The Greatest Gift

by Rachael Johns

  Again, he nodded. ‘I understand. I spoke to my parents and Claire’s tonight, and we all agree that—if it’s what you want and you’re not going to change your mind down the track—you should be involved in Anaya’s life.’

  Had she heard right? ‘You mean you’ll let me be a mother to her?’ She blushed as she said this word—it felt awkward on her tongue. It was something she’d never expected to be, something she’d never expected to want to be.

  ‘Yes. Anaya has already lost one mother; I don’t want to have to tell her one day that I robbed her of another.’

  She saw his Adam’s apple move slowly up and down as he swallowed, reminding her how difficult this must be for him.

  ‘Obviously,’ he went on, ‘we’ll need to discuss exactly how this is going to work—and I meant what I said about her knowing Claire as her mother as well—but I’m willing for you to be the primary female influence in our little girl’s life.’

  ‘Oh my goodness!’ Tears spurted from Harper’s eyes as she registered he really meant this. She could have kissed him. ‘I’m not going to change my mind,’ she promised, and it was the easiest promise she’d ever made in her life. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for Anaya.

  They stood there for a few moments, both staring at the little miracle between them, then Jasper looked up and spoke. ‘And about the other thing. You know, the TV interview?’

  She nodded—of course she knew—but whatever his decision on that was, she’d respect it. At least she could tell Bryn she’d tried.

  ‘What kind of stuff do you think they’ll want to know?’

  ‘I guess they’ll ask about you and Claire, how you met, why you needed to do egg donation. They’ll probably want to know how I came into the equation, how Anaya is doing now and about your, I mean our, plans for the future.’

  ‘Okay. If you really think it’ll get everyone off our backs once and for all, then I’ll do it.’

  ‘If you’re absolutely sure, I’ll talk to my boss and let her and my producer handle everything with The Morning Edition.’

  He nodded. ‘I am.’

  Harper smiled. There was something else on her mind that she wanted to do right now, and she didn’t want to wait another moment longer. ‘Do you think I could hold Anaya?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’ Jasper blinked, unable to hide his alarm. For a second she wondered if maybe she’d misunderstood his agreement to let her be Anaya’s mother, but he quickly tried to save face. ‘Um … I guess. If the nurse thinks it’s okay this late at night.’

  ‘If the nurse thinks what’s okay?’ One of the night nurses came up beside them and winked. Her name badge read Leslie. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t eavesdropping—the acoustics make it so hard to have a private conversation in here.’

  Harper smiled at her. ‘That’s okay.’ She glanced back at Anaya. Should she ask to hold her or should she give Jasper a little longer to get used to the idea?

  Jasper cleared his throat. ‘Harper would like to hold Anaya, but I told her it might be too late.’

  ‘Oh no, that would be fine. Of course she can.’ The nurse’s face lit up. ‘Just let me finish one little thing and I’ll be right back to get her out for you.’

  At the thought of what was about to happen, Harper’s knees almost gave way beneath her and she reached out to steady herself on the incubator.

  ‘Here.’ Jasper gestured to the seat beside the crib. ‘Sit down. You’ll have to when you hold Anaya anyway.’

  As she lowered herself into the seat, she noticed that her legs weren’t the only part of her shaking. Her hands were also trembling and she took a few deep breaths, willing the shakes to stop.

  ‘Thank you for letting me do this,’ she said. ‘I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you.’

  He pursed his lips and nodded. As she too was too nervous to speak, they waited in silence for the nurse to return.

  ‘All ready?’ Leslie said when she returned. ‘You sanitise your hands while I get the little lady out,’ she instructed.

  Harper did as she was told, rubbing the gel right up to her elbows as Leslie changed Anaya’s nappy, talking gently to her the whole time.

  When she was finished, the nurse turned back to Harper. ‘Right, you’ll have to take your bra and shirt off.’ She retrieved a hospital gown from a drawer and held it out. ‘You can put this on instead.’

