LITMIR.BIZ

      ‘Are you OK? You look really tired.’

      She gave Georgie a weak smile and flannelled. ‘Harry and the baby are staying with me at the moment, and the baby was up a lot in the night.’

      Georgie tipped her head on one side and studied her thoughtfully. Too thoughtfully. ‘You’ve still got a thing for him, haven’t you?’ she said softly. ‘And he’s staying with you? Is that wise?’

      Not in the least, but she wasn’t telling Georgie that!

      ‘It’s fine,’ she lied, ‘but I really ought to get back.’

      ‘Rubbish. He can cope. It does them good—they find hidden strengths. Look at Nick. Fifteen months ago he didn’t have a clue about children. Now he’s an expert. It’s just practice.’

      ‘Well, I don’t need him practising on my children,’ Emily said firmly, and scooped up her bag and keys. ‘Are you sure about the design? Quite happy with it?’

      ‘Absolutely. You’ve seen the place in London, you know what Nick likes and you’ve come up with a design that works for him and for the site. What’s not to be happy with?’

      Emily nodded. ‘OK. Great. Thanks. And I haven’t forgotten the bit round the back you want looked at. I will get round to it. It’s just that at the moment with Nick’s commercial stuff and with Harry and the baby…’

      ‘It’s fine. It’ll keep. We won’t do anything with it till the autumn anyway, so relax. And go back to him, if you have to. I must say if I were you and there was a hunk like that waiting for me, I wouldn’t want to hang around having coffee with a chum!’

      ‘But I do,’ she said, meaning it. ‘I’d love to have time with you, talk to you…’ She trailed off, and Georgie’s eyes sharpened.

      ‘Em, are you sure everything’s OK?’

      For a moment she hesitated, wondering whether to say anything, but Georgie probably wouldn’t understand. This was her first pregnancy, she’d never fed a baby—she might be horrified. ‘I’m sure,’ she lied again, and, kissing Georgie’s cheek, she bent to touch Maya’s head and smile at her, then headed home.

      And just in the nick of time.

      She could hear Kizzy as she turned onto the drive, and her let-down reflex was working overtime. She squashed her nipples with the heels of her hands and ran into the house, dumped her bag and went out into the garden, to find Freddie yelling and throwing sand out of the sandpit, Beth sulking over her stickers and Harry pacing helplessly with the flailing baby in his arms.

      The look of relief on his face was comical.

      ‘You’re back,’ he said needlessly, and without a word she took Kizzy and the bottle, went down to the seat under the apple tree and tried to fool her. Not easy, with Freddie climbing up her legs and Beth hanging round her neck from behind and Kizzy busy spitting out the teat.

      ‘Hey, kids, how about some juice and biscuits?’ she suggested, and looked up at Harry pleadingly.

      ‘Good idea,’ he said, picking up on it immediately. ‘Come into the kitchen and we’ll see what we can find. And you’d better wash your hands first. Come on, young man, let’s go and find that biscuit tin,’ he added, prising Freddie off her legs and setting him on his feet, then herding him towards the kitchen.

      Now, then. She tried again with the bottle, but it was futile, so she hitched up her vest top, unclipped her bra—a front-fastener, dug out of the bottom of her underwear drawer—and plugged the baby in.

      Peace. And with any luck she’d get enough food inside her before her children came back out and saw what she was doing. Not that she had any problems with them knowing, it was the rest of the world, and since she didn’t intend to let this become a long-term thing—like, more than today, if possible!—there didn’t seem any point in them finding out.

      All she had to do was convince Kizzy that the bottle was just as good.

      She tried sneaking the teat of the bottle in beside her nipple, but Kizzy was smarter than that. She spat it straight out and went back to the real thing.

      So much for Plan A.