determine gender as early as eight weeks into the pregnancy. It would be easy to get Miracle-Moms to send the results directly to them.
‘Do you think she’ll go for it?’ Sheridan said. ‘I have a good feeling about this. She’s young, healthy, clean-living. Artistic, too.’ She scrolled through some of Roz’s portraits, which were remarkably lifelike.
‘If you tell her what we’re offering, she’ll bite your hand off.’
‘She does say she’d like to travel one day.’
‘Well, there you are. If she’s carrying a girl, we can bring her over, run a few more tests, check her background. How many weeks is she gone?’
‘Eight,’ Sheridan replied. ‘Which means I could be a mom in just over six months’ time.’
Daniel had insisted from the start that she pass the baby off as her own. When you had as much money as they did, it could be arranged in the blink of an eye. Would Roz be happy with such an agreement? It had cost them over $10,000 to register as prospective parents with the adoption website, but it had been worth it to preserve their anonymity, and it had excellent security measures in place. According to the site, their names were Julie and Glenn. Their real details would be revealed much further down the line, when non-disclosure agreements had been signed. Sheridan had made a huge mistake in trusting her former maid, Rachel. It would never happen again. Women would be queuing round the block to have Daniel’s baby if their true identities were revealed. That was why she could not use a surrogate. She couldn’t bear for another woman to carry his child.
‘Let’s do it,’ she said, beaming at the thought. ‘I’ll put something together now.’
But as Sheridan turned away, her smile faded, and a tightness grew in her chest. There was much more to all this beneath the surface, but neither of them had said the words aloud. She thought of Roz, a country girl who came across as young and naive. Was she gullible enough to fall for the story that Sheridan was about to spin?
CHAPTER THREE
ROZ
‘Yous aren’t gonna throw up on me now, are you, girls?’
As I opened the back door of the taxi, I flashed the driver a reassuring smile. ‘I’ve not been drinking.’ I followed his gaze to Dympna, whose breath carried the tang of alcopops mingled with cheese and onion crisps. I could have ordered an Uber, no questions asked. But I had my baby to think of and I felt safer in the back of a licensed cab.
‘Hop in,’ the driver sighed, after I gave him my address. ‘But there’s an eighty-euro fine if you puke on the back seats.’
‘Best we vom on the floor then,’ Dympna giggled, her words mercifully muted by Johnny Cash on the car radio, singing a tune about a ring of fire.
I slid into the back seat, pushing a giggling Dympna ahead of me before the driver could change his mind. My tights were laddered where I’d caught them with my nail, and my hair was frizzy from the rain. We looked a right pair. Dympna snorted as she tried to find a home for her seat belt, mumbling something about putting it in the wrong hole.
‘Shh,’ I warned. ‘My head’s banging.’ The beat of the nightclub speakers still drummed in my ears; the smell of sweat lingered on my skin from my moves on the dancefloor. It was just a headache, though, not the after-effects of alcohol. Our nights out weren’t the same now I was the sober one, and I was beginning to feel like Dympna’s mother. Still, it was sweet of her to make time for me, now she was all loved up. I kept one eye on the cab fare, aghast to discover what little money I had left in my Hello Kitty purse.
‘Sorry, can you drop us off around here?’ I leaned forward to ask the taxi driver. ‘I’ve only got five euros left.’
But he was nicer than I gave him credit for, and he took us right to the door. People in Dublin were like that. Some wouldn’t give you the time of day, but there were still decent souls around who looked after their own.
I helped my friend up the narrow stairway to our tiny two-bedroom flat. ‘Uhhh . . . make the room stop spinning, will you?’ Cushions tumbled to the floor as Dympna sprawled herself dramatically across the sofa. ‘This is all your fault.’