‘This isn’t legal,’ Richard says as I try not to squirm under his disapproving gaze, or say anything stupid. There is a lot riding on this meeting.

My fingertips flutter to the gold cross around my neck, the way they always do when I’m anxious. The wait seems endless as Richard shuffles through papers on his desk. My mouth is dry but my palms are slick with sweat. I discreetly wipe them against my trousers before I stretch out my hand towards Nick. He links his fingers through mine.

‘I must say I was surprised to get your phone call but I’ve done some research and had a chat with the chap who specialises in family law here. The laws for surrogacy are sketchy at the very least. You won’t be protected if anything goes wrong.’

It’s so hot in the office. A too large executive desk fills the space, sucking the air out of the room. Richard’s aftershave is always overpowering: something expensive, no doubt. I half-wish I hadn’t worn my cashmere jumper as I feel another trickle of sweat snake between my shoulder blades but I had wanted to appear confident and in control, but in control is the last thing I feel.

‘Nicholas?’ Richard asks in that tone of his which always makes me painfully aware he has never really approved of his best friend’s choice of wife. I’m not sure why he has never warmed to me. In our wedding photos, he stands expressionless next to Nick, not even a hint of a smile on his too-handsome-for-his-own-good face. Neither Nick nor I have family to speak of, or that we really speak to, and it had meant a lot to me we had friends who could join us. But as Nick and I swayed to Jason Mraz’s ‘I’m Yours’ in the tiny venue that was still only half-full, I was aware of Richard’s cold, hard stare following me around the meagre dance floor lit with flashing blue and green lights. The taste of the garlic mushrooms we’d eaten for our wedding breakfast kept rising in my throat.

I glance out of the window and wish Richard would crack it open. A pigeon rests on the sill; his wings glint silver and purple in the weak winter sun.

‘This is what I want.’ I sense rather than see Nick look at me. ‘This is what we both want.’ He gives my hand a reassuring squeeze, and I am grateful we both want to build a family. Early on, he told me his parents were dead, and he didn’t want to talk about them. I told him mine weren’t but I didn’t want to talk about them either, and it brought us closer. Bound by our loneliness. Our secrets, some might say, but I don’t think there is anything wrong in a fresh start. Looking towards the future instead of the past. I had asked Nick, of course, about his childhood and he’d said there was nothing to talk about, but the tell-tale tic in his jaw, the vein that throbs at the side of his head, told a different story, as did the scar that streaks across his forehead. He hasn’t had it easy, I know, but that only makes me love him more. Over time I have stopped asking questions because it’s never one-sided, is it? Finding out information. If we have that conversation, sooner or later I’ll be the one expected to talk about my parents, my past, and that’s the last thing I want to do. Anyway, ultimately, we are all the same, aren’t we? Skin and bones. Truth and lies. We all have our stories to tell. Regret we bury. Hope we try to tether lest we begin to think we can be something we’re not.

My hand trembles as I lift my glass and water sloshes over the edge, soaking my knees. It is cold and uncomfortable but it will dry quickly here. The radiator next to me blasts out heat. I am beginning to feel dizzy.

‘Surrogacy is a very grey area,’ Richard says. ‘We can certainly draw up an agreement to protect your interests, as much as it can, and ask the surrogate to sign a letter of intent, but neither is legally binding if she changes her mind during the process. There is no law that can force a mother to give away her child, no matter what she has promised.’ Richard steeples his fingers together and stares directly at me. ‘It’s a shame the adoption fell through again. I did all I could but that’s the way it goes sometimes. You win some, you lose some.’ He doesn’t sound sorry, or look sorry, and for an instant I wonder if he has sabotaged the process, but why would he? I dig my nails into my palm. If I ever found out he was responsible for me losing Dewei and Mai I’d kill him with my bare hands.

I try to keep my features neutral; I won’t let him get to me. I won’t.

‘The surrogate we want, Lisa, she’s done it before. I trust her.’

