Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets

‘I’m shattered. I can’t get up yet,’ she murmured to Pete, snuggling up against him, savouring the warmth of his solid body next to hers. It was a chilly morning and she couldn’t face braving the cold and stripping off for her shower.

‘Five minutes more,’ Pete said sleepily, pulling her close to him.

Emma’s body fitted into the curve of his, spooned against him. Pete slid one hand under her T-shirt to caress her bare skin. It wasn’t an erotic gesture, more of a comforting, loving one. Emma snuggled closer to him, enjoying the feeling of his warm hands stroking her.

Pete’s fingers found the curve of one breast. He stroked her softly, fingers splaying out over the sensitive skin of her nipples, skin that seemed suddenly very tender.

‘Have you been doing those bust exercises again?’ Pete teased gently. ‘You’re getting very bosomy in your old age.’

‘What?’ asked Emma, feeling as if she’d been doing a jigsaw puzzle and it had all begun to fall into place. She sat up in the bed, barely noticing the cool of the room compared to the cosiness under the duvet.

‘Only teasing,’ Pete said hastily. ‘You just felt bigger, that’s all.’

‘B-but…they are bigger,’ Emma stuttered, ripping her T-shirt off to stare down at her chest. She touched herself; there was no doubt about it: her breasts looked bigger and they felt different. Sensitive, almost painfully sensitive.

‘Are they bigger?’ she demanded.

Pete sat up too and looked at her. ‘They don’t look that different, but they feel bigger,’ he said. ‘Why?’

Emma spoke calmly: ‘Bigger breasts and sensitive nipples are one sign of pregnancy.’

Pete grabbed her in excitement. ‘Emma!’ he yelled with delight.

‘No, hang on, Pete,’ she warned. ‘Let’s not make the same mistake I always make. I’ve been down this particular road before. Let’s check it out for sure before we start.’

Her heart thumping, she swung herself off the bed and went into the bathroom. At the bottom of the cabinet, hidden in an old toilet bag, was a pregnancy tester.

‘Where did you get that?’ asked Pete, leaning against the bathroom door.

‘From an earlier, obsessed version of my life,’ she said wryly.

Together, they read the instructions. One pink dot meant you weren’t pregnant, two meant you were.

‘Let’s hope for two pink dots,’ Pete said earnestly, his eyes shining.

Emma hugged him. ‘Let’s do it.’

When she’d peed on the tester, they left it on the bathroom floor, then sat on the edge of the bed and cuddled. They were both too uptight to shower or dress. Emma couldn’t look at her watch because the seconds went so slowly. Three minutes the box said; the longest three minutes of her life.

‘It’s ready,’ Pete said finally, staring at his watch. They both stayed on the bed as if glued to it.

‘I can’t look,’ Emma said huskily. ‘I can’t. I’ve wanted this for so long, I can’t bear it.’

He held her so tightly it hurt. Emma could feel Pete’s heart beating through the thin fabric of his T-shirt. He was as tense as she was, every muscle strained with waiting and longing.

‘I’ll look,’ he said manfully.

She nodded tightly, afraid to speak in case she broke down.

Slowly, Pete went into the bathroom and picked up the tester.

Emma waited, breath held. He was an age. She watched his broad back as he stood with the tester in one hand.

‘Pete?’ she said.

‘Two pink dots!’ he roared and turned so she could see the tears streaming down his face. ‘Two dots! Emma, my love, we’re going to have a baby!’

Leonie had to use her sleeve to wipe the tears away.

‘That’s so wonderful, Emma,’ she said tearfully. ‘I’m so very happy for both of you.’

‘Thank you,’ Emma said, beaming. ‘I just had to tell you. We’re keeping it to ourselves for a few months. The doctor says I’m six weeks along, so I think we’ll make it public in another six. I’m so happy, I have to stop myself smiling all the time or people will think I’m some sort of idiot on drugs.’

‘Smile as much as you want to,’ Leonie advised, ‘you deserve to. When are you pair coming down here for the celebration dinner?’

‘Probably next month,’ Emma giggled, ‘because Pete has set himself a schedule of doing up the house, and especially the nursery, that would exhaust the most ardent DIY person. He’s already bought paint and wallpaper for the nursery.’

Leonie laughed delightedly.

‘Why don’t you and Doug come to us for dinner next weekend?’ Emma urged.

