with you. Not when we have close friends in common. A relationship might not have worked for us. But I thought there was mutual respect.’

  ‘There was. There is. Of course you’re upset. Let me—’

  ‘I’m not upset. I’m disappointed, if anything. Disappointed in you. Again, for the record, I will not ask anything of you. Not money. Not support. Certainly not your name on the birth certificate. I am quite capable of doing this on my own. Happy to do this on my own. I have it all planned and completely under control. You can just walk out that door and forget you ever knew me.’

  Jake had no intention of leaving. If indeed this baby was his—and he had no real reason to doubt her—he would not evade his responsibilities. But before he had a chance to say anything further Eliza groaned.

  ‘Oh, no. Not again.’

  She slapped her hand over her mouth, pushed past him and ran towards the end of the house and, he assumed, the bathroom.

  He waited for what seemed like a long time for her to do what she so obviously had to do. Until it began to seem too long. Worried, he strode through the living room to find her. That nagging sense that she needed him grew until it consumed him.

  ‘Eliza! Answer me!’ he called, his voice raw with urgency.

  ‘I...I’m okay.’ Her voice, half its usual volume, half its usual clarity, came from behind a door to his left.

  The door slowly opened. Eliza put one foot in front of the other in an exaggerated way to walk unsteadily out. She clutched the doorframe for support.

  Jake sucked in a breath of shock at how ashen and weak she looked. Beads of perspiration stood out on her forehead. He might not be a doctor, but every instinct told him this was not right. ‘Eliza. Let me help you.’

  ‘You...you’re still here?’ she said. ‘I told you to leave.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘There...there’s blood.’ Her voice caught. ‘There shouldn’t be blood. I...I don’t know what to do. Can you call Andie for me, please?’

  Jake felt gutted that he was right there and yet not the first person she’d sought to help her.

  She wanted him gone.

  No way was he leaving her.

  He took her elbow to steady her. She leaned into him and he was stunned at how thin she’d become since he’d last held her in his arms. Pregnant women were meant to put on weight, not lose it. Something was very wrong.

  Fear grabbed his gut. He mustn’t let her sense it. Panic would make it worse. She felt so
fragile, as if she might break if he held her too hard. Gently he lifted her and carried her to a nearby chair. She moaned as he settled her into it.

  She cradled her head in her hands. ‘Headache. Now I’ve got a headache.’ Her voice broke into a sob.

  Jake realised she was as terrified as he was. He pulled out his phone.

  ‘Call Andie...’ Her voice trailed away as she slumped into the chair.

  He supported her with his body as he started to punch out a number with fingers that shook. ‘I’m not calling Andie. I’m calling an ambulance,’ he said, his voice rough with fear.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WHEN ELIZA WOKE up in a hospital bed later that day, the first thing she saw was Jake sprawled in a chair near her bed. He was way too tall for the small chair and his long, blue-jeans-clad legs were flung out in front of him. His head was tilted back, his eyes closed. His hair looked as if he’d combed it through with his hands and his black T-shirt was crumpled.

  She gazed at him for a long moment. Had a man ever looked so good? Her heart seemed to skip a beat. Last time she had seen him asleep he had been beside her in his bed at Port Douglas on Day Three. She had awoken him with a trail of hungry little kisses that had delighted him. Now here he was in a visitor’s chair in a hospital room. She was pregnant and he had doubts that the baby was his. How had it come to this?

  Eliza had only vague memories of the ambulance trip to the hospital. She’d been drifting in and out of consciousness. What she did remember was Jake by her side. Holding her hand the entire time. Murmuring a constant litany of reassurance. Being there for her.

  She shifted in the bed. A tube had been inserted in the back of her left hand and she was attached to a drip. Automatically her hand went to her tummy. She was still getting used to the new curve where it had always been flat.

  Jake opened his eyes, sat forward in his chair. ‘You’re awake.’ His voice was underscored with relief.

  ‘So are you. I thought you were asleep.’ Her voice felt croaky, her throat a little sore.

  He got up and stood by her bed, looked down to where her hand remained on her tummy. The concern on his face seemed very real.

  ‘I don’t know what you remember about this morning,’ he said. ‘But the baby is okay. You’re okay.’

  ‘I remember the doctor telling me. Thank heaven. And seeing the ultrasound. I couldn’t have borne it if—’

  ‘You’d ruptured a blood vessel. The baby was never at risk.’

  She closed her eyes, opened them again. ‘I felt so dreadful. I thought I must be dying. And I was so worried for the baby.’

  ‘Severe dehydration was the problem,’ he said.

  She felt at a disadvantage, with him towering so tall above her. ‘I can see how that happened. I hadn’t even been able to keep water down. The nausea was so overwhelming. It’s still there, but nothing like as bad.’

  ‘Not your everyday morning sickness, according to your doctor here. An extreme form known as Hyperemesis gravidarum. Same thing that put the Duchess of Cambridge in hospital with her pregnancies, so a nurse told me.’

  He sounded both knowledgeable and concerned. Jake here with her? The billionaire bachelor acting nurse? How had this happened?

  ‘A lot of the day is a blur,’ she said. ‘But I remember the doctor telling me that. No wonder I felt so bad.’

  ‘You picked up once the doctors got you on intravenous fluids.’

  She raised her left wrist and looked up at the clear plastic bag hooked over a stand above. ‘I’m still on them, by the looks of it.’

