E

ndar di

ve them enough chances. They didn't. I was eight days late. I had not miscalculated my cycle once since I was fifteen years old. I had m

ng kidney from across a ward, and yet I had managed to blame my exhaustion on long shi

ning, I thought, sittin

f packed, a pair of jeans folded neatly

going home. South

old T-shirt, with my hair in a messy bun and a pair of flip-flops that didn't match anything. I didn'

called Irina. She was the only nurse I got along with properly. She was loud, yes, loud e

g. "Aren't you supposed to be on leave?

swallowed. "I need a favour, Irina. I need to

pause, which for I

middle name,"

dle name

me. Don't move. I'll bring

ened, my heart jumped. A porter came out for a smoke. A visitor wandered out with balloons. Not one of them was Elliot, thank God. Irina had to be di

t she might as well have been carrying a banner that said SECRET MISSION. She slid in

to the back of a car. I counted the cracks in the tarmac. I prayed she would come back an

eturned, she

ella," she said.

anything at all. I just stared into thin air, w

n I had slept with once, a man who had made it very clear that I shouldn't go looki

vil really knew how to

voice pulled me out of my daze.

tried to wear a smile that didn't fi

n." She squeezed my hand. "Whatever

yone had said to me all wee

ed back into the hospital with her hands in her pockets, humming something cheerful. I watched her go

kick, no sign at all. Just a flat stomach a

careful all my life. I had worked hard, paid my own rent and kept my head down, a

measure. And Amelia. I could already hear her voice, sweet as poison, wondering aloud where Bella had gone wrong, and how Victoria would never have been so careless. I

up on the

y. I was just about to call you. There's a

egnant,

e went

id, in a perfectly normal

pregn

said you're what? Pregnant?" She

the hospital. Irina helpe

d the whole ward about a pa

et this time," I sai

, softer now, quieter. "

said. "The str

d not his phone number?" She sighed. "Of

phi

throat. "Actually, no. First, are you oka

ying. I was very

ed. "I'm not.

ans you're nor

. "I'm a comfortable nurse who lives in a two-bedroom apartment in Chorl

his child on your own? Aren't

t thing I want is to trap a man with the pregnancy hook. It does

confidence than I

t I support you a hundred per cent. If you say you want to do this on

und me once, in a hospital car park, with a man in a black s

riend a girl could ask for. I don't k

" She laughed. "Now eat something.

chocolate fo

el

dark cho

ad. The apartment suddenly felt very quiet, and I put my

uldn't be coming this weekend. I hated how easily the lie came. It was not

I told him. "I ju

home, Bells," he said, t

to be alone. I w

the kind only a father who know

by. If yo

da. I lo

you more

after he hung up, and told my stomach, quietly

here I had left it weeks ago, the red heels on the shelf below. I looked at them for a while. A dress for a man who had said don't go lo

lised I hadn't switched it on in a long time. I curled up on the couch, tuc

hat popped up was

rth investment this year. Mr Parker has topped the Forbes billionaire list in Manchester, and in Europe at large..." The presenter delivered it w

d suit, standing in front of a glass building, loo

red. "You really had to s

ed off

d no room in his schedule for a nurse from Chorlton and her accidental baby. Or so I told myself. I liked him, I had to admit it, even with

thought of my baby having a billionaire for a father made my

my secret. I

inning to learn, had a ver