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Mike’s fingers tightening on hers, and out of the corner of her eye she could see his reassuring smile.

      ‘Anyway,’ she said, firming her voice, ‘we’ve been talking and thinking and we’ve been sticking to the diet and all the other things you said—the boxers and the showers and so on—and—’

      ‘Boxers?’ Mike said, frowning in puzzlement, then the light dawned. ‘I thought they were because of the cast,’ he murmured, but she could see a smile lurking in his eyes, and she smiled back.

      ‘Sorry. And the coffee and alcohol and so on have all been strictly rationed.’

      ‘And are you feeling better?’ Kate asked, looking at them both.

      ‘Probably, yes,’ Mike said, looking thoughtful. ‘I’m sleeping better, but that could be all sorts of things. Less pressure, we’re talking again—all sorts. And I feel energetic and optimistic, but again that could be because I’m not killing myself on the farm.’

      ‘Looks like your broken leg’s been quite useful, then,’ Kate said with a smile, and turned to Fran. ‘How do you feel?’

      ‘Scared. Sick. Dreading the injections and all the intrusive stuff, but …’ She shrugged and tried for a smile. ‘Generally better. Like Mike. Sleeping better, more energy, happier—but there are lots of reasons for that.’

      Kate smiled again. ‘I’m so glad you’re both happier,’ she said quietly. ‘An unhappy relationship is never a good start to this journey, and I must say from my point of view you both look light years better.’

      ‘We feel it, and we were wondering if you could check us over,’ Mike said. ‘You know, run a ruler over us and make sure everything’s up to scratch before we start again.’

      ‘Of course. You probably haven’t given the diet and the other changes long enough yet, but if you really feel you can’t wait, we can start getting ready for the process of referral. You’ll have to go to a different centre for private treatment, but we can run a lot of the preliminary checks from here, to rule out anything that’s going to make them send you away. I’ll need blood from both of you, so can you roll your sleeves up? That’s great.’

      She put a strap round Fran’s arm, slid a needle into the vein and took several vials of blood from it, then, giving Fran the swab to press down on the vein, she repeated the process with Mike. ‘You aren’t still on painkillers or anything, are you?’ she asked him, and he shook his head.

      ‘I’m not on anything at the moment. Neither of us are.’

      ‘Not even caffeine,’ Fran said, giving him a rueful smile. ‘I think that’s probably been the hardest for him.’

      ‘It’s nothing,’ he said, pressing down on the swab. ‘Not compared to what’s at stake.’

      ‘Indeed. Right, let’s weigh you both.’

      She noted down their weights, commenting on the fact that Fran had put on three much-needed kilos, and took their blood pressure.

      ‘OK. That’s that. And I’ll need a urine sample from each of you to make sure you haven’t got diabetes or any sub-clinical infections, and you know what we’re going to want from you,’ she said, sliding a little pot across the desk to Mike with a smile.

      He gave a wry laugh. ‘Oh, yes. Do I ever. My favourite bit.’ He pushed the ominous little pot around, picked it up and tossed it in the air, then said, with a tension in his voice that probably only Fran would have noticed, ‘Will they be able to check for damaged sperm? Because if there’s any likelihood that it was my sperm quality that caused Fran to miscarry, I want to do something about it before we try again.’

      Kate’s smile was reassuring. ‘Of course. If there’s a significant number of non-swimmers or sluggish ones, they’ll have a closer look. It might be that you have to persevere with the diet for longer, or there might be something more significant wrong, although I doubt it. That would have been spotted before, I’m sure, and if you remember they never did find anything significantly wrong with either of you last time. But let’s get the first tests out of the way and see what they come up with before we worry about what’s next.’

      ‘And then if everything comes back all right?’ Fran asked, feeling the tension ratchet up a notch.

      ‘Then we refer you to the clinic in Exeter, and they take over from us.’ She finished labelling all the bottles of blood, slipped them into the plastic sleeves, filled in the various request forms and looked up. ‘The semen sample needs to be as fresh as possible, so I would do it at the hospital, Mike, preferably near the beginning of the working day,’ she said. ‘Would you have time to do it this morning?’

      He nodded, and Fran’s heart hitched.

      ‘Then I’ll give you all this stuff to take to the lab as well,’ she said, handing over all the blood samples and request envelopes, together with the urine sample bottles. ‘The sooner they get them, the better the results. And I’ll see you next week when they’re all back—I’ll give you a call when they’re in.’

      She smiled and pushed back her chair, stood up and shook their hands and opened the door. ‘Good luck. I’ll see you next week.’

      ‘I can’t believe I’ve got to go into that ghastly room again,’ Mike muttered as they walked down the corridor towards the path lab. ‘It’s just awful, Fran—even thinking about it’s enough to put me off. The girly magazines and the smutty videos—it’s just horrible.’ He suppressed a shudder, and then without warning she got hold of his arm and yanked him through a doorway.

      ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he asked as she shut the door and turned on the light. ‘Fran? Why are we in the loo?’

      She pushed him against the wall, took the pot out of her handbag and put in on the basin, then reached for his zip. He grabbed it and held her away from him, unable to stop the splutter of laughter that rose in his chest.

      ‘Fran, stop it! We can’t do this here!’ he hissed.

      ‘Why not? Why ever not?’

      ‘Because it’s a public toilet!’

      ‘Don’t be silly, it’s a single cubicle off the corridor and it’s a lot more private than that dreadful room. Now, stop fighting.’

      She pinned his hands out of the way, grabbed his zip and slid it down, reaching inside and curling her fingers round him.

      Dear God. He was already hard, the thought of her touching him enough to bring him to the edge even though they were both still laughing. But then she moved her hand, the firm, rhythmic strokes enough to bring him to his knees, and he dropped his head forwards on his chest and stared down at her, her hand curled round him, her lip caught between her teeth, her pupils darkening as she looked up and met his eyes.

      ‘God, you are so sexy, Trevellyan,’ she muttered, flicking her nail across the tip of his penis, and he fisted his hands in her T-shirt and closed his eyes.

      ‘I’m going to come any second if you do that,’ he said through gritted teeth, and she gave a sexy little chuckle.

      ‘I thought that was the general idea,’ she said, and reached for the pot …

      ‘Kate? It’s Jan, at the fertility clinic. We’ve got a lot of results here from some patients of yours, Francesca and Michael Trevellyan. I think they were probably for you and I’ll send them through to you straight away, but I thought you’d want to know the results anyway.’

      ‘Of course,’ Kate said, surprised to feel a little kick of apprehension. ‘I was going to chase them up, it’s been over a week now. OK, fire away. I’ve got a pen.’ She listened, frowned, raised her eyebrows and jotted down all the information. ‘Really? Thanks, Jan. I’ll pass all that on,’ she said. Cutting the connection, she dialled the Trevellyans’ number.

      ‘Fran? It’s Kate. Are you both in? I’ve got your

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