  ‘You have to stay on the drip for twenty-four hours. They said you need vitamins and nutrients as well as fluids.’

  Eliza reeled at the thought of Jake conversing with the doctors, discussing her care. It seemed surreal that he should be here, like this. ‘How do you know all this? In fact, how come you’re in my room?’ Eliza didn’t want to sound ungrateful. But she had asked him to leave her house. Though it was just as well he hadn’t, as it had turned out.

  ‘I admitted you to the hospital. They asked about my relationship to you. I told them I was your partner and the father of the baby. On those terms, it’s quite okay for me to be in your room.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. She slumped back on the pillows. Their conversation of this morning came flooding back. How devastated she’d felt when he’d asked if she sure he was the father. ‘Even though you don’t actually think the baby is yours?’ she said dully.

  He set his jaw. ‘I never said that. I believed you couldn’t get pregnant. You brushed me off at the party. Didn’t tell me anything—refused to see me. Then I discovered you were pregnant. It’s reasonable I would have been confused as to the truth. Would want to be sure.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she conceded.

  It hurt that his first reaction had been distrust. But she had no right to feel a sense of betrayal—they’d had a no-strings fling. They’d been lovers with no commitment whatsoever. And he was a man who had made it very clear he never wanted children.

  ‘I believe you when you say the baby is mine, Eliza. It’s unexpected. A shock. But I have no reason to doubt you.’

  Eliza was so relieved at his words she didn’t know what to say and had to think about her response. ‘I swear you are the father. I would never deceive you about something so important.’

  ‘Even about the hundred other men?’ he said, with a hint of a smile for the first time.

  She managed a tentative smile in return. ‘There was only ever you.’

  ‘I believe you,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t want DNA testing to be certain? Because I—’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Your word is enough.’

  Eliza nodded, too overcome to say anything. She knew how he felt about mercenary gold-diggers. But the sincerity in his eyes assured her that he no longer put her in that category. If, indeed, he ever had. Perhaps she had been over-sensitive. But that didn’t change the fact that he didn’t want to be a father.

  ‘I don’t want to be a father—ever.’

  How different this could have been in a different universe—where they were a couple, had planned the child, met the result of her pregnancy test with mutual joy. But that was as much a fantasy as those frozen in time moments of him whirling her around in a waltz, when the future had still been full of possibilities for Eliza and Jake.

  Now here he was by her bedside, acting the concerned friend. She shouldn’t read anything else into his care of her. Jake had only done for her what he would have done for any other woman he’d found ill and alone.

  Eliza felt a physical ache at how much she still wanted him. She wondered—not for the first time—if she would ever be able to turn off her attraction to him. But physical attraction wasn’t enough—no matter how good the sex. A domineering workaholic, hardly ever in the same country as her, was scarcely the man she would have chosen as the father of her child. Though his genes were good.

  ‘Thank you for calling the ambulance and checking me in to the hospital,’ she said. ‘And thank you for staying with me. But can I ask you one more thing, please?’ Before we say goodbye.

  ‘Of course,’ he said.

  ‘Can you ask the hospital staff to fix their mistake with my room?’ She looked around her. The room was more like a luxurious hotel suite than a hospital room. ‘I’m not insured for a private room. They’ll need to move me to a shared ward.’

  ‘There’s been no mistake,’ he said. ‘I’ve taken responsibility for paying your account.’

  Eliza stared at him. ‘What? You can’t do that,’ she said.

  ‘As far as the hospital is concerned I am the baby’s father. I pay the bills.’

  Eliza gasped. This wasn’t right. She needed to keep control over her pregnancy and everything involved with it. ‘That was a nic
e gesture, but I can’t possibly accept your offer,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t have a choice,’ he said. ‘It’s already done.’

  Eliza had never felt more helpless, lying in a hospital bed tied up to a drip and monitors. It wasn’t a feeling she was used to. ‘Jake, please don’t make me argue over this.’ She was feeling less nauseous, but she’d been told she had to avoid stress and worry as well as keep up fluids and nourishment. ‘What happened to you keeping your credit cards in your wallet when it comes to me?’

  ‘You can’t have it both ways, Eliza. You want me to acknowledge paternity? That means I take financial responsibility for your care. It’s not negotiable.’

  This was the controlling side of Jake that had made her wary of him for more than a no-strings fling. ‘You don’t make decisions for me, Jake. I will not—’

  At that moment a nurse came into the room to check on Eliza’s drip and to take her temperature and blood pressure. Jake stepped back from the bed and leaned against the wall to let the nurse get on with what she needed to do.

  ‘She’s looking so much better now than when you brought her in,’ the nurse said.

  ‘Thankfully,’ said Jake. ‘I was very worried about her.’

  Eliza fumed. The nurse was addressing Jake and talking about her as if she was some inanimate object. ‘Yes, I am feeling much better,’ she said pointedly to the nurse. But Jake’s smile let her know he knew exactly what was going on—and found it amusing. Which only made Eliza fume more.

  ‘That’s what we want to hear,’ said the nurse with a cheerful smile, seemingly oblivious to the undercurrents.

  She was no doubt well meaning, but Eliza felt she had to assert herself. It was her health. Her baby. Under her control. ‘When can I go home?’ Eliza asked.

  The nurse checked her chart. ‘You have to be on the intravenous drip for a total of twenty-four hours.’

  ‘So I can go home tomorrow morning?’