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‘Imogen,’ she cried, scrambling out of the room.
She moved quickly down the narrow hallway to the temporary bedroom she shared with her daughter, but as she became aware of Max following her an image of his luxury designer home came to mind. Spacious and minimalist, it screamed wealth. All the things she didn’t have—not if she was going to stick to her promise to herself that the cheque his parents had thrown at her would be kept in a trust for Imogen in the event that Evie’s transplant didn’t work. But money that Max, as he’d so pointedly reminded her earlier, could offer Imogen. In spades.
‘Wait back there,’ she sputtered.
‘You’ve got no chance.’
With the cry of objection at being left alone becoming more insistent, she didn’t have time to argue further. Stuffing down the sense that she couldn’t offer their daughter the kind of home to grow up in that Max must have enjoyed, Evie set her teeth and continued down the short hallway and into her room.
She practically had to climb over her single bed to get to Imogen’s hand-me-down cot, sniffing the air, which smelled, as always, of lavender baby bubble bath and aloe vera baby lotion. Although, to Max’s sensitised nose, she couldn’t help fearing it would somehow smell of baby sick or dirty nappies, giving her yet another area in which she fell short in his eyes.
But as soon as the tiny, flushed, screwed-up face saw her and eased into a wide smile Evie forgot their surroundings. She lifted up Imogen, cradling the baby to her chest, and inhaled her unique baby smell.
She would never let anyone take her daughter from her, no matter how much money they had.
By the time she turned around, Max was standing braced against the doorjamb and apparently unsure whether to come in or stay put as he searched for somewhere, anywhere, to place his feet. This time, she wouldn’t be intimidated.
‘This is where you both sleep?’
She feigned a casual shrug.
‘It used to be their downstairs office. They made it a bedroom for Imogen and I because upstairs is only two-bed and I wasn’t about to turf either them or my nine-year-old nephew out of their bedrooms.’
‘No need to sound so defensive.’
‘No need to look so appalled,’ she quipped, holding Imogen tighter.
He stepped back, allowing her to shuffle her way through the gap and back to the doorway, but she noticed he didn’t offer to take the baby. His daughter. Was she relieved or hurt?
‘So this is where you expect to return to after your transplant?’
‘So?’
‘So, given that you aren’t supposed to bend and lift anything for around six weeks after your operation, you think you’re going to be able to vault that makeshift cot-bed, and stretch down to pick up your five-month-old daughter?’
‘I’ll have help.’ She didn’t intend to sound so mutinous, but dammit if she hadn’t handed him his argument on a silver platter.
‘Help being your sister-in-law, who’s having an operation to give you a kidney and who also shouldn’t be bending and lifting?’ Max clarified. ‘Or help from your brother, who I presume will also be trying to look after his wife and son? And what about his work?’
‘We’ll figure it out,’ Evie snapped back, not wanting him to see how close to the mark he was.
What choice did they have? At least, mercifully, he fell silent as he followed her back up the corridor. However, as she turned to the living room Max continued to the front door. She couldn’t conceal her shock.
‘You’re leaving?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just like that?’ she gasped.
‘I have things to do.’
Dumbfounded, all Evie could do was stare. She’d told him he was free to leave; she meant it. But for him to do so when Imogen, his daughter, was right there, for him not to even want to see her or hold her...
It was as if her heart were being torn out. She buried her head against her daughter and rained tiny kisses all over her precious skin. Right then she swore never to let Imogen feel unloved or unwanted.
So much for Max’s promise to do the same.
‘I’ll be back by six o’clock tomorrow night.’