The napkin with Lisa’s mobile number on it had been stuffed into the bottom of my bag, and I’d smoothed it out, carefully practising my speech. I would explain the adoption had fallen through and we were interested in learning more about surrogacy, but as soon as I heard her voice, the bond we’d shared as teenagers tugged the words from my lips, the emotion from my chest. I’d sobbed and sobbed down the phone. ‘I’ve lost Mai, Lis. It’s happened again.’ She’d soothed and sympathised, and we had talked for hours. In the following days she had rung me every afternoon, and I was grateful for her support. For the chance to chat. Sometimes about our school days. My obsession with Desperate Housewives, her obsession with Justin Timberlake. Sometimes about nothing. But our conversations always circled back to Mai and the loss I felt and, in the end, it was her who brought up surrogacy first.

‘Look, Kat,’ she had said. ‘I don’t want to push you into anything, but… surrogacy?’

The pause seemed endless as I had silently urged her on. Was she really going to offer? Somehow, I didn’t feel I could ask. My hand gripped the telephone receiver, fingers tightly crossed.

‘You know I’d do it again. For you.’

‘But you don’t even know Nick.’ I left my weak protest hanging in the air, waiting for her to bat it away.

‘I didn’t know Stella’s husband, at first. I didn’t even know Stella that well, but you and me, we have a history, don’t we?’

‘Yes.’ The word came out with a rush of relief. I was saying yes to everything.

I’d held her offer tightly in my hands like a gift and, later, unwrapped every last detail of our conversation before recounting it to Nick.

He wasn’t sure, at first. As we sat at the kitchen table I had spread out page after page of information I’d printed off the internet: beaming couples holding tiny bundles, surrogates standing behind them, smiling serenely like proud aunts.

‘The chance of a surrogate getting pregnant…’ Nick rifled through the papers. ‘You’ve looked for all the success stories but what about the ones that go wrong? The couples who are still left childless. I can’t face it again. Seeing you so upset. I can’t put myself through it. Is it really so important to have a baby? We’re okay, aren’t we? We’re happy?’

‘Yes, but…’ I bit my lip. Sifted through my mind for the words to communicate the huge gaping hole inside of me. It was like a wound almost. Sometimes I thought I was healing until I’d walk past a mum pushing a pram proudly through town, stand in a queue behind an expectant mother stroking her belly, and I’d feel the scab being ripped off. It hurt every single time. It never lessened, the searing pain; if anything, it was only getting worse. Sometimes it seemed the whole world had what I so desperately wanted. How could I convey that to Nick? That longing. But somehow, I must have because he said yes.

‘And you’re happy with this Lisa, Nick?’ Richard asks.

‘I’m happy if Kat is,’ Nick says. ‘But before meeting her I wanted to discuss the legalities. Hear your thoughts.’

‘You could always buy a kitten or a puppy,’ Richard says.

My breath catches in my throat. ‘It’s not quite the same, is it?’ I try to make my tone sarcastic but my words are shaky. I don’t know how much longer I can hold it together. It’s all right for him. He’s so focused on his career he doesn’t want kids, but he must have some compassion: he wouldn’t have wanted to set up Stroke Support otherwise.

‘No, I suppose it isn’t,’ he relents. ‘If you want to go ahead it won’t take long for me to do the paperwork. We just need to agree on the finer points. Reasonable expenses can be paid to Lisa—’

‘We don’t mind what it costs,’ I jump in.

‘You probably don’t,’ says Richard, and I sit back, feeling my spine press against the wooden chair, as though I have been pushed. There’s a part of me that wants to retort we wouldn’t have to worry about money if I drew a salary from the charity set up for Richard’s grandmother and we didn’t rely solely on Nick’s property business for our income, but today, I want to keep us all focused on the baby.

‘You do want to stay on the right side of the law, don’t you?’ Richard’s stare is unwavering, and I squirm uncomfortably. Sometimes I feel he can see right through me.

‘What’s the legal amount to pay?’ Nick asks.

‘This is where it all gets rather murky.’ Richard swivels from side to side in his chair. ‘It’s illegal to arrange a surrogacy for profit, but not illegal for a surrogate to profit.’

‘So Lisa could charge what she wanted?’

‘Not exactly. As I said, it’s not cut and dry. Before the family court will issue the parental order, they must assess what payments have been made. If they believe more than “reasonable expenses” have changed hands then the court has to authorise each payment before the parental order can be granted.’

‘So, we could get to the end of the process and the court could say no?’ There is so much that could go wrong. Frustrated tears prick the back of my eyes as I stare down into my lap.

