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“And you wouldn’t agree.”
“I might have. They split before we got a chance to negotiate.”
“They just left?”
“Not before ransacking my place while I was at work and taking everything of value they could possibly find. So like them—utter fools. They probably got away with a hundred grand worth of stuff, when I’d been offering them a whole new life.”
The betrayal was still heart-deep, even now, so many years later.
“That was the last time I saw them.”
He let out a low whistle.
“So, don’t be expecting any competition for Christmas morning from my side of ‘the family’.” She lifted her fingers in air quotes to emphasise her point, her coffee cup awkwardly kept in one palm as she did so. Sadness tinged the words though. “Not that Christmas was ever really a thing with us.”
He didn’t push that point and she was glad.
“Let’s talk timelines,” he said, all business.
She sipped her coffee, then nodded.
“If we’re in agreement, then how soon could we do the embryo transfer?”
“Next week.”
To her surprise he just accepted that. “Good. The sooner the better.”
Her heart fluttered and in the back of her mind, a doubt reared its head. He was so certain. Should that worry her? But hadn’t it been the same with her? She’d held that baby and just known that she wanted one of her own. He’d already gone through the discovery of a pregnancy and then his partner had undergone an abortion. He’d moved on, started to plan for a new life with someone, and she’d cheated—this wasn’t new for Hamish, it was something he’d wanted a long time and was finally within reach of.
“In terms of the wedding, do you have any thoughts?”
She grimaced before she could stop herself, and he laughed.
“What does that face mean?”
“I’m sorry,” she smothered her grimace. “I’m just not someone who ever grew up dreaming of the big white dress. You say wedding, I’m more focused on the marriage.”
His eyes locked to hers and the air around them pulsed with something that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. “So, registry office?”
She expelled a long, slow breath. “Perfect. And…” she hesitated, frowning, surprising herself with the instinct.
“And?” he prompted.
“I don’t have family,” she said. “But Roman and Kate, and baby Grace…they’re like it. I’ve known Roman for as long as I can remember, we’ve been through a lot together. I think…I think I’d want them there. We could keep it simple, just the five of us, unless there’s someone you’d like to invite?”
“No,” he responded, emphatically. “As with you, the wedding is just a technicality in my mind. Like the inking of a contract—we’re both familiar with that.”
“Yes,” she said, ignoring the strange twisting in the region of her heart. Because she’d lied to him. Once upon a time, she had indeed dreamed of the big white wedding to a Prince Charming type who’d ride in on a white horse and save her from her awful life, and give her everything she could ever want. She’d been a teenager by the time she’d realised all the saving that was going to happen would come from her own strength, her own determination. But there was a kernel of that idealistic girl buried deep inside, and she was writhing in agony at the idea of letting go of the dream.
But dreams were malleable and ever-shifting; Tia’s new dream revolved around becoming a mother and knowing—giving and receiving—perhaps for the first time in her life, true, unconditional love.
Tia had experienced the elasticity of time before. Her childhood had been slow. Interminable, in many ways. But as she’d grown older, and more focused on school, regardless of the impediments in her way, the weeks had been marked by a series of goals she’d set herself, then work, and finally, she, Roman and Grace had fled their messed-up lives and come to New York, each set on pursuing a dream so big it was hard to believe they’d had the audacity to reach for it.
Suddenly, days had passed in a blur, as they’d found a place to rent, then built their lives, moving in different directions but initially staying close. Then, careers had pulled them apart—not emotionally, just in terms of distance. Tia had started travelling all the time, building her business and reputation, taking as many face-to-face meetings as she could to leave her mark on the realty world and she’d felt the years passing in a blur.
But the week that followed the morning in her office was something else entirely. Tia felt almost as though her feet barely touched the ground. There was work, of course, which always kept her incredibly busy, but there was also the not inconsiderable matter of the embryo transfer. Hamish’s visit to the clinic happened almost immediately—a clinical combining of his sample and the eggs Tia had already had retrieved—and then five days later, Tia went in, alone, for the embryo transfer. It was hardly the stuff of romance novels but for Tia and Hamish, it was perfect. A safe, predictable, clinical conception—they hoped—that avoided any of the emotional entanglements sex risked bringing.
And not twenty-four hours later, it was time for their wedding. A special license had been issued, and before Tia could catch her breath, Roman was walking her down a small central aisle in a very nondescript room at City Hall, where Hamish and Kate stood waiting, baby Grace fast asleep in a Bugaboo pram, making soft little snuffly noises from time to time as she shifted and stretched.
