The time had come to furnish it. Upstairs would be the nursery. One of the bedrooms would be for us, with a crib in there for the first few months, and then the baby would have a bedroom here. Eventually this would be their floor, or maybe Claire would move up here if it was a girl, or Claire might swap so we had a boy floor and a girl floor. Those were all decisions for later.
Footsteps behind me caught me by surprise. A scent I recognised that still made my heart flutter filled the room.
“I didn’t think you were home until later.” I turned around to see Grant, tie already off, head tipped to one side, eyeing me like a bomb that was potentially about to go off.
“Your secretary told me you’d gone for an appointment. I figured it wasn’t a massage.” He folded his arms. “Care to tell me?”
“I had an appointment at the doctors and I had confirmation of what I thought.” I smiled at him, trying hard to maintain some composure.
“Really?” He raised a brow.
We’d been trying for three months and he’d been surprised when I hadn’t got pregnant straight away. Then worried. Then upset on my behalf even though I was confident that it was just taking time rather than there being an issue.
“Really. I’m pregnant. Congrats. More mouths to feed.” It’d been a standing joke. Max had grown a lot the last six months and was eating enough to fill two children as it was.
He moved to me, pulling me into his arms, which was my favourite place to be, no matter where in the world we were.
“We made a baby.” His words were rough, emotion weaved into them. “When’s your next appointment?”
“A scan in six weeks. Do you want to come with me?” I wasn’t sure if he would.
He nodded, holding me tighter. “Damn right. When shall we tell the kids?”
“After the scan. Let’s keep it to ourselves until then. Do you think they’ll be pleased?” I was nervous about this. I didn’t want them to think we were trying to replace them or they’d be pushed out of the way.
“Yes. I do. I think they’ll be fine on the whole. Callum will have to get used to not being the baby.” He looked wistful, his mind elsewhere for a moment. “And it’s going to be different this time.”
“It will be different. None of us are the people we were when you first came to New York. The kids included.” They’d changed, grown up a little. Max was more independent, still terrible at accepting help. Jackson was more confident, talkative. Claire was fully adept at holding her own with two big brothers whowould happily gang up on her but then she got her revenge, which was quite scary actually.
And Callum. Callum would always be my baby, even if I hadn’t birthed him. I was his favourite person in the world, and when he was home he’d forever be wanting to show me what he was making or playing with. We were working on patience at the moment, always a difficult thing to learn.
His father was still at the beginning of learning it.
“The next time will be too.” Grant’s eyes twinkled.
“Let’s put a next time on hold until this one. Increasing to five’s going to take some adjusting to.” I patted his chest. “I think we should go and look for furniture for this room.”
He frowned. “Really?”
“Really. I’m going to make the most of you not being in work and your parents picking the kids up from school. Come on, make me happy.”
He shook his head slowly. “There are other ways of doing that.”
“If you’re lucky, I’ll let you try those too. Chop chop.”
Another shake of his head but he went along with it anyway.
The scan rocked our world and tilted it on its axis when it came. We’d both taken the whole day off work, walking the children to school and taking Callum to nursery, giving our hard-working au pair the morning off. Then we’d walked along the river towards the hospital, enjoying the feeling of being deaf because no one was shouting at us or shouting at each other or Claire trying to murder her brothers.
Grant hadn’t been to a scan before. Rachael had gone with her sister as he’d been in London at work, a mistake he knew he’d made and didn’t want to repeat. That lack of prior knowledge and just being an oblivious male meant he didn’t see what I saw when the scan appeared on the screen.
“Holy fuck.” There were no children to hear my swearing, and I was sure the midwife had heard those words before.
“What?” Grant said, looking confused. “What is it? Is the baby okay?”
I looked at the nurse and exchanged a smile, my own heart pounding a concerning amount.
“The babies are fine.” The nurse nodded reassuringly.