‘It’s extremely unlikely the court wouldn’t approve – they do have to take into account the welfare and best interests of the child – but it would greatly complicate the process if inordinately large amounts of money had changed hands. Expenses can include any outlay while trying to conceive, during the pregnancy, and expenditure during the postnatal period,’ Richard continued.

‘What sort of things would we need to cover?’ Nick asks.

‘There’s quite a range. Costs involved while you’re getting to know each other, travelling. If Lisa feels she needs counselling that’s your responsibility financially, as are maternity clothes, trips to the hospital, any loss of earnings. We call the payments “expenses” but there is of course a degree of unspoken “profit”, as it were. After all, the surrogate is inconvenienced for a prolonged period of time.’

It irks me he can refer to a pregnancy as an ‘inconvenience’ but I do understand what he means. It’s a huge sacrifice Lisa would be making. If it were up to me I’d give her every penny I could get my hands on.

‘How much do you think?’ Nick asks.

‘It varies but the general rule of thumb is anything between £7,000 and £15,000. More than £20,000 would potentially trigger alarm bells to the court. Expenses prior to conception are usually covered as you go along, and then once the surrogate is pregnant it’s up to you. You can hand over a lump sum or pay a monthly amount. There’s no hard and fast rule.’

‘Is that okay?’ I turn to Nick. ‘We can cover Lisa’s expenses?’ It will wipe our savings out.

‘If you use a clinic it will cost more, of course,’ Richard says.

‘How much extra do you think a clinic might be?’ I’m worried we can’t afford it.

‘I don’t know,’ Nick says. ‘I don’t really want to take out another loan; the repayments for the buy-to-let mortgages are so high.’

‘Perhaps you should give it some more consideration,’ Richard says.

I almost laugh. Nick and I had thought of and talked about nothing else these past few days and had finally made our decision yesterday. My mobile had rested on the kitchen table between us as I called Lisa. The relief in her voice as it drifted out of the tinny speaker was palpable, and I had been touched to realise how much she must want to do this for me.

‘Thank you.’ Tears had shimmered in Nick’s eyes. ‘I can’t believe you’d do this for a complete stranger.’

‘Oh, you won’t be a stranger for long,’ Lisa said. ‘We’ll be getting to know each other very well, Nick.’

After we had ended the call we remained sitting at the table, grinning like idiots, until the sun lost its grip on the sky and I could no longer make out Nick’s features. We’d gone to The Fox and Hounds and giggled as we ordered champagne from Mitch. We kept reminding each other it was early days and we should be cautious, but we couldn’t help racing into the future. Wondering whether Lisa would fall pregnant quickly. Whether we might have a boy or girl.

‘We’ve thought it through properly. Lisa is coming around tomorrow to confirm the finer details. Nick and I can talk again afterwards,’ I say. Nick agrees with me, and it feels like a small victory, but Richard hasn’t finished yet.

‘You do understand if this is successful the child will remain legally Lisa’s until the parental order has been issued after the baby is born? Lisa could keep the baby if she wanted to.’

‘She won’t,’ I say.

‘And how much do you know about her family? There are conditions that can be inherited,’ Richard asks.

I answer immediately. ‘They’re all healthy. I’ve known them for years but we’ll ask her.’

‘It’s not just the physical. There could be mental health issues? Personality traits that can sometimes skip generations?’

‘It’s all going to be fine. You don’t need to worry. Besides, half the baby’s genes will be Nick’s, don’t forget. There’s nothing in your history I should know about, is there?’

Nick pulls a tissue from the box on Richard’s desk and wipes beads of sweat from his forehead as he gazes out of the window. ‘No.’

‘There we go then.’ I rest my palm on his back. ‘Everything’s fine. You’ll be such a good dad, Nick.’

‘I hope so.’ He turns to me. His skin ashen.

‘You’re a natural. I’ve watched you with Ada.’ Clare’s daughter adores Nick. ‘Anyway, it’s not all about nature. There’s nurture too, isn’t there?’

Nick screws his face as though he is in pain. I call his name, but he doesn’t seem to hear me. I stare helplessly as he slumps forward. His head cracking hard against the corner of the desk.