“Better?” Braden asked as I entered the kitchen.
“Yeah,” I smiled, gratefully accepting the coffee. “Much.”
***
Sitting in the waiting room, listening to people cough and sniffle, I felt breakable for the first time in a long time. My chest was heavy, like the air all around me was much too thin, and my thoughts were too harried, making me feel like a crazy person.
I just needed to know one way or the other.
If I knew . . .
I just needed to know.
“Jocelyn Carmichael, Room Five, Dr. Orr.”
Here we go. . . .
***
Braden was sprawled in the armchair, his shirt sleeves rolled up, his tie askew, and he was staring at the television as if he was only half-interested in what was going on.
He’d had a long day at work.
I’d just had a long day.
And now I was terrified. Terrified of answers. Terrified of f**king up. Of losing . . . everything.
We’d been home from Hawaii for almost four weeks and I’d been hiding my sickness from Braden ever since that first morning. After a visit to the doctor’s that day I was almost sure of the diagnosis, but I wouldn’t know until they called to confirm the results.
“Jocelyn?”
I turned my head to look at my husband.
He was frowning at me in concern. “What’s wrong, babe?”
“Nothing,” I whispered, my heart beating hard against my ribs.
“It’s not nothing. You’ve been quiet. Tense.”
I shrugged. “I’m just on tenterhooks waiting to see if that lit agent in New York wants to sign me.”
After months and months of rejection letters I’d gotten an e-mail back from a lit agent from one of the top agencies in New York asking me for the first three chapters of my manuscript. When she e-mailed back asking to see the rest, I couldn’t believe it. I’d been trying not to get my hopes up, and my secret worry was helping keep my mind off it.
“You sure that’s all it is?”
I felt sick lying to him. So I didn’t. Instead I got up slowly and sauntered over to him, climbing onto the chair with him so I was straddling his lap. “I wish we were back in Hawaii,” I whispered against his mouth as he ran his hands down my back. “I wish, I wish, I wish . . .”
“Joc—”
I cut him off with a hard, desperate kiss, and that night I made love to my husband as if I knew what was coming next could change everything.
***
Ellie and Adam had fallen in love with a property on Scotland Street, and in a bid to distract me, I let Ellie set up another viewing so that the girls and I could check it out. Jo, Liv, and I followed Ellie and her estate agent around the Georgian-period flat, and for a while Ellie’s exuberance and exciting plans for the flat took me away from my problem. For a moment I even forgot I had a problem, so it was a bit like being jolted back into reality when my phone rang as we were leaving the property.
My stomach churned.
I gave the girls an apologetic smile and wandered off to the side to answer.