‘Of course I will! I’d be utterly thrilled.’ Bailey blanked out the fact that she’d wanted Joni to be godmother to her baby, too. ‘So that means I get to do all the fun things, all the cuddles and the smiles and the messy toys, and then I hand the baby back to you for nappy changes and the night feeds. Excellent.’
She could see in Joni’s eyes that her best friend knew exactly how much effort this was costing her and how much she was holding back, but to her relief Joni didn’t say it. She simply smiled and said, ‘Bailey Randall, you’re going to be the best godmother in the history of the universe.’
‘You can count on that,’ Bailey said. ‘And you can still do yoga during pregnancy, though maybe …’ She took a deep breath. ‘Maybe you need to switch to a water-aerobics class, one of the special antenatal ones. And I’ll do it with you for moral support.’
She meant it, she really did—even though it would be hard seeing all those women with their bellies getting bigger each week and trying not to think about how that hadn’t happened for her.
Joni reached across the table and squeezed her hand. ‘I know you would. This is yet another reason why I love you. But I’m not going to make you do that. I’ll stick to yoga—I’ll talk to Jenna before the next class and ask her where I need to take it down a notch.’
Bailey kept it together at the restaurant, but all the way home she could feel the pressure behind her eyes, the sobs starting down low in her gut and forcing themselves upwards. Once her front door was closed behind her, she leaned against the wall and slowly slid down until she was sitting with her knees up to her chin and her arms wrapped round her legs. Then and only then did she let the tears flow—racking sobs of loss and loneliness, regrets for what might have been.
She didn’t hear the doorbell at first. She was dimly aware of a noise then recognised the sound. Who was it? She wasn’t expecting anyone. She scrubbed at her face with her sleeve and took a deep breath. Right at that moment she wished she hadn’t cut her hair short, because then at least she could’ve hidden her face a bit. As it was, she’d have to brazen it out. She opened the door just a crack. ‘Yes?’
‘Bailey, are you all right?’
‘Jared?’ She frowned. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘We have a meeting to discuss Darren, remember?’
She remembered now. Joni’s news had knocked the meeting completely out of her head.
She couldn’t let Jared see her in this state. ‘Can we do it tomorrow?’
‘Are you all right?’ he asked again, and this time he pushed the door open. He took one look at her and said, ‘No, you’re not all right.’ Very gently, he manoeuvred her backwards, closed the door behind them and cupped her face between his hands. ‘You’ve been crying.’
‘Give the monkey a peanut,’ she muttered, knowing that she was being rude and unfair to him but hating the fact that he’d caught her at a weak, vulnerable moment.
But he didn’t pay any attention to her words. ‘Come on. I’ll get you a drink of water.’ He put one arm round her. ‘Your kitchen’s at the end of the corridor, yes?’
‘Yes.’
She let him lead her into the kitchen and sit her down at the bistro table. He opened several cupboard doors before he found where she kept her glasses, then poured her a glass of water; she accepted it gratefully.
Jared waited until Bailey had composed herself for a bit before he made her talk. He knew she’d been to yoga with Joni and then out for dinner; it was their regular Monday night catch-up. But he’d wanted to have a quick chat with Bailey about Darren, their problem player, so she’d agreed to be home for nine o’clock and meet him at her place. Jared had been caught up in a delay on the Tube after a signal had broken down, so he’d been all ready to apologise for being twenty minutes late for their meeting, but that didn’t matter any more. Clearly something bad had just happened.
‘What’s happened? Is Joni all right?’
‘She’s fine.’ Bailey dragged in a breath. ‘It was good news.’
‘Good news doesn’t normally make you cry or look as if you’ve been put through the wringer,’ he pointed out.
‘I’m fine.’
They both knew she was lying.
‘It’s better out than in,’ he said softly. And he should know. He’d bottled it up for a while after Sasha, until his oldest brother had read him the Riot Act and made him go to counselling. And that had made all the difference.
‘I can’t break a confidence.’
‘Under the circumstances, I think,’ he said softly, ‘that Joni would forgive you. Or maybe I can guess. Good news, from someone who’s just got married—it doesn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to know what that’s likely to be.’
And it didn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to put the rest of it together, either. What would make someone bawl their eyes out when they learned that their best friend was going to have a baby? Either Bailey couldn’t have children or she’d had a baby and lost it. Miscarriage, stillbirth, cot death … a loss so heartbreaking that she’d never really recovered from it. And neither had her marriage.
Was that why she’d been so adamant that the break-up hadn’t been her ex’s fault? And was that why she’d suddenly been so antsy at the park, when she’d asked him if he wanted children?
The way she looked at him, those beautiful dark eyes so tortured, was too much for him. He came round to her side of the table, scooped her out of her chair, sat in her place and settled her on his lap, his arms tightly wrapped round her. ‘I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me. And whatever you say isn’t going any further than me, I promise you.’
She didn’t really know him well enough to be completely sure that he wouldn’t break his promise, but he hoped that she’d got to know him enough over the time they’d worked together to work out that he had integrity.
‘What happened, Bailey?’ What had broken her heart?
‘I was pregnant once,’ she whispered.
He stroked her face. ‘When?’
‘Two and a half years ago. I was so thrilled. We both were. We wanted that baby so much.’
He said nothing, just holding her close and waiting for her to tell him the rest.
‘And then I started getting pains. In my lower abdomen. It hurt so much, Jared. I was worried that I might be having a miscarriage. And my shoulder hurt—but I assumed that was because I was worried.’
Jared knew that when you were stressed and tense you tended to hold yourself more rigidly and the muscles of your shoulder and neck would go into spasm, causing shoulder pain. Clearly that hadn’t been the reason for the pain in this case.
‘I went to the toilet,’ she said, ‘and there was spotting.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I felt sick. Light-headed.’ She dragged in a breath. ‘Then I collapsed. Luckily one of my colleagues found me and they got me in to the department. I told them I was pregnant, but I knew what was happening. I knew.’
A miscarriage? Heartbreaking for her.
‘They gave me a scan. I was six weeks and three days. The pregnancy was ectopic.’
Even harder than he’d guessed. The fertilised egg hadn’t implanted into the uterus, the way it should’ve done. Instead, it had embedded in the Fallopian tube and stretched the tube as it had grown, causing Bailey’s lower abdominal pain.
‘My Fallopian tube had ruptured. They took me straight into Theatre,’ she said, ‘but they couldn’t save the tube.’ Her voice wobbled, and then a shudder ran through her.