I got back from India, Lorna was throwing up...’
‘Tell me about it.’ Victoria groaned.
‘Do you have morning sickness?’
She nodded. ‘It’s fading now.’
But they were not here to discuss their baby; they were there to find out about each other, and so she was quiet. But Dominic wanted to know how she had been faring.
‘Tell me.’
‘It’s pretty much gone now—I just get really tired. You’re keeping me up—I’m usually in bed by eight.’ She gave an eye roll. ‘And I’ve got night duty next week.’
He looked at her and there was a twist of guilt that he hadn’t been there for her, that Victoria was doing it all on her own.
‘Can you change your shifts?’
‘I don’t roll like that,’ Victoria said, and then changed the subject back to what had happened with him. ‘So Lorna had it bad?’
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘I told her that she was very probably pregnant and she said no, that she couldn’t be. I went and got a test and, of course, she was.’
‘Were you pleased?’
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I think so, but it all felt a bit rushed...’
And together they smiled at the irony of their situation.
‘Lorna wanted to wait before we told our families.’
‘I’ll bet she did.’
‘I told Jamie though,’ Dominic said. ‘We were always that close.’
‘What was he like when you told him?’
‘He said congratulations, but not much else.’ Dominic shrugged. ‘He’s always been a lot more the party type than I am. I thought his lukewarm reaction was because he didn’t really see becoming a father as anything to get excited over.’
‘So you found out at the ultrasound?’ Victoria asked, bemused. ‘Wouldn’t she have known you might work it out there?’ It seemed very cruel to have said nothing.
‘In fairness to her, Lorna had a bit of spotting so we went to the hospital, and of course they did an ultrasound. For early pregnancy the dating is very accurate. I guessed she’d be nine weeks, but she was six.’
‘So you realised then and there?’ Victoria asked, understanding a bit better why he had been so opposed at first to attending her ultrasound.
‘I did,’ Dominic said. ‘I asked the doctor to repeat the dates. I honestly thought at first that she must have them wrong, but of course she hadn’t.’
‘What did you do?’
‘We had company at the time,’ Dominic answered, referring to the doctor who had been present. ‘So I said nothing. Lorna kept looking away when I tried to catch her eye. The doctor said that everything was fine with the baby and when she left we had a talk. Lorna admitted that while I was away she’d met someone. She said she’d been trying to work her way up to telling me, but then when she’d found out she was pregnant, she just didn’t know how to, and she wasn’t sure, at that stage, whose baby it was.’
‘Did she tell you then who the father was?’
‘When pressed.’
‘Did you suspect?’ Victoria asked.
‘Not even for a moment,’ Dominic said. ‘Even when she said that it was Jamie, I was trying to think who we knew by that name. That it must be a colleague or a friend. Even when she said, “Jamie,” I didn’t straight away think of him. How stupid is that?’
‘Not stupid,’ Victoria said.
It showed the depth of the breach of trust.
‘What did you do?’
‘I told her she could take a taxi and I wished her the best—not very politely though. Then I went and met with Jamie. I’d like to say I did the macho thing and we had a fight, but...’ He shook his head. ‘My brother had a car accident when he was ten. I was there when he nearly died. I just couldn’t bring myself...’
And Victoria could see the conflict on his face; she thought of all the bloody, testosterone-fuelled fights she’d seen in her line of work and admired that he’d held back.
‘Jamie was crying and carrying on like an overgrown bairn. He said that he loved her, that as soon as they saw the other, they both knew and neither knew what to do.’
And she closed her eyes for a moment, because it wasn’t such a torrid tryst after all. It was really rather sad.
‘Do you still love her?’
‘No.’
Did she believe him? Victoria didn’t know.
Did it matter?
Yes.
It did to her. But though bold in her questions about his brother, Victoria wasn’t so bold with her heart.
‘I said that I’d leave it to him to tell our parents.’ Dominic gave a resigned shrug. ‘I basically walked out on my life.’
‘You’ve been back though?’ Victoria checked.
‘No.’
‘But you’ve just been in Scotland.’
‘I didn’t see my family though.’
And that unnerved her.
It truly did.
That he had walked out on his life, and that even all these months later, they were still estranged.
‘What about your parents?’ she asked.
‘We’ve spoken on the phone but they just want it to be put to one side. They don’t want to discuss it. They just want it forgotten and for things to go back to the way they were.’
‘So what were you doing in Scotland?’
‘Thinking.’
And so, too, was Victoria.
All she could see was a man who had walked away. ‘Weren’t you the one who told me to fight for what’s important?’
‘I’m doing so,’ Dominic responded. ‘It doesn’t have to be with fists.’
‘I’m not talking about physically fighting, but they’re your family.’
‘And I’m doing my best to sort it out, but I’m not a person who just rushes in. I believe that if you say all is forgiven, then you need to mean it. I
