Page 50 of His Housekeeper's Twin Baby Confession
Carrie went to take the tray but Massimo said, ‘Leave it. I’ll bring it back.’
Before, Carrie would have argued, but now she just left. She closed the door behind her and stood against it for a moment. She looked down at her hand. It was trembling. Her whole body was tingling. She felt sensitive.
Already there were changes happening. Her waist thickening and her breasts feeling fuller. Had Massimo noticed? Did she want him to notice?
No. That side of their relationship was well and truly over.
It was time to move on and make the best of their new situation.
A few hours later Carrie was lying back on a clinic bed in a very plush private practice. They were briefly alone while the radiographer went to get something. Massimo had changed into a fresh suit. He looked clean-shaven. Carrie’s head was suddenly filled with lurid images of Massimo in the shower, naked, with water sluicing over his hard muscles...one in particular.
She wanted to scowl at him for automatically turning her into a hormonal mess on his return. She felt frumpy and lumpen. Shewasa lot thicker in the waist now. More than she remembered being at this stage the first time around.
The worst thing, though, was that she had to admit that the last six weeks had felt very hollow without him. The world had gone from Technicolor to a sort of grey. At night it had been the worst, when she’d wake sweating after a particularly vivid dream, her whole body aching for satisfaction.
She missed him. She missed sex with him.
The radiographer came back in and bustled around Carrie, lifting up her top to spread gel on her belly.
Before Carrie was fully prepared, a loud, rhythmicthump-thumpfilled the room. She went very still as the woman moved the wand over her belly.
‘That’s a nice strong heartbeat and—Oh, my word...’
Carrie tensed. ‘What is it?’ She couldn’t make out what she was seeing on the screen.
Massimo stepped forward, ‘Is everything okay?’
The radiographer looked at Massimo and then at Carrie and smiled beatifically. ‘Everything is absolutely fine, but I need to tell you that you’re not having just one baby—you’re having twins.’
Carrie didn’t remember much of what had happened after that—only that the shock she’d felt had been mirrored on Massimo’s face. He’d looked as if he’d been punched in the gut.
He was driving them back to the house now, and she might have feared he was in too much shock to drive, but they weren’t moving fast in the traffic.
Carrie looked blindly out of the window. She didn’t take in the twinkling colourful lights everywhere that indicated Christmas was just around the corner.
She held a print from the scan in her hands. It clearly showed two fig-sized shapes.
Massimo broke the heavy silence. ‘There are no twins in my family that I know of.’
Carrie looked at him. His face was in shadow. She didn’t want to see his expression.
She felt defensive. ‘Mine either. Except,’ she had to concede reluctantly, ‘there could be, because I don’t know my father’s side at all really.’
Massimo said nothing for a long moment, and Carrie could imagine that he must be thinking how distasteful it was that the mother of his children should come from such a sordid background.
Eventually he said, ‘I can understand your aversion to marriage. You haven’t had the best examples.’
Feeling even more defensive now, Carrie said, ‘I could say the same of you.’
‘It wasn’t a criticism. It was an observation. I’m not a snob, Carrie. My brother and I grew up with silver spoons in our mouths but that didn’t protect us from the dysfunction of our family.’
Carrie rubbed at her head. ‘Sorry... I’m still in shock.’
Mercifully Massimo was pulling into the forecourt of the house now. Carrie got out. He met her at the front door.
‘We need to talk about this. It changes everything.’
Carrie’s head thumped. ‘Can we talk tomorrow? I’m quite tired.’
