Chapter 16

The baby was cleared to go home. Her fever had gone down and she looked better. The doctor told them to come back for regular checkups, Lori didn't have any problem with that.

But she did have a problem with the way the doctor was staring at her though, she couldn't imagine why but she had a feeling the doctor didn't like her. She wondered if the woman somehow blamed her for Emilia’s ear infection since she was her nanny.

She wanted to talk to Grace about it but then decided it was something too silly for her to be talking about and she decided to let it go.

Gabriel drove them back to the house, his partner Draco had left much earlier, claiming he had business to take care of.

Back in the house, Lori put a fussy Emilia to sleep after a bottle and pumped some milk, then she went downstairs to refrigerate it and found Grace and Gabriel talking in hushed tones.

She heard the word Suzie.

She didn't know much but she knew Suzie was Emilia's mother.

"Lori. Is she asleep now?"

Gabriel asked he he straightened, Grace took a few steps away from Gabriel. Lori nodded.

"Yes. She is."

She said as he bypassed them and walked to the freezer. She put the milk into the freezer.

"That's good. Grace and I were just talking about her visit to the hospital."

Lori nodded as she walked past them, she intended to leave so they could continue their conversation, she didn’t want them to think she had interrupted them intentionally.

"We were also talking about her mother."

Grace added and Lori paused, wondering why they had mentioned her.

She turned to look at them, she couldn’t hide her curiosity.

“What happened with her mother?"

She asked and Grace glanced at Gabriel who shrugged.

"Well, Dr Calloway is a bit worried about Emilia's mother's medical history."

"Why? Is something wrong with her?!"

Lori asked as she started to panic, she knew something was wrong, maybe something came up in the tests they ran, she could already feel the dread filling her.

Gabriel shook his head but she could see that he was lying, the faraway look in his eyes didn't indicate that he was fine or there was nothing to worry about. There was definitely something going on that they weren’t telling her about.

"Emilia is fine. Really, she is. Her doctor just feels we should know more about her mother's medical history."

"Well... don't you?"

Lori asked and Gabriel shrugged.

"Suzie and I weren't that close.."

Gabriel said, at that moment Grace quietly excused herself from the kitchen as Lori moved closer to the kitchen and sat on the nearest stool.

"Well... I don't know much about you guys..."

She started, it was true, she didn’t know much, the little she knew was what Grace told her and what Gabriel had mentioned, but he had never really gone into details.

Gabriel nodded as he ran his hands through his hair.

He sat at the opposite side of the island countertop.

"Suzie and I met at an event. We had a one night stand and she got pregnant. I didn't know much about her family and she didn't tell me anything about them."

"I should have tried to, but we had such a difficult relationship..."

"How?"

Lori asked and Gabriel shrugged.

"Oh Suzie gave the staff here hell. You can ask any of them... she was not very nice to them and that's putting it nicely."

"We didn't see eye to eye on many things, the quickest way to get me riled up then was to put me and Suzie in the same room."

"In the end, we both avoided each other so we wouldn't have too many problems."

“With a baby on the way, the least we could do was to be cordial to each other.”

Lori nodded.

"I'll admit, I never asked about her family. When she didn't talk about them I assumed she had none. I was wrong, I should have asked."

"Hey, I don't think it's your it fault..."

Lori said and Gabriel scoffed, he believed it was, hundred percent.

"Because of me, my daughter may never get to meet any family on her mother's side. When I think of it, it sounds a little unfair."

She could hear the worry in Gabriel’s voice and instantly felt pity for him.

She shrugged.

"Maybe Suzie doesn't want her daughter to meet her family..."

Gabriel looked at her with a confused expression and Lori shrugged.

"I'm just saying... maybe she was hiding Emilia from her family..."

"They might have been difficult people, or they hurt her once and she probably didn't want her daughter to be exposed to all that."

She continued, forgetting that she was speaking more about herself than Suzie.

"I mean... speaking from experience, I'd rather my own family never meet any child I end up having."

"Suzie may have been trying to protect her daughter."

Gabriel nodded.

Of course, he never saw it that way. It was very possible.

Suzie wasn't the quiet type, or the one to shy away from a conversation, but when it came to her family she was so tight lipped about them, he assumed the reason she didn't talk about them was because she didn't have any, maybe he was wrong.

He never even cared about her enough to investigate or find any of her family to inform her when she died. He should have made the effort, he thought as he rubbed at his face in frustration.

He should have done something.

Sabine also certainly seemed to know more about her and her family than he did.

"I think you're probably right."

"Nevertheless, I will have to seek them out..."

Oh how he dreaded that already, he could already see the smirk on Sabine's face once she realized that he needed her help. She would relish it.

Desperate to change the topic, Gabriel sighed and looked around the kitchen, dinner wasn’t set yet.

"Have you had something to eat? Grace said you didn't eat before leaving for the hospital."

Gabriel said and Lori touched her tummy. It had been grumbling for a while now, but she had ignored it since she needed to get Emilia to bed.

But she couldn't deny, she was very hungry, everybody had been in such a frenzy, she had naturally forgotten to eat before leaving and missed dinner while taking care of Emilia. She wasn’t even totally sure Gabriel himself ate dinner.

"Oh I'm fine. I'm not very hungry."

She lied and Gabriel raised an eyebrow.

"I can hear your tummy grumbling Lori."

Lori's face went red, she didn’t think he grumbling was loud enough for him to hear it but somehow he had.

"How about we go out for dinner? Take a little time to unwind and all?"

Gabriel asked and Lori raised her eyebrow.

"Oh! What about Emilia?"

She asked and Gabriel shrugged.

"Grace can watch her. I don't know about you but I'm craving Italian food and some lovely outdoor scenