Chapter 19
NINETEEN
ZOE
Six weeks later
I’m so over being pregnant.
Pregnant, bored, and homesick.
Declan does his best to put a smile on my face, and most of the time it works. But I’m so big now and I’ve still got six weeks to go.
“Are you okay?” Declan asks as he sits beside me on the couch. He wraps an arm around me. “Tell me what you need, sweetheart. It’s all yours.”
“I want to go home.” I sniff.
“To LA? Let’s go in the morning. It won’t take long to pack, and …”
I shake my head. “No. Home. I want my mum.”
His expression softens. “Then, we’ ll do that.”
“Really?” I bite my bottom lip.
“We can be on a plane tomorrow.” Declan’s mouth curls into a smile. “What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?”
“You really want to meet my parents?”
He throws his head back and roars with laughter. “I want to be with you. I’ll have to meet them sometime. You need your mother, and I can deal with whatever your dad throws at me.”
I snort. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
He drops to his knees in front of me. “I’d fight wars for you and this little one. He doesn’t scare me.”
Swallowing hard, I reach out and cup his cheek. “You’re a good man. I hope you know that.”
Declan shrugs. “I’m trying. I want to be better for you.”
“You are being better. It’s still so hard to reconcile how we met and how close we are now.”
“Some things are meant to be.” He pushes himself up and pecks me on the lips. “I’ll call Joel and get him to check out some flights. Got your passport?”
“It’s in my handbag.”
“I’ll grab it and make a call. One trip to New Zealand, coming right up.”
He straightens himself up and I grasp his arm. “Thank you.”
“Anything for you, Zoe. You should know that by now.”
As he walks away, tears well in my eyes again. I’m not sure how he puts up with me being so emotional at times, but he’s always level-headed. It’s scary how in sync we are.
When he comes back into the room a few minutes later, he’s frowning a little, but as he sits beside me and wraps his arm around my shoulders, I know everything’s okay.
“We’re pushing it. We need to get a letter from the doctor to say you can travel, and if we’re coming back here to have the baby we can’t stay too long—two weeks at the most. Unless you want to have the baby there, in which case we’ll need to find a midwife, and?—”
“You got all that in a short conversation?”
“Joel’s a walking encyclopaedia. If you call your doctor and get a letter emailed through, he can get us booked on the first flight out.”
I just stare at him. It was only months ago that I was organised. Now I feel like I’m falling apart, and he’s the one holding me together.
I call the doctor’s office. We were only there a couple of days ago, so within a few hours, I have a letter saying I can fly and Joel has the tickets booked—with return tickets two weeks later.
It’s not quite tomorrow, but in two days I’ll be on a plane and on the way to see my parents.
My heart aches. I’ve missed them while I’ve been away, and I’m not sure how well my dad and Declan will get on given how close I am to my dad and Declan’s wild ways, but I’m glad we’re going.