But here was Nat confronting her with the very same question. She couldn’t be pregnant. Surely?
9
Nat quirked an eyebrow. ‘You don’t seem too sure? I thought you and Valentino might have picked up where you left off at the wedding?’
Peyton blinked. How did Nat know about that?
‘I saw Valentino coming out of your room the morning after,’ she supplied, clearly reading Peyton’s mind.
Oh great. Just great.And here Peyton thought she’d kept everything under wraps.
Annoyed that it wasn’t, she looked Nat square in the eye, not bothering to confirm or deny Valentino’s presence in her hotel room. ‘I’m quite sure, thank you.’
But her heart skipped in her chest at the lie because she wasn’t sure at all now.
Regarding her for long moments, Nat eventually reached into her handbag. ‘I just happen to have an extra one of these.’ She placed a packaged pregnancy test on the desk and pushed it towards Peyton.
Peyton looked at it like it was a venomous snake. She couldnotbe pregnant. Couldnot. An image rose unbidden in her mind. Daisy’s tiny white coffin covered in pale-pink roses. Evennow it had the power to paralyse her. She couldn’t risk that again.
Not ever.
‘You know it’s the first thing the GP’s going to do along with a urine dip,’ Nat murmured. ‘Might as well save her the effort.’
Peyton knew Nat was right as she looked at the test again, a sudden thought occurring to her. ‘Wait. How do youjust happento have this, huh?’
Nat looked sheepish. ‘I bought one of those two-in-ones… in case.’
Peyton could tell from her friend’s face that she’d already used the first one and was trying really hard to be sensitive to Peyton’s situation in the face of her own good news. ‘Does this mean… congratulations are in order?’
Nat nodded then grinnedbig. ‘You’re the first one to know.’
Peyton grinned back, even though inside she felt bleaker than a Bronte moor. ‘That’s fabulous, Nat.’ She grabbed her friend into a big hug. ‘Alessandro and Juliano will be over the moon.’
‘They’ll be ecstatic,’ Nat agreed. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of Alessandro for the last two hours but he’s not answering. I just had to tell someone.’
Peyton smiled. ‘I feel honoured.’
They chatted for the next few minutes about due dates and morning sickness until Nat’s phone beeped with a message from Alessandro. ‘He’s home.’
‘Well, what are you waiting for? Off you go,’ Peyton teased. When Nat hesitated she said, ‘I mean it – go! I’ll be fine.’
Nat stood. ‘You will do the test, won’t you?’
Peyton eyeballed it, remembering the last time she’d done a pregnancy test. The joy. The hope. She glanced at Nat. ‘Yes.’
‘I’m going to ring in the morning and check on you.’
Peyton rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, Mum.’
Nat leaned down and gave her friend a quick squeeze. ‘Talk tomorrow,’ she said before practically bouncing out of the rooms.
It was preternaturally quiet after Nat left. There was just Peyton and the test and her heart beat ticking loudly in the silence. Like the freaking doomsday clock.
Her fingers trembled as she picked it up and turned it over and over. She couldn’t be pregnant again. After Daisy had died she’d vowed to never make herself vulnerable like that again. She couldn’t stand nine months of living on the edge, being paranoid about things going wrong, demanding scans every week, thinking the worst should there be no foetal movements for a minute, an hour, a day.
Giving birth in a haze of anxiety, constantly testing the baby’s hearing, driving herself insane at the slightest sniffle.
Oh, God. What if it was twins again?
