Page 26 of Twin Surprise for the Italian Doc

Kate’s breath came out in a shocked huff.‘Did you think I’d try and persuade you to have a termination?’

Georgia took the facecloth away from her eyes. If the truth was coming out, it may as well be the whole truth. Well...notquitethe whole truth, of course...

‘Why not? You’ve never approved of my plan for single parenthood. You told me the whole idea was hare-brained.’

‘That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t support you in whatever you choseto do.’ There was a wobble in Kate’s voice that broke Georgia’s heart. It had felt so wrong keeping this a secret from her best friend and this was her punishment.

She had hurt Kate.

‘I can’t believe you’ve kept this to yourself. How pregnantareyou?’

‘About ten weeks.’

The silence was short. And shocked.

‘So you did hook up with someone at the rally. Iknewthere was something you weren’ttelling me. Who was it?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Of course it matters. It’s your child’s father. You need to know about family genetics. You’ll need financial support.’

Georgia shook her head sharply enough to make her stomach try to roll again but she wasn’t about to be sick. The rush of adrenaline that fear produced was enough to buy her some time.

‘That’s precisely the reason I did it thisway. I don’t want to know about the father’s family. I don’t want financial support. I don’t want anyone interfering in any way. This ismybaby. And it’s going to stay that way.’

Ithadto stay that way.

From a dark, buried space in the back of her mind, Georgia could hear a small voice.

The small voice of a terrified child.

‘Don’t let them take me, Mummy. I don’t want to go...’

‘You’recoming with us. You’remydaughter. You’re going to get brought up in a decent, Godly household, not dragged up by your slut of a mother. Get in the car now andstaythere...’

There was pain mixed in with the terror as the car door slammed shut on the arm still reaching out in a desperate plea to the woman this man was shoving back with his other arm. She could see her mother fall to the footpath,could see the blood on the strange shape of her arm as she tumbled and then curled up on the back seat of the vehicle that was taking her away from everything she knew and loved.

Georgia squeezed her eyes shut against the agonising memory. Kate didn’t know about her childhood. Nobody did. If people asked her about that scar on her arm, she told them she’d fallen off her pony one day, when she’dbeen out jumping every log she could find on the hills behind her country village. She’d covered the horrible reality with a fantasy of a perfect childhood so often she almost believed it herself. The only other person who’d known the real truth and could understand the fear that had poisoned so many years of her life had been her mother and she’d lost that rock in her life a long time ago.

She couldn’t begin to try and explain any of this, even to her best friend. Because it was too big and she’d walled those memories off and tried to bury them for a very good reason—she didn’twantto remember any of it.

It was inevitable that knowing she was bringing her own children into the world had prompted a backward glance at what was behind those mental walls but that was only as far asGeorgia was prepared to go.

So she couldn’t tell Kate why but she could make her understand that Georgia wasn’t going to change her mind. She knew she was pushing her closest friend away with her vehement tone but this was self-protection.

No. It was even more important than that. She was protecting her babies.

It was a blessing that she’d stopped herself telling Kate how she felt about Matteodue to the link she had to him via Luke. Somehow, instinct had protected her babies even before she had known they existed.

It was infinitely more important that Kate never know this part of the truth because Matteo would never let his children be brought up by someone he despised.

Maybe he wouldn’t be as violent as her father had been but he would be just as persistent, even if he didn’t believethat he had a vengeful God on his side.

Okay, she knew that Matteo would never condone violence. That he would probably be as reasonable as any co-parent could be and he would allow her access to her babies—perhaps even shared living arrangements. But that wouldn’t be enough. Life would be an endless emotional roller-coaster where the dips would consist of anxiety and loneliness and probablysomething as nasty as jealousy.

What if...what if Matteo found a woman he could adore instead of despise? If she became a part-time mother toherbabies?

No. She couldn’t handle that.

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