  Jasper’s cheeks coloured and he made to step away. ‘I’ll go get a coffee or something,’ he said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

  ‘No, don’t go,’ Harper blurted. As much as she wanted to hold Anaya, she didn’t want to make him feel uncomfortable. ‘I’ll go to the bathroom and be back in a moment.’

  Then before he could object, she hurried in the direction of the rest room and replaced her upper garments with the hospital gown in record time.

  When Harper returned, Leslie smiled at her. ‘You ready?’ she said, as she gestured to the chair for her to sit. The nurse held the baby with such expertise. And although Harper desperately wanted to hold Anaya, her heart thumped. What if she dropped her? What if Anaya cried and Harper couldn’t settle her? She suddenly wished that she hadn’t been so quick to refuse all those offers to hold babies in the past. Her breath stilled as she sat and Leslie moved the hospital gown aside and gently laid the baby on her chest.

  As Harper felt Anaya’s bare, soft skin against her own naked breasts, her heart filled with love, leaving no room at all for anxiety and nerves. In that moment everything felt so absolutely right that she forgot about Jasper’s feelings and didn’t even care if he got a glimpse of more skin than Samuel had seen in the last few weeks. She barely registered Leslie laying a thick blanket atop them both and tucking it in behind her—she was mesmerised, totally bewitched by the sight, smell and feel of the miracle in her arms.

  This instant in time would be forever imprinted in her mind.

  After a few moments, Anaya let out a tiny sound—almost like a kitten mewling—and Harper looked up to see Jasper and Leslie smiling down at her.

  ‘I think she loves you,’ Jasper said, a mixture of happiness and desperate sadness etched into his face.

  She thought about how hard this must be for him. That this was a moment he’d been supposed to share with Claire. She wished there was something she could say to help him.

  Instead, she simply said, ‘Thank you. I love her too.’

  ‘I’ll leave you guys be for a little bit,’ Leslie said. ‘But I’m just at the desk if you need me.’

  As she retreated, Jasper shuffled on his feet. ‘Do you want me to go as well? Give you a little alone time with … with your daughter?’

  ‘Our daughter,’ she said as she shook her head. ‘Stay. We have a lot to discuss.’

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Harper cringed as her phone started ringing through the speakers in her car; she didn’t have to be a genius to know that it would be Samuel, wondering where she was. She’d promised him she’d be home over an hour ago, but after two full days at Anaya’s side, it had been incredibly hard to tear herself away.

  ‘Hey honey,’ she said as she answered. ‘I’m just around the corner. Do you want to pick out a dress for me to wear tonight?’

  ‘Did you get stuck in traffic? We need to leave in less than half an hour.’

  ‘Um … I’ll tell you all about it in a moment. And don’t worry, I need a quick shower but I’ll dress in record time. Promise.’ Then, before he could say anything else, she disconnected.

  Her stomach was in knots as she parked the car because it was time to come clean with Samuel. She’d had to make ridiculous excuses about why she’d stayed in Newcastle so long, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to return tomorrow morning without telling him everything. And although time was scarce until they had to leave for the partners’ dinner, she didn’t want to wait until afterwards because this wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have if either of them had alcohol in their systems.

  The door opened before she
reached it and Samuel stood there looking sexy and dapper in his best black suit, his hair slicked back like Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. But he had a dark scowl on his face.

  ‘What’s going on, Harper?’ he said as he held the door open for her. ‘Are you having an affair with Jasper? Is that it?’

  ‘What?’ The ridiculousness of his question stunned her. ‘No. Are you insane? For God’s sake, the man only buried his wife on Wednesday.’

  He shrugged, holding his hands out in surrender as the door slammed shut behind them. ‘What am I supposed to think? I’m not stupid—I know you don’t need three days to school someone for a television interview.’

  She winced at his loud voice—Samuel never yelled—but at the same time she understood she’d been unfair to him. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right—I haven’t only been in Newcastle because of the interview.’ She paused, opened her handbag and dug out the digital camera. ‘I’ve been there because of her,’ she said as she turned it on and shoved the screen in front of his face.

  He still looked utterly confused. ‘It’s a baby,’ he said coldly.

