“He’s beautiful,” she says, tears stinging her eyes as she smiles at her daughter. Tears come easily these days. Funny how things change.
“I brought Jelly Babies!” The hospital room door opens, and Marilyn comes in, waving the bag of sweets with her functioning arm. It’s been a long road for her too, but she’s a fighter. She’s had to be. Her natural glow is returning, slowly. Her smile is no longer forced. She has nightmares too. Charlotte hears her cries in her sleep. After coming out of the hospital it seemed natural for Marilyn to move in, and what was supposed to be a short-term arrangement has turned into an unspoken permanent one. Charlotte, Ava, and Marilyn; an odd little family, but one she would not change. They are survivors together. They will survive this together. The rest of the world can wait. She knows Simon wants to take things further, but she isn’t sure that will happen. Maybe one day. It will depend on his patience.
“So, we’ve got a little man moving in with us,” Charlotte says, sitting on the edge of the bed. She wriggles her finger into one of the baby’s tiny wrinkled hands, fascinated by the gorgeousness of him. There was never going to be an abortion. Ava couldn’t do it, and Charlotte wasn’t going to fight her decision. Another time and another life, maybe. But not hers or Ava’s.
“Do you have a name yet?” Marilyn asks. Charlotte looks up, curious. Ava’s kept her name choices close to her chest all through the pregnancy, not knowing if the baby was going to be a boy or a girl. Ava nods, sweaty hair clinging to her face.
“Daniel,” she says. “I want to call him Daniel.”
The baby’s tiny hand grips tight on Charlotte’s fingers, and her tears come hot and salty and fresh as he refuses to let go.
Daniel. It’s perfect.
Acknowledgments
Thanks as always to Veronique Baxter, my agent at David Higham, and also Grainne Fox at Fletcher & Co. You ladies rock—and stop me from rocking backward and forward too much! Big thanks to the entire team at HarperFiction UK, especially Jaime Frost, and of course, always, to my friend and editor extraordinaire—Natasha Bardon. Also big thanks to David Highfill at William Morrow in the United States for loving the book so much and bringing me further into the global HarperCollins fold.
Thanks also to all my family and friends who spur me on and keep me going, and don’t care that I dress like a scruff and rarely change my dog-walking clothes all day. I owe you all wine.
About the Author
Sarah Pinborough is the number one Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of the psychological thriller Behind Her Eyes, and more than twenty other novels and novellas, including The Death House and a young adult thriller, 13 Minutes. She has also written for the BBC. She lives in England.
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Also by Sarah Pinborough
Behind Her Eyes
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
cross her heart. Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Pinborough. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Published in 2018 by HarperCollins UK.
first u.s. edition
Cover design by Ploy Siripant
Hand-lettering by Joel Holland
Cover photograph © plainpicture/Hollandse Hoogte/Richard Brocken
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-285681-4
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-285679-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-06-286822-0 (international edition)
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Sarah Pinborough, Cross Her Heart: A Novel
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