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‘Aren’t we meant to be putting the baby’s needs first?’ he asked, tiptoeing his way through the words.
‘Why does that have to mean marriage? Your mum and mine have both done fine on their own.’
‘But you’re not on your own. You’ve got me; I’m not going anywhere.’
Elspeth crossed her arms. ‘Exactly, so we don’t need a marriage certificate to tell us that. Your name will be on the birth certificate, and that’s enough for me.’
‘You’re not interested in the whole nuclear family thing?’
‘I guess not.’
‘What about when you meet someone else?’
The thought hadn’t even occurred to her. It was hard enough accepting that she was going to have to make room in her life for Fraser and their child. The thought that she might meet someone else one day, make room for them too—it was laughable. She’d tried once before to make a relationship work with the other commitments in her life, and it had threatened to take her away from her sister. The person who needed her more than anyone. She wouldn’t be making that decision again—not with him or with anyone else.
She thought back to the night she’d spent with Fraser, how they’d clicked from their first banter at the wedding to her first orgasm, to that first and last kiss of the morning when she’d sneaked out of his hotel room. If she couldn’t find a way to make a relationship work with that kind of incentive, she didn’t much fancy anyone else’s chances.
‘I don’t want anybody else.’
It was easier to say that than to tell the truth. How would Fraser, with his money and his privilege, understand the compromises and the struggles that were an everyday part of her life? How was he going to react when she didn’t finish work until long after she wanted to be in bed because the practice was overstretched and her patients needed her attention? When her mum had been in so much pain after work that she’d had to go straight to bed and so there were dishes and laundry to do? When her sister needed her? When her mother could no longer look after herself?
Alex had made it clear that it wasn’t something you signed up for voluntarily.
There was no point pretending that she was looking forward to a life without romance, but some things took priority. If she had to choose—again—she’d make the same decision every time. Nothing would ever be more important to her than her family.
As they reached the top of Arthur’s Seat she took a moment to look at the view, seeing the whole of the city spread out beneath them and realising how high they’d climbed. She was a little out of breath—no doubt courtesy of the baby now sharing her oxygen and blood supply.
But, having climbed up here with Fraser, she was sure of one thing. They were going to fight for this. Probably with each other at times, but hopefully on the same team too. They were going to be a family. They would make it work because they both loved this baby.
The fact that they didn’t love each other wouldn’t change that.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN FRASER HAD suggested grabbing something to eat after the twelve-week scan she hadn’t realised that he’d meant here. She had shoes she’d be happy to wear to a Michelin-starred restaurant in one of the city’s most exclusive hotels, but she didn’t usually throw them on when she was expecting to go for a scan and then straight back home. And catching sight of her battered old trainers was making her mightily uncomfortable.
The interior of the restaurant was opulently decorated, and the pale September sun that braved it past the heavy velvet curtains and dark wooden panelling glinted on the crystal glasses and the chandeliers above them. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in this part of the city, and she’d forgotten how packed the Royal Mile could be with visitors—even outside of the usual touristy times of year.
She would walk back through the closes and wynds, she promised herself, thinking of the quiet alleyways that snaked through the Old Town, down the steep hill towards the New Town and away from the main thoroughfare. No matter how familiar she was with the city she still found something new to see every time, looking up towards the sky at the teetering buildings, five or six storeys above the narrow cobbled passageways below.
The wait staff were hovering at the edges of the room, and she remembered that she was meant to be choosing something to order. The food looked incredible—all Aberdeen Angus steak and oozing egg yolks and local game—normally everything she could have wanted from a menu. But with pregnancy safety advice in the forefront of her mind after the scan she couldn’t see a single thing that looked both safe to eat and appealing.
Fraser didn’t seem to care that neither of them was dressed for a fancy lunch, and was still wearing the blissed-out expression that he had adopted when the sonographer had drizzled the cold gel on her belly, touched the probe to her skin and showed them their baby’s flickering heartbeat just a second later.
Elspeth looked up from her menu and smiled across the table at Fraser. Seeing their baby on the screen had been a breathtaking moment, and she was so glad they had shared it together. At her first scan—when she’d gone alone, not sure whether this baby was going to have one parent or two, half convinced that she’d completely imagined seeing the word ‘pregnant’ on the test she’d taken a few weeks be
fore—there had been nothing more than a tiny pulsing flicker.
But this time they had seen her baby—their baby—with its tiny arms and legs and fingers. Fraser had gripped her hand, and in that moment she’d known that it didn’t matter how this baby had come about. They were both going to love it with an intensity that threatened to suffocate her.
But now they had left that little bubble, and the real world was creeping back in.
‘I can’t believe we saw our baby,’ she said, for about the hundredth time since they’d left the hospital, trying to recapture their mood in the hospital.
‘Pretty amazing,’ Fraser said, nodding. ‘When do we get to see him again?’ he asked.
‘Easy with the him stuff,’ Elspeth reminded him. ‘We don’t know the sex yet. And the next scan is at twenty weeks. We can find out the sex then, if we want to.’
Fraser’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Not for another two months? What if something goes wrong before then?’