‘We’d love to. It’s a pity Hannah won’t be there,’ Leonie added. ‘We could have a proper Egypt reunion then.’

‘I feel so guilty about Hannah,’ Emma said. ‘I couldn’t cope when she got pregnant with Claudia and I wasn’t very nice to her. The night you phoned me saying she’d had Claudia, I got plastered,’ she admitted. ‘Pete had to literally put me to bed.’

‘Hannah understood how you felt,’ Leonie said kindly. ‘She knew how much you longed for a baby. Anyway,’ she added briskly, ‘that’s all behind us now. The next question is: when are you and I going shopping for pregnancy clothes?’

Emma sighed with happiness. ‘What are you doing next Saturday?’

CHAPTER THIRTY (#ulink_36359b86-9081-563d-aa79-6ecdcccfd231)

On Tuesday, the movers took four hours to pack everything up, stopping only for one tea break and a packet of biscuits. They were so efficient, although when she’d phoned first thing on Monday morning to book them, she’d impressed upon them that speed was of the essence. If they thought it was odd to be hired at such short notice, nobody said anything. Probably they’d been there for many marriage break-ups, Hannah thought wryly.

She was maudlin as she remembered how happily she’d packed her belongings up seven months before, when she’d been so sure that she and Felix had a glorious future ahead of them. Now the only thing they shared was Claudia. Poor darling Claudia. Hannah had never meant her to be the product of a broken home. She knew how hard Donna had worked to look after little Tania on her own, and how tough it had been for Leonie. Single parents didn’t get an easy time. But it was better to be single and have respect for yourself than stay married and grow slowly more resentful as the years went on. It could only be good for Claudia this way. At least she’d never see her parents hating each other, having affairs in retaliation and bitching about the other one behind their back.

The moving lorry was only half-way down the road when Hannah made her final round of the house. She’d left Felix the bed, all his personal belongings, and the dining-room suite. He’d bought that. The couch, kitchen table and most of the ornaments, pictures, bookcases and table lamps had belonged to her. Michelle from next door had adopted the kitten. Hannah hadn’t thought she’d be able to manage a cat box as well as Claudia on the trip home and if she left the poor little thing, Felix would probably forget to feed it.

She rang for a taxi and twenty minutes later she was on her way to Heathrow, weighed down by two large suitcases, all Claudia’s baby paraphernalia, including her pushchair, and a rucksack. The taxi driver helped her into the cab with all her stuff, but at Heathrow, once he’d put it all on a trolley for her, she was on her own.

She remembered flying to Paris a month after Claudia had been born. It was a junket for Felix’s film, the one he’d been making in Ireland when they first met. They’d flown first class and there had been people helping all the time: the lovely stewardesses on the flight, and the film publicity people who all cooed at Claudia, petting her, asking to hold her and appearing thrilled when they were allowed to burp her. Insulated by love and helpers, Hannah had barely noticed the journey.

Today, she noticed every minute. Claudia bawled her head off during check-in and bawled even more when she caught sight of the security staff in their uniforms. Hannah’s plan to feed her and rock her to sleep for the flight receded into the distance as Claudia’s howls reverberated around the airport. Still dragging the pushchair, baby bag and rucksack, Hannah struggled along to the departure lounge where nobody wanted to hear a baby roar at the top of her voice.

‘Has Daddy been giving you lessons on projecting your voice?’ Hannah asked her daughter, when Claudia’s range extended all the way from gates 82 to 90.

She didn’t stop on the flight but continued to scream for the entire fifty-five minutes. Hannah managed to drink about a quarter of a glass of water before Claudia spilled it. ‘Please don’t cry, darling,’ Hannah begged, feeling like crying herself. This was a nightmare. Why did she think she could manage on her own? She should have phoned Leonie. She’d have flown to London to help her come home, and she’d have been there at the airport to meet her, smiling and beaming, with Doug happily by her side.

Only you had to be proud, didn’t you, Campbell? Hannah hadn’t told anyone she was coming home because she was too ashamed. Ashamed because they’d all been right and she’d been wrong. Emma had seen through Felix from the start. So had David James. Only dear blindly romantic Leonie had honestly thought true love could flower from true lust. Only Leonie and Hannah, of course. She’d fallen for that notion hook, line and sinker herself and now she had only herself to blame.