  ‘Not just any baby,’ she said. ‘This is Anaya. My baby.’

  It took a moment but then his brows folded inwards and he looked her dead in the eyes. ‘Your baby? Last I heard you were the egg donor.’

  She swallowed. There was no good way to begin this conversation—there was so much she had to tell him. ‘Her birth mother is dead. I can’t just desert her.’

  ‘What are you talking about? You signed a legal contract, giving Jasper and Claire all parental rights and responsibilities.’

  ‘Well, things have changed,’ she said, clutching the camera to her chest.

  ‘What exactly are you trying to tell me?’ he asked, his voice so calm it chilled her.

  Standing in their hallway with the clock ticking till they needed to go out didn’t seem the best place to tell him, but there’d probably never be a good time or place. ‘Something changed in me when I met Anaya. I felt a love and a desire like nothing I’ve ever felt before. And I’ve decided I want to be her mother—not just biologically, but in all the ways that matter. I can’t walk away from her, Samuel. I don’t want to.’

  He jerked his head back as if she’d slapped him—in all the years they’d been together, she’d never seen anything shock him like this obviously did. She opened her mouth, not really sure what to say next, but he got in first.

  ‘I thought you didn’t want children. I was honest with you from the beginning.’ His expression turned from shock to sadness. ‘And you always told me you felt the same. Was that all a lie? Did you think I’d change my mind?’ He shook his head. ‘I knew nothing good would come of this egg donation business. I should never have given you my support.’

  Support? What a joke! But she chose to let that go and focus on the now. ‘I didn’t lie. Well, not to you,’ she said. ‘Until a few days ago, I honestly believed I didn’t want to have children, but in hindsight, I conditioned myself not to want them. If anything I lied to myself. I made myself believe I wanted other things instead of a family, but all along I think it was a barrier I put up to protect myself. I was scared of failure. Scared of being the kind of mother mine was. So scared I had an abortion.’

  ‘What?’ She thought he flinched because her confession disgusted him, but it was sadness she saw in his eyes. And his voice cracked a little when he asked, ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me? It wasn’t my baby, was it?’

  ‘No,’ she rushed to reassure him. ‘I promise if we’d ever fallen pregnant I would have told you. This was long before we met. I was only nineteen. It had nothing to do with us.’

  He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling the perfect style he’d greeted her with. ‘I’ve told you everything about me, Harps. I don’t have any secrets from you and I thought you were the same. I thought we wanted the same things in life. What else haven’t you told me? What else don’t I know about my wife?’

  ‘Nothing. I promise. I’m sorry—I don’t want to hurt you, Samuel. I love you, but I also love Anaya.’

  ‘So you’ve said.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets as if trying to control his anger. They weren’t big fighters—they’d never thrown things at each other in the heat of an argument, choosing instead to talk disagreements out like the adults they were—but they’d never argued about anything as huge as this before. ‘How exactly do you plan on this working then? You say you want to be a mother … How are you going to do that with the little girl living in the Hunter Valley? Or do you plan to go for full custody? Do you want to adopt her? Where will all this leave me? Us?’

  ‘Anaya will live with Jasper to begin with, but I will visit at weekends. And you can come with me. When she’s older, she’ll be able to come to Sydney and … stay with … us.’

  He raised an eyebrow and his hands remained firmly in his pockets. ‘Do I get any say in this?’

  She nodded, her hands now shaking around the camera and her heart beating so fast she could feel it. ‘You do, Samuel. I’m not going to give up my baby and I hope that you’ll grow to love her and accept us as a package deal, but I’ll understand if you can’t do that. If you …’

  Harper couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence but they both knew what she meant. A tear slipped down her cheek. She’d never felt more torn in her life—she didn’t want to choose between the man she loved and the baby who had stolen her heart.

  He was quiet for what felt like an eternity, then took a breath. ‘I assume you’ve already organised all this with Jasper?’

  She bit her lip, then nodded.

  ‘This affects me too, dammit. Isn’t it something you should have discussed with me before you went zooming off to Newcastle?’

