But there was no waiting. Within ten minutes she was gowned up and lying on the examination table with towels strategically placed. Then her gown was pulled up and her belly exposed and gelled. The probe pressed into her swollen tummy, pressure she didn’t need, but she was distracted by Dominic by her side, the dark cloud vanquished, now looking agonisingly anxious as he was asked to be patient for a few minutes before the monitor could be turned.
Dominic patient? She smiled at the contradiction in terms, smiled at his furrowed brow and dark, worried eyes.
He really cares, she thought, as the man she’d thought a mountain looked achingly vulnerable and for a moment, just a moment, she wished he cared that way for her, not merely for the unborn child inside her.
And jealousy snaked its twisted way through her heart. For this was Carla’s baby he was concerned for. This was Carla’s baby he wanted—the baby she’d never been able to have. Carla—the woman he had loved and lost.
And so help her, but she was jealous of her. Jealous of a dead woman. What kind of woman was she?
Tears pricked at her eyes as she uttered a silent apology to the innocent child lying inside her. Whatever else happened, at least she had been able to do this for him. For them both. At least she had been able to give him Carla’s child.
‘Is everything all right?’ he asked, his patience wearing thin.
The radiographer smiled. ‘Everything looks perfect. Your baby is doing everything right. I’ll show you in a moment. Do you want to find out what sex it is?’
The question hung in the air, and beside her Dominic asked, ‘What do you think?’
The question was so unexpected, it winded her. He was asking her? She didn’t care, did she? She wasn’t supposed to care or have an opinion. It was a baby. That was all she needed or wanted to know. Besides, did it matter? Surely any child of Dominic’s would be a gift, boy or girl…
‘It’s your baby, Dominic. It’s your choice.’
And he looked down at her, his eyes studying her face, questioning. ‘No,’ he decided. ‘Don’t tell us.’
The doctor nodded and the radiographer swivelled the screen so they could see. Angie studied her feet. She’d found the six-week scan amazing. There was her baby, she’d thought, a tiny jelly bean with a heartbeat. She’d been fascinated by the tiny life, simultaneously racked with guilt that she had never really wanted a child, terrified at the thought she wouldn’t love it enough.
But the baby had never been hers and it had been a strange, sweet relief she’d felt to discover that. Escape.
The men’s voices washed over her while she lay there, terrified all over again. The fascination was there—it was impossible to deny that part of her that wondered what this creature looked like, this thing growing inside her that treated her more and more to night time jabs and swishing tumbles that caught her unawares and took her breath away.
But the fear was back, bigger than ever. This time not that she would not love this child.
But that she would.
Her nerve-endings tingled with fear. She could not afford to love this child. She’d only managed to decorate the nursery out of sheer bloody-mindedness at Dominic not letting her get a job. She’d only managed by thinking of the baby as an abstract, not connecting it with this child contained within.
She could not afford to see it.
She could not afford to want it.
As far as she was concerned, this was merely a package she was delivering. A gift, if it came to that. It was never hers to keep.
‘Look, Angelina, can you see from there?’ The sheer joy in Dominic’s voice broke through her thoughts. ‘The baby’s sucking its thumb!’
And in spite of herself, in spite of the fear, Angie looked then, wanting to be part of his discovery, envying his joy. The picture was indistinct, shades of grey fading in and out, but she found sense in the shadows, and shape and even definition. And she found something else too as she gazed at the unborn child, something she’d been terrified of.
A yearning for that which could not be hers. She suddenly wanted the months to fly by so she could cradle the tiny infant in her arms, to kiss its soft downy cheek and hold it to her breast.