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CHAPTER SIX
‘IS IT GOING to be big enough?’ Fraser asked a few weeks later, as they viewed an apartment in Edinburgh’s exclusive West End.
Big enough? She looked around the room that she was standing in. The floor-to-ceiling windows flooded the old Regency room with light, which reflected back at her from the gilt work on the ceiling, the white marble of the enormous fireplace, the top of the grand piano and the polished floorboards beneath her feet.
You could have fitted her family’s whole semi-detached bungalow into this one room. Okay, maybe she was exaggerating a little—but only a little. When Fraser had said that he was going to find an apartment in the city, she’d envisaged a two-bedroomed bachelor flat, just a room for him and a nursery for the baby. Not this luxury.
She was reminded once again of how different their lives were. How their homes would always look so different. His filled with designer furnishings and a grand piano, just ‘because’, and hers with medical equipment and stray stethoscopes.
‘It’s plenty big enough,’ she said with a slightly brittle laugh. ‘How big do you think this baby is going to be?’
‘Ah, but I’ve done my research,’ Fraser said, smiling and pointing a finger in the general direction of her newly apparent baby bump. ‘A baby equals about seven or eight pounds and twenty inches long. The stuff that comes with one is approximately the size and mass of the Milky Way.’
Elspeth laughed again—properly this time. ‘Well, I guess that depends on how much stuff you buy. Me and my mum and my sister manage in somewhere half the size of this, and we come with about thirty years’ worth of accumulated junk and a shedload of medical equipment.’
Fraser’s face fell, and she guessed he was only just starting to see how different the experiences they brought to this relationship were.
‘But wouldn’t you want more space if it were an option? Would you just “manage” if you didn’t have to?’
‘I’m not good with hypotheticals,’ Elspeth said, any trace of laughter gone from her voice. Was he judging her? For having less money? A smaller house than he did?
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s make this less hypothetical.’
Fraser spoke quickly, and she wondered how much of her annoyance had shown on her face.
‘This baby is going to have a lot of money at his or her disposal. I think we ought to talk about how we’re going to approach that.’
Elspeth crossed her arms. Still wondering whether he was criticising. Judging. ‘I don’t want to raise a spoiled brat.’
Fraser raised an eyebrow. ‘And do I fall into that category?’
Elspeth shrugged. ‘I never said that.’ Out loud.
‘But you know that I was raised with money. Do you think it’s made me a bad person? Am I a brat?’
Well, if he was going to ask a leading question...
‘You know what you want,’ she replied, not directly answering his question. ‘You’re good at getting it. You expect to get it.’
He oozed confidence and privilege with an ease that made it apparent he didn’t realise he was doing it. It wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t help the position he’d been born into any more than anyone else could. But that didn’t mean he should be ignorant of it.
‘I’m not sure I should apologise for that,’ he said.
She didn’t point out that she’d never asked him to. They both knew her criticism had been implied.
‘It’s just not what I’m used to,’ Elspeth said, trying to be conciliatory. ‘I’m sure we’ll find a middle ground.’
‘I want to make sure that my child is provided for.’
‘And I’m not capable of doing that?’ Being conciliatory didn’t extend to ignoring his criticism of how she took care of her family.
‘I just don’t see why you don’t want me to spend the money I’ve worked hard to make on our bairn.’
She smiled, unable to help herself, at the words ‘our bairn’ from his lips. From the look on his face as he’d said it.
‘Let me look after both of you,’ he continued, sitting back on the arm of the nearest sofa, his body language relaxed and open. ‘All three of us.’
Reluctantly, she smiled and nodded, intoxicated by the sight of Fraser in his new role as doting dad. She sat in the armchair beside him, tucking her feet underneath her.
