Bound By Their Christmas Baby. Clare Connelly

       CHAPTER THREE

      ABIGAIL STARED OUT of the window, unseeing. It was a cold, snowy night, but she hadn’t put the heating on. Raf was bundled up in a fleecy suit and wrapped in blankets, fast asleep, and she was wearing about six layers. She wrapped her hands around her hot chocolate—it was a pale imitation, seeing as she’d taken to making it with water instead of milk, but it was still sweet and warm—desperately necessary after the day she’d had.

      She’d gone over her conversation with Gabe all evening—while he was no doubt out at some glamorous restaurant or bar with an equally glamorous woman. He probably wasn’t even giving her a second thought. Why would he be? He’d made it clear he despised her and, more importantly, didn’t believe her. So why would he be thinking about a baby he didn’t believe existed?

      She should have shown him a photograph, but Abigail hadn’t been thinking straight. A photograph would have convinced him of his paternity. They were so alike—Raf had Gabe’s dark eyes, his strong determined brow and curling black hair, though the dimples in his cheeks were all Abby’s. She curled up in the armchair by the window and watched as a child dressed as an elf ran past, followed by a happy-looking mum and dad, also wearing elf hats.

      Fliers had been up in the street for weeks—tonight was one of the local school’s Christmas concerts—which explained why there’d been a procession of Wise Men and reindeer shuffling around her Brooklyn neighbourhood since she’d returned.

      While Abigail hadn’t expected Gabe to be doing cartwheels about the fact he was a father, nor had she expected his reaction—utter disbelief.

      For months, she’d tried to find a way to tell him about the baby they’d conceived. First, when she’d been pregnant, and then once Raf had been born. It had never, not for an instant, occurred to her that he wouldn’t believe her. She had run through almost every contingency—but not this one.

      The coldness of his expression as she’d stepped into the lift and turned back to face him would always be etched into her mind. He hated her. He’d said as much, and in that moment she knew it to be true.

      So, what was she going to do?

      She looked around the apartment, empty save for a threadbare chair, a plastic table, a lamp that she’d bought at a thrift shop, and she felt hopelessness well inside her.

      Even with her job, she’d barely been making ends meet. Now? She had forty-seven dollars in her bank account, rent was due and her baby needed formula and nappies. Before long, he’d need actual food and bigger clothes, and then what?

      She couldn’t keep living like this. Raf deserved so much better.

      She finished the hot chocolate and placed the empty cup on the floor at her feet and then curled her legs up beneath her.

      Exhaustion was nothing new to Abigail. Pregnancy had been exhausting and she’d been sick almost the whole time. But then Raf had been born and she’d discovered that motherhood was a little like being hit by a truck. She was bone-weary all the time.

      Her eyes were heavy and she was so tired that even the thought of getting up, showering and changing for bed seemed too onerous and so she stayed where she was, telling herself she’d just sleep for a moment. Just a little rest. Then she’d go to bed, wake up in the new day and scour the papers for help wanted ads. She’d get a new job. Gabe couldn’t have her fired from every place in the city.

      A knock at the door woke her after drifting off. It was persistent and loud—so loud she was certain it would wake Raf if she didn’t act quickly. She scrambled up and moved towards the door, yanking it inwards without taking the precaution of checking who was there—a foolish risk given that the downstairs security door had been busted for weeks.

      Still, she had thought it might be the upstairs neighbour, Mrs Hannigan, who seemed to always need something at inconvenient times. Even this though—nearly midnight—was a stretch for her.

      Abby hadn’t expected—foolishly, perhaps—to find Gabe Arantini on her doorstep, his handsome face lined with emotions she couldn’t comprehend.

      ‘Gabe?’ The word was thick with sleepiness. She ran the back of her hand over her eyes in an attempt to wake up, but it only induced a yawn. ‘What are you doing here? How did you find where I live?’

      His response was to brush past her and step into her apartment.

      ‘By all means, come right in,’ she snapped sarcastically. But the tart emotion disappeared almost as soon as it had arrived, swallowed by a sense of self-consciousness for him to be seeing her threadbare apartment.

      ‘Where is he?’

      ‘I... He’s sleeping.’

      ‘Of course he is,’ he said, the same thread of incredulity in his words now as had been there earlier that day.

      He still didn’t believe her? How was that possible? She would just show him a photo. Her phone was on the chair. She’d get it and show some pictures to him. Then he’d have no doubt that she was telling the truth. She moved in that direction but his voice stilled her.

      ‘Stop, Abigail.’

      She froze, turning around to face him once more. He was right behind her, his body close to hers, his angular face filling her vision.

      ‘No more lies.’

      ‘I’m not lying to you.’

      He lifted a finger and pressed it to her lips. ‘I think you don’t even realise you’re doing it,’ he said. ‘I think you’ve lost sight of what’s true and what’s not.’

      ‘I...’

      ‘Shh...’ he said again, shaking his head. ‘I didn’t come here to hear more lies...’

      ‘Then why...?’

      His eyes held hers and Abigail grabbed a deep breath because she knew what was coming and she had about two seconds to decide what she would do. Step backwards, away from him, or surrender to the intimacy of his kiss, even knowing it was stupid and wrong and wouldn’t achieve anything?

      But oh, how she craved him. Ached for him. Desperately longed for him.

      He was going to kiss her and she was going to let him. Heck, she was going to kiss him if he took much longer. The air around them seemed to hum and crackle with anticipation, their eyes locked, their lips parted. Time seemed to stand still. It was madness, but hadn’t it always been for them?

      He dropped his head infinitesimally closer and she pressed a little higher, waiting, her mind blanked of the myriad reasons she shouldn’t let this happen.

      Then he blinked and straightened.