  ‘What? So you could try and convince me I was being ridiculous? So you could try and change my mind?’

  He glanced at the fancy clock hanging on the wall behind them—it had been a wedding present from his firm. ‘Look, we can’t talk about this right now—we’ve got to go out. Your dress is laid out on the bed.’

  Then, without another word, he turned and stormed into the kitchen, no doubt to pour himself a stiff drink. She could do with one too—either that or some heavy painkillers, her head was splitting—but there wasn’t time. Although Harper had never felt less like going out in her life, she owed it to Samuel to do this. Whatever happened between them after the dinner, he’d worked hard towards this promotion for a long time and he’d lose face if they cancelled again.

  Swallowing tears, she hurried up the stairs, tearing off her clothes as she went. There wasn’t really time for a shower but she had a super quick one anyway, careful not to get her hair wet as there definitely wasn’t time to blow dry. Wrapped in a fluffy white towel, she emerged from the ensuite to see that Samuel had laid sexy underwear out on the bed beside a black cocktail dress. Highly unlikely that would be getting a workout now.

  Still, she put them on and then stepped into the dress, cursing under her breath as she almost strained her arm trying to do up the zipper. Usually she asked Samuel for help with hard-to-reach zips, but she wasn’t in a mood to ask him for anything. With five minutes until they needed to leave—if they didn’t want to be rudely late—she sat down at her dressing table and applied the mask she would wear all night.

  Then she went downstairs to find Samuel waiting by the front door, his shoe tapping loudly on the glossy wooden floorboards. Usually he’d compliment her on how she looked. Tonight he simply barked, ‘The taxi’s waiting,’ and indicated for her to go through the door ahead of him. She snatched her coat off the stand and did as he wanted.

  Their driver greeted them with a jovial smile and tried to make small talk as he pulled away from the kerb. ‘Going anywhere nice?’ he asked.

  ‘Just drive, please,’ Samuel said and Harper bit down on the urge to reprimand him for his rudeness. She didn’t feel like making conversation with strangers either.

  Samuel sat as close to his window and as far away from h
er as possible. Harper wanted to dig her mobile phone out of her handbag and text Jasper to check in on Anaya but she sat on her hands to stifle the urge, not wanting to make things worse than they already were between her and Samuel. She may have only seen her baby a few hours ago, but already that felt like forever—how she’d get through a week without contact she had no idea.

  Neither she nor Samuel said a word until they arrived in front of a harbourside mansion in Mosman, where he thanked the driver and gave him a generous tip. Normally he’d assist her out of the car—his parents had drilled chivalry into him—but today he marched up the path through the impeccably manicured garden ahead of her. He waited until she arrived beside him before he rang the bell, but his expression remained grim until the moment the door peeled back.

  Then he smiled at Stanley Carter as the older man greeted him with a handshake.

  ‘Welcome, welcome.’ Stanley turned his attention to Harper and kissed her on the cheek. ‘So good to see you again, Harper. You’re looking lovely as usual. Come on in.’

  As Stanley held the door open, Samuel put his hand in the small of Harper’s back and ushered her inside. The warmth that usually spread through her body at such a gesture was absent and his pressure almost hurt, but she kept a smile pasted on her face as Stanley took her coat, hung it on a hook on the wall, and then led them to join the others in the living room.

  Stanley’s wife Elizabeth, the other partner Rodger and his wife Tracey were already there, sipping champagne. Greetings were exchanged and Elizabeth summoned the maid—she was the only person Harper knew with house staff—to bring Harper and Samuel drinks.

  The Carters’ house was the kind of place you saw on Grand Designs. Designed by an acclaimed Sydney architect, it had marble floors, high ceilings and huge glass walls to make the most of their million-dollar views. A real log fire crackled beneath a modern-looking mantelpiece, and two fluffy white dogs lay on a rug in front of it—but there was not a speck of dust or fur in sight. To her credit, Elizabeth had made their house feel like a home with large framed photos of her grandchildren on every available surface.