Evie's Bombshell - By Amy Andrews Page 0,27

of course.’

He flicked a switch on the ultrasound machine and the room filled with the steady whop, whop, whop of a robust heartbeat.

Neither of them expected the door to suddenly crash open or for Finn to be standing there, glowering at them and demanding to know what the devil was going on.

Evie was startled at the loud intrusion. ‘Finn,’ she whispered.

Marco turned calmly in his chair. ‘Welcome, Dr Kennedy. You’re just in time to meet your son,’ he said.

It took Finn a moment or two to compute the scene before his eyes. The lights down low. Evie lying on the examination bed, her scrub top pulled up, a very distinctive bump protruding and covered in goo. Marco’s hand holding an ultrasound probe low down on Evie’s belly. A grainy image of a foetus turning somersaults on the screen.

And the steady thump of a strong heartbeat.

Finn looked at Evie and shoved his hands on his hips. ‘What the hell …?’ he demanded.

Marco looked at Evie as he removed the probe and reached for some wipes. ‘I think I should leave you and Finn to talk, yes?’ he murmured as he methodically removed every trace of the conduction gel.

Evie sat up, dragging her top down as she did so. Finn stood aside as Marco passed him, flipping on the light as he went and shutting the door after him.

‘You’re pregnant?’ he demanded, his own heartbeat roaring through his ears at the stunning turn of events. He’d half expected to barge in and find she and Marco doing the wild thing on the desk. He’d never expected this.

Evie nodded. ‘Yes.’

Her quiet affirmative packed all the power of a sucker punch to his solar plexus. ‘This is what you wanted to talk about?’

‘Yes.’

He shook his head as all the control he’d fought for over the years started to disintegrate before him, unravelling like a spool of cotton.

His breath felt tight. His jaw clenched. His pulse throbbed through his veins, tapping out no, no, no against his temple.

‘No.’

He couldn’t be a father. He just couldn’t. He was selfish and arrogant and egotistical. He was busy. He was dedicated to his job. He hadn’t grown up in any home worth a damn and the one person who’d been entrusted to his care had died in his arms.

He was damaged goods. Seen too much that had hardened him. Made him cynical. Jaded.

Not father material.

Most days he didn’t even know how to be a normal, functioning human being—he was just going through the motions.

How on earth could he be a decent father?

He looked at her watching him, wariness in her hazel eyes. But hope as well. And something else. The same thing he always saw there when she looked at him—belief.

She had no idea who he really was.

He steeled his heart against the image that seemed to be ingrained on his retinas—his baby on an ultrasound screen.

‘You have to get an abortion.’

Evie flinched at the ice in his tone. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t thought about herself in those days when she’d lived in a space where denying the baby even existed had been preferable to facing the truth. But she’d felt him move now, seen him sucking his thumb on the screen just a few minutes ago, and even if she hadn’t already decided against it and it had been possible at this advanced stage in her pregnancy, she knew she could never do what Finn was asking.

‘I’m twenty-one weeks.’

Finn opened his mouth to dispute it but the evidence of his own eyes started to filter in. The size of her belly and the size of the baby on the screen and then some quick maths in his head all confirmed her gestation.

He groped for Marco’s desk as the import of her words hit home.

There could be no abortion.

There would be a baby.

He was going to be a father.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

Evie swung her legs over the edge of the couch. ‘Because you went away and I spent a long, long time in denial. And, honestly, I think because part of me knew you’d demand what you just demanded and even though I’d thought about it myself, a part of me wanted to put it beyond reach. For both of us. And then the longer you go …’ she shrugged. ‘… the harder it gets.’

‘You’ve just spent two weeks with me at Beach Haven. You could have told me then.’

‘I almost did but …’ She looked at him staring at her like she’d just been caught