Happy Mother’s Day!: Accidentally Pregnant, Conveniently Wed / Claiming His Pregnant Wife / Meant-To-Be Mother

She’d never had a scene at work. Never. Not for Aisling had there been the drunken episode at the Christmas party—or the resignation thrown at the boss in a fit of pique. Yet now she sat there at her desk, howling into a sodden tissue like an overwrought teenager, while Suzy shushed her.

‘It’s not the end of the world, Aisling,’ she soothed. ‘Women have babies on their own all the time.’

It didn’t seem the right time to tell Suzy that she was wrong. That Aisling’s own experience had convinced her that marriage and love and security and the whole package were the only sensible foundation for bringing up children.

‘Does he know?’ asked Suzy gently.

Aisling bit her lip. ‘No. No, he doesn’t.’

‘Do you think he’ll be … pleased?’ questioned Suzy delicately.

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘You’re going to have to talk about it!’ There was a pause. ‘Who is the father, out of interest? Obviously somebody very discreet—since we’ve never seen him.’ Suzy frowned. ‘He’s not married, is he?’

‘No, he’s not married.’

‘Then why all the secrecy?’

Aisling twisted her fingers together, the need to tell someone building inside her, like a pent-up dam which was bursting to break free. ‘You won’t tell anyone?’

Suzy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Not if you don’t want me to.’

‘I don’t.’ Aisling buried her face in her hands. ‘It’s Gianluca,’ she said, her words muffled.

There was utter silence. ‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Suzy eventually—in a voice which sounded almost frozen with disbelief.

Aisling looked up as tears began to spill through her fingers. ‘It’s Gianluca,’ she repeated hoarsely.

‘Not … not Gianluca Palladio?’

Was there more than one Gianluca in this corner of West London? wondered Aisling slightly hysterically. ‘Yes,’ she answered dully. ‘The very same.’

‘Gianluca Palladio—our most illustrious client? The billionaire financier with a penchant for nubile actresses? The man who once gave a famous interview saying that he wouldn’t settle down and marry until he was forty? And that’s six years away, Aisling!’

Aisling winced. Did Suzy really have to rub salt into the wound? ‘Yes. And yes! Oh, Suzy!’

‘For heaven’s sake, Aisling—what were you thinking of? And how long has this been going on?’ Suzy shook her short-bobbed head. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t notice.’

In a way, this was even worse, but Aisling couldn’t face telling Suzy that the reason she hadn’t noticed was because there was, in fact, nothing to notice—and that nothing had ever really begun. It had just been a bizarre pact fuelled by nothing deeper than a mutual desire. Viewed now with a dispassionate eye in the cold light of day—it seemed that she must have temporarily taken leave of her senses.

‘How pregnant are you?’ Suzy’s voice broke into her thoughts.

‘I don’t know.’

‘You haven’t seen a doctor?’

Aisling shook her head.

Suzy stood up and went and put her arms around Aisling’s stiff shoulders. ‘Well, that’s the first thing you need to do—to find out for sure.’

Was this helpless mass of conflicting emotions really her—Aisling Armstrong—or had some weepy impostor taken over her body? ‘And the second?’ she questioned weakly.

‘You’ll have to think about telling Gianluca.’

But just what was she going to tell him? That she was carrying his child—she who had been nothing but the briefest of flings in his busy life?

And when was she going to tell him? Now? When the little baby inside her was little more than a fast-growing bunch of cells, hidden by a gym-flat stomach? Or when those cells had begun to take on an undeniably human form—when she could show him the first amazing black and white photo of the thumb-sucking infant in her womb?

Those thoughts brought her up short. She could accept the pregnancy, yes—the pragmatic side of her knew that was what nature had designed her body for. But a baby?

‘It’s over, Suzy,’ she said.

‘I guessed that.’ Suzy’s voice was soft.

‘And how the hell am I going to manage to work?’ Aisling asked, suddenly scared.

Suzy frowned. ‘You’re putting the cart before the horse, Aisling. First, you’ve got to get yourself checked out, and then you’ve got to tell Gianluca. Work is the least of your worries right now.’

It was so easy to put off something you were dreading—like failing to revise before an important exam and hoping you’d get by on memory and luck. The doctor posed no problem—that was the easy part. He told her that she was in splendid health—and the only thing which made him frown was her workload.

‘You’ve got to cut back a bit on your schedule,’ he insisted. ‘I know how you modern women like to take everything in their stride—but you mustn’t forget that you’re growing another human being inside you.’

A human being who bore Gianluca’s genes. His dark, mocking face swam into her memory as the reality hit her like a cushioned blow. Aisling went to the coffee bar next door to the office and stared at the flattening clouds of froth on the top of her cappuccino.

So what did she do?

Just how did she tell him?

She wasn’t due to see him until after she’d found him a new general manager for his new hotel—but as the purchase hadn’t gone through she didn’t have a clue when that would be. It could be months. She thought about ringing him up—trying to imagine how she’d tell him she was having his baby—but some protective instinct made her want to shy away from the potential of his angry words raining down the phone-line. And over her.

In the end it seemed easier to do nothing. To let the baby grow inside her while she existed in the curiously detached state of well-being which seemed to have descended upon her, like a comforting cloud. It was as if she’d been given an important project to work on—and, being Aisling, she threw herself into it wholeheartedly.

As the weeks slid inexorably into months, she read every book on pregnancy which her local store had to offer. Her diet had always been healthy, but she went for it in a big way—and discovered a deep love of spinach. Once the morning sickness had passed, she found she had an amazing amount of energy, and so she swam at her gym before work, the gentle exercise calming her for the day ahead. It was as though she were living in her own little private bubble of a world—where outside forces had no place.

Only Suzy acted as the voice of her conscience. ‘Aisling—this is crazy. You’re ballooning by the day. You’ve got to tell him!’

‘And I will.’

‘When?’

‘I don’t know. When it’s the right time.’

‘But time’s running out!’ cried Suzy, eying the bump with a mixture of fascination and alarm. ‘You’ll be thinking about giving up work soon.’

Aisling stared down at her stomach as if it belonged to someone else and then gripped the desk with her hands, as if to steady herself. Not only had her body taken on a life of its own, but so had her emotions, and as the weeks passed they grew stronger and stronger. Night after night, she lay in bed while the face of her baby’s father swam into her mind’s eye and some deep yearning filled her with an inexplicable kind of sadness. ‘Some women work until they go into labour,’ she said hoarsely.

‘But it isn’t mandatory,’ said Suzy. ‘Anyway—that’s something we ought to talk about, too. How long you’re going to take as maternity leave—or whether you’re planning to give up work altogether.’