someone else’s. I wasn’t exactly feeling very friendly towards you.’
‘I’m sorry, Lou,’ he said, sitting down in a chair and pulling his tie a little looser. ‘I was a jerk.’
‘Damn right you were,’ she said, lowering herself into her chair too.
‘I was … gobsmacked. I engaged my mouth before my brain caught up.’
‘You should have known I’m not capable of doing that. You were my everything for five years. You ending it was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. Other than burying my sister, of course. You really think I could just jump into bed with somebody else? You know I abhor casual sex.’
Will heard the frustration and sadness in her voice, and her supreme disappointment in him. ‘I must admit it didn’t quite ring true about the Louise Marsden that I knew.’
‘And yet still you believed?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m really sorry, Lou.’
‘You know, the crazy thing is that you could have known all along about my surrogacy and about Jan if you’d just bothered to keep in contact with anyone from here. Neither is exactly a secret in this place. I mean, we agreed to make a clean break, but cutting yourself off completely wasn’t entirely necessary.’
‘I didn’t,’ he protested. ‘I kept up with your news. Candy read me your letters. They were the highlight of my week, actually.’
Lou suppressed the impulse to laugh hysterically, because a part of her was touched that her chipper newsy ravings, targeted for eight-year-old eyes, had meant something to him. But they’d hardly been representative of her life.
She had written to Candy every week because she had promised her she would. She had written no matter how wretched she had felt. When her heart had been aching for Will, she’d written. When she’d barely been able to move from the toilet with morning sickness, she’d written. When her sister was dead and she’d been unable to see the lines on the paper through her tears, she’d written. And she hadn’t missed a week, despite the state of her emotions. In fact, her letters to Candy had been just about the only thing at times that had kept her focused on putting one foot in front of the other. They had been chatty and bright, even when things were falling apart.
Lou’s life in the year since their split had been like a rollercoaster ride. After the break-up she’d drifted along for a while on the flat, trying to pretend that everything was okay. And then there’d been the steep but exciting ascent as IVF and fertility treatments resulted in a pregnancy for Jan and Martin. Their pure and utter joy at finally becoming parents had had her flying high.
And then the horrible stomach-dropping plummet when news of the plane crash had reached her and she’d realised not only had she lost her darling sister, but the baby would never know its real parents.
‘Well, I did censor them quite a bit,’ she said sarcastically.
‘Obviously.’
‘Did you seriously expect me to tell your daughter that Jan was dead in a letter? Or that I was having a baby? My sister’s baby?’
‘No,’ he said, raking his hand through his hair. ‘Of course not.’
Lou felt the familiar burn under her ribcage start up and stretched herself out, her elbow resting on the back of her chair to make a little more room. She absently rubbed the curve of her ribs where bump met bone. Sometimes she could have sworn she felt a foot up there.
‘You okay?’ he asked, indicating where she was rubbing.
‘Yes,’ she dismissed. ‘There’s just not a lot of room for movement these days.’ The burning sensation eased, and she removed her arm and sat up straight again.
‘Tell me about the surrogacy,’ he said. ‘They were still trying IVF when I left.’
She nodded. ‘Jan had a hysterectomy the week after you took up the remote paediatrician position. It was a hard decision for them to come to, but after years of crippling pain and bleeding, with her endometriosis and regular blood transfusions due to her chronic anaemia, she couldn’t take it any more. She was forty, with three failed IVF attempts and two miscarriages. She just couldn’t go through another period from hell.
‘They spoke to me before they went ahead with the op and asked if I would be interested in being a surrogate for them. They still had fertilised embryos, and they thought I might be interested in helping them achieve their goal.’
‘And you said yes?’
‘Of course.’ Lou nodded. ‘Without hesitation. At thirty-five I was pretty sure I was never going to have my own …’ Lou deliberately didn’t look at Will. ‘And … she was my sister. She would have done it for me.’
‘And so … you were okay with having the baby inside you for nine months, growing it, nurturing it, and then just handing it over at the end?’
‘Absolutely one hundred per cent okay. It wasn’t my baby to keep.’
‘Is it really that simplistic?’
Lou nodded emphatically. ‘It’s her egg and his sperm. It’s their baby. It’s their genetic material. I’m just incubating it for them. Could I have done it if it had had my own genetic material? No. But to be able to give them their own baby after all their problems—nothing has ever been simpler.’
‘And how does that work legally?’
‘Grey area,’ she said. ‘Legally I’m recognised as the mother, so Jan and Martin would have had to have officially adopted the baby.’
‘And now? Now they’re gone? You didn’t exactly sign up for this, did you?’
Lou gave him a sad smile. ‘No. Not really. But you know, this is my sister’s baby, and whether I like it or not the law recognises me as its mother. And,’ she said firmly, daring him with her eyes to argue, ‘I’m going to give it the best damn life I can.’
Will felt his heart swell with pride at her selfless generosity. He’d always been proud to know Louise Marsden, but this was the icing on the cake. She was doing something completely selfless. Completely worthy. Lou had been through so much in the time he’d been away. Such a momentous year. And then an awful thought struck him. ‘Did they know you were pregnant before the accident?’
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