For a moment she thought he was going to ignore her plea, turn around, walk away, just as he had when she’d told him she was pregnant with her sister’s baby. That there was nothing he could do or say to stop her going ahead with the surrogacy.
And so he’d said nothing.
But, after endless seconds, he pulled out the chair beside her and sank down onto it.
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me everything.’
Grace looked across at the crib, then back at Josh.
‘I couldn’t bear to see what they were both going through after the failure of that last cycle, when the consultant called a halt, saying that Phoebe wasn’t strong enough to go through any more.’
She reached out, wanting him to understand, but there was something about the way he was holding himself, something so taut, so close to cracking, that she didn’t quite dare cross that line.
‘You have to understand how hard it was for them,’ she pressed, wanting him to feel their pain. ‘It was as if someone had died.’
‘I understood,’ he said tersely.
‘Did you?’
Josh understood only too well.
Maintaining that cheerful, positive front for Phoebe had been tough on his brother. Michael had taken to calling him late at night when Phoebe had been asleep, pouring out his desperation, his sense of failure. There had been one call, when his brother had sounded so desperate that Josh had dropped everything and flown home, seriously concerned that he was on the point of a breakdown. Something Phoebe had been too wrapped up in her own loss to recognise.
Grace pressed him for an answer. ‘Did you really, Josh?’
‘I understood that it had become an obsession, that it was destroying them both,’ he said. ‘I wanted Michael to put a stop to it. Let it go. Adopt.’
‘That seems such an obvious choice to the outsider,’ she said. ‘For a woman yearning for a baby of her own…’ She let out a long shuddering sigh. ‘I loved them both so much, to see them hurting like that was unbearable.’
‘So it was you who suggested the surrogacy?’
‘Not until I was sure it was a possibility. Like you, I did my research on the Internet, found a Web site run by and for people who’d already been through this. Then I saw my doctor, talked it through with her. Had all the health checks. I didn’t want to raise Phoebe’s hopes, not until I had the medical all-clear.’
‘You should have had counselling. What if you’d found you couldn’t give up the baby? It happens.’
‘I know.’
‘But then you weren’t really giving her up, were you?’
She didn’t argue. She could see how it must look to him, but he hadn’t been the one lying in the upstairs flat listening to her baby crying in the night, screwing the sheet into knots as she clung to the bed, waiting for Phoebe to call her, ask her to help. A call that she knew would never come.
‘When I told them I was ready and willing to have one of Phoebe’s fertilised eggs implanted, they both wept.’
‘They didn’t try to talk you out of it? Either of them?’
Her eyes flashed impatiently. ‘Of course they did. Michael said that it was time for them to take the adoption route.’
‘But Phoebe was hooked.’
‘They weren’t that young any more. We all knew that adoption would not have been easy. And I was absolutely certain that it was something I wanted to do.’
‘So?’
‘Michael had to go to Copenhagen to put in a bid for a new project. He said we’d talk about it again when he got back.’ She shrugged. ‘While he was gone, Phoebe and I went to see her consultant so that we’d have all the options when he got back. He gave it to us straight. While he was prepared to attempt implanting a fertilised egg, he didn’t need to labour the point about how much harder it is to get a result that way.’ She was staring at her hands. ‘Phoebe had tried and tried, Josh. I’d seen what it did to her. Simple artificial insemination is much easier, much more reliable. By the time Michael came home, it was done.’
Josh rose slowly to his feet.
It was true, then.
Some sound must have escaped him, because Grace said, ‘She’s still Michael’s baby—’
He shook his head and for a moment she faltered, but she quickly rallied and, on her feet, came back at him with a fierce, ‘Yes! Posie is still just as much your niece as if Phoebe had given birth to her.’
‘No…’
This time the word felt as if it had been torn from the depths of his soul, as feelings that he’d battling with for a year threatened to overwhelm him.
‘Please, Josh,’ she said, her hand reaching for his, her voice urgent now, desperate. ‘Posie needs you.’
‘No!’ His bellow, reverberating around the high ceiling, was echoed by a startled cry from the baby.
He was beside her in a stride, lifting her from the crib, holding her out in front of him at arm’s length.
‘Posie Kingsley is not my niece,’ he said. Then, tucking the child protectively against his shoulder, he turned to Grace. ‘She’s my daughter.’
‘What?’
‘She’s my daughter, our daughter.’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head, taking a step back, looking for all the world as if she’d just stepped on the tail of a sleeping tiger. ‘Don’t…’
If ever her eyes betrayed her feelings, they betrayed them now. Then she turned away, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him, walked to where she’d dropped the feeders and bent to pick them up.
‘Give her to me,’ she said.
‘It’s the truth,’ he said, refusing to surrender Posie when, still not looking at him, she held out her arms to take her. He had to make her look at him. Had to convince her. ‘Michael would have done anything and, God forgive me, I conspired in his deception.’
She let her arms drop, turned and walked out of the room.
‘You can’t hide from this,’ he said, following her. ‘Or bury your head in the sand. You’re going to have to fight to keep your baby.’
She stopped at the foot of the stairs, swung around to face him. ‘From you?’ she demanded angrily. ‘Is that what this is all about?’ She gestured at the baby still nestled against his shoulder. ‘Control of Michael’s baby?’
‘My baby. Why else would I have tried to stop the surrogacy?
What I did, I did for Michael. To ease his torment. If Phoebe had become pregnant, if she’d had a baby, I could have lived with it. Been glad for them. But to know that you were carrying my child…’
‘It was the same, Josh.’
‘No, Grace. It was completely different. You were carrying my child. Have you any idea how that made me feel?’
That, at least, gave her pause. The anger died from her eyes, to be replaced by some other emotion. One that was far harder to read.
‘How?’
‘I can’t explain…’ It was true. There was no vocabulary for the anguish he’d felt, knowing that a woman he’d loved was carrying his child only to give it away. That she would never—could never—know the truth. He’d felt as if he were stealing something from her. Losing part of himself.
‘Why