Playing for Keeps: A fun, flirty romantic comedy perfect for summer reading. Rosa Temple

me once, telling me I had to keep it to myself.

      We didn’t have too long to wait before Anya was called in. But when her name was called she looked to have shrunk before my eyes. She bit her bottom lip. Her supermodel cool faltered and I wondered what was happening to the real Anya. Hormones had changed much of her icy demeanour and I knew she needed me more than ever. I winked at her and discreetly put my hand in hers before we stood and followed the nurse down a long corridor.

      Somehow, in private hospitals, they manage to eradicate the hospital smell. You feel as if you are walking into a spa retreat and I’d probably opt to go private if and when I have a baby.

      The stenographer and I waited a long time while Anya fussed about climbing onto the bed for her scan, stalling because nerves were getting the better of her. I wanted to tell her the scan was the easy bit but I didn’t want her running for the door saying she’d changed her mind.

      ‘Well, now, let’s see how baby is doing, shall we?’

      The stenographer, a tiny woman with shiny, black hair knitted into a French braid, swooped a probe over the small, tight lump on Anya’s lower abdomen. This child was going to grow up with a very privileged life, unlike Anya’s but very much like mine. Having been born into a very rich family I never learned how to work hard for anything until now. I knew Anya would be relying on me to help her raise this baby and, one thing was for sure, I’d do my best to make them understand how lucky they were and I’d certainly make sure he or she wasn’t going to let the first twenty-eight years of their life go by in a wave of cocktail parties, unfinished degree courses and absolutely no direction at all.

      ‘This is supposed to be an eighteen-week scan, isn’t it?’ the stenographer asked.

      Both Anya and I nodded, our eyes glued to the screen. Just then a fuzzy outline of a baby curled in a ball appeared.

      ‘Is that it?’ Anya gasped, propping herself up onto her elbows. I leaned across.

      ‘Yes, that’s your baby. But you’re a lot past eighteen weeks.’

      ‘Maybe I am a little further along. Does it matter?’ said Anya. She shot a look at the stenographer. ‘I’ve been busy, okay?’

      ‘It’s fine,’ the stenographer said, glancing quickly at the notes. ‘But looking at the dates I’ve got down here, I think your baby is due a lot sooner. Did the doctor give you the estimated due date?’

      ‘Actually they’re my own calculations on that form. I didn’t come for the first scan either.’

      ‘Not a problem.’ The stenographer smiled at Anya. ‘But judging by this scan, prepare to meet this little one a good three weeks sooner than you thought.’

      ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ Anya was sitting up fully now.

      ‘Lie back, Miss Stankovic, and we’ll listen for his heartbeat, shall we?’

      ‘Of course,’ said Anya, looking at me with bulging eyes. I smiled, hoping to assure her that the dates didn’t matter. Very quickly we heard a tiny rumble of sound and the very definite beat of the baby’s heart.

      Anya’s smile was uncontrollably wide and her eyes almost glassy with delight. I squeezed her hand.

      ‘I told you it would all be worth it,’ I whispered.

      ‘I’ll try to establish an actual due date if I can just get some measurements,’ the stenographer said. ‘Baby is on the move today. He’s on the small side but doing extremely well. Nothing at all to worry about.’

      ‘Just now you said, "his" heartbeat,’ said Anya. ‘And "he’s" on the move.’ She grabbed the stenographer’s hand. ‘It’s a boy?’

      ‘I’m sorry.’ She looked again at Anya’s notes. ‘I thought you wanted to know the sex.’

      ‘It’s fine,’ said Anya, waving her away. She looked at me. ‘I’m having a boy.’

      ‘I know, isn’t it amazing? We could stop at Harrods on our way home and order some furnishings for the nursery. What do you think?’

      ‘Great,’ Anya said, turning away from me before a tear could escape.

      Anya and I almost skipped out of the hospital, slowing down at reception so she could scowl at the receptionist in the main foyer. He withered again as Anya screwed up her eyes, aimed her fingers at them and stabbing her fingers towards the receptionist.

      Out in the late summer morning Anya gripped my arm.

      ‘If anything happens to me, Madge, it’ll be up to you raise Bruno for me.’

      I had a puzzled look on my face.

      ‘What? What are you saying? Nothing is going to happen to you.’

      ‘You don’t know that, Madge. This is the reason I didn’t come for a scan before. I’ve had this feeling. I’ve been fretting about the baby’s health. Now I know he’s fine, I’m thinking maybe the problem is me.’

      ‘What are you talking about, Anya? You’re scaring me.’ We were face to face now. I was searching her eyes to see if this was just another in the line of problems Anya was creating when there weren’t any there to begin with. But I could see she was being deadly serious.

      ‘Call it model intuition,’ she said. ‘I just have a deep-down feeling that something is going to go wrong. Dreadfully wrong.’ She put a hand up before I could protest. ‘I mean it, Madge. Just promise me you’ll be there if anything… if anything happens on the day. Okay?’

      ‘I promise I will.’ I shrugged and pulled her along the Brompton Road. I needed to lighten the tense atmosphere. ‘But if you don’t make it I won’t call him Bruno. Sounds like the name of a pitbull. How about Agamemnon?’ I waved down a taxi, still chilled by Anya’s feelings of foreboding.

      We climbed into the back of the taxi but Anya wouldn’t let it rest.

      ‘I can’t shift this feeling, Madge.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘I’ve spoken to my lawyer and I’m changing my—’

      ‘Please, Anya. Don’t be so morbid. I can’t have you talking like that. Wills and things like that. We just saw your baby, heard his heartbeat. We should be celebrating. Look, I promised I’d be there for you, no matter what. And no matter what, I will. Whatever that means, okay? But let’s just go and buy a crib. Do you realise your baby is due one week after the shop opens? It’ll be a week of celebrations, let’s just leave it at that.’

      She gave me a tight smile and we both knew to drop the subject. I never did do tragedy well, my melodramatic side going into overdrive at the merest sniff of disaster.

      ‘It won’t be long before we’re interviewing for my shop staff,’ I said. ‘You still up for that?’ I needed to change the subject.

      ‘You try stopping me. It’s a big decision. Staff. Let’s not bother to shop for baby things,’ said Anya, looking out onto Knightsbridge as the taxi approached Harrods. ‘Let’s just spoil ourselves. Are you in?’

      We gave each other that "Let’s shop till we drop" look and jumped out of the taxi so we could do just that.

Chapter 5

      I’d been hard at work for weeks, scarcely time to catch my breath, when all of a sudden Anthony left for Italy. It rained on the way to the airport the day he left. Long-awaited rain that had been falling so heavily since the night before. I could feel the city breathing at last; the days had been humid and the nights unbearable. I’d come back from the photoshoot with Anya as she modelled my newly designed baby-changing bags full of enthusiasm, bursting to tell Anthony all about my day as he finished off his packing. He nodded every now and again and made sounds that told me he was listening.

      I was exhausted after the shoot so goodness knows how Anya must have felt. But