Estelle’s lyrical laugh was the only thing that reached me through my stampeding frenzy. Her fingers slipped through my hair, pulling my face to hers.
Our lips connected.
Our tastes mingled.
My chaotic world found its centre once again.
Breathing against my lips, she murmured, “G...I love you. And I’m sorry for not telling you. It was wrong of me. But seeing you fear that I don’t want you anymore or panic that I’m dying...I can’t keep this secret.” Her lips twitched into a sad smile. “Besides, it’s not like I’ll be able to keep it a secret much longer.”
Pippa drifted closer; Puffin had magically appeared in her hands. “So...you’re not sick, Stelly?”
Estelle shook her head. “No, I’m not sick, Pip.” Something clouded her eyes. “However, I will need help from all of you in the coming months.” She sniffed back her own fear. “I can’t do this on my own.”
“Do what?” I murmured. “Tell me. I’ll do anything for you, Estelle. You know that.”
She smiled. “I do know that. Thank you, G. Just knowing you’ll be beside me is enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“To face that I might not make it but I have a much better chance with my family helping me.”
Might. Not. Make. It?
“What the hell, Estelle?”
Her index hushed my mouth, keeping me silent.
Her eyes blazed with green and brown confession. “I’m pregnant, Galloway. And I’m absolutely petrified.”
.............................
AUGUST
I spent the following month alternating between uncontrollable rage and inconceivable despair.
Once Estelle told me, it was as if a ten-tonne weight slid off her shoulders and landed squarely onto mine.
She slept better, ate better, and she no longer hid her growing belly behind Conner’s black t-shirt.
Her bikini revealed the little bump that, in ordinary circumstances would be hardly noticeable, but thanks to prominent ribs and hipbones, her belly was the only thing distended, increasing by the day.
I hated that bump.
I detested that bump.
But I loved it, too.
When we lay down to sleep, I traced the tightness of her skin, I massaged her lower back and made gentle love to the woman I’d given my absolute soul to.
Estelle was the reason I was still alive. And I’d condemned her to a potential death.
I hated myself.
No, I bloody loathed myself.
When she whispered that I could come inside her, that she was already past the need for safe sex, I lost it.
Couldn’t she see this wasn’t a joking matter?
I’d done this to her.
I should never have forced her to sleep with me.
And she wanted me to come inside her? The most incredible gift she could ever give me was given because I’d already taken everything.
The moment she’d said it, the mood was broken.
My erection turned flaccid with self-hatred and I left our bed to tear through the jungle to watch the sunrise on the other side of the island.
There, I went through so many emotions.
I prayed for a miscarriage before it was too late.
I bartered with God that I would never touch Estelle again if he somehow annulled the pregnancy.
I pleaded with the baby not to hurt its mother.
I threatened the little soul and cursed it to Hell if it so much as gave her bad cramp.
Amongst my loathsome terror, I also begged that he or she would be born safely.
That a part of Estelle and me would survive, blended for eternity.
I wanted our child.
I hated our child.
I wanted a baby.
I wanted to kill it.
I went through so many feelings that by the time I returned home, I was wrung out and bloody exhausted. I’d stayed away for the full day, only returning late that night when I was sure I wouldn’t dissolve into a cursing tyrant or, worse, melt into ridiculous tears.
Estelle was pregnant.
With my child.
Shared genes and bodies and souls.
This should’ve been the happiest few months of our lives.
Not the countdown for absolute disaster.
.............................
SEPTEMBER
Estelle’s birthday fell on the 17th of September.
That meant she’d already had one on the island, seeing as we’d crashed at the end of August. Had she remembered a year ago? Or had the crash deleted such superficial events from her short-term attention?
Either way, she tried to let it slide.
She pulled a Pippa and didn’t tell anyone.
And I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t commandeered her solar-charged phone and manically shot a home movie the night before.
Pippa and Conner had adorned themselves in head-dresses of ferns and palm leaves, putting on a badly acted and laughably funny theatrical performance of Fijian cannibals.
Pippa was the delicious sacrifice and Conner was the war chief seasoning his future meal.
Sprinkling sand and ash on his little sister for taste, Conner paraded around like a pompous fool, declaring how delicious his dinner would be.
Estelle and I laughed where appropriate and oohed and ahhed in suspense. Her body had already changed, rounding and filling, looking sexier every day. I hated that I found her condition beyond attractive. I cursed my cock for wanting her ten times more.
But her hormones matched mine, and the sex...goddamn, the sex reached smouldering heights.
I wanted to be careful.
She wanted me to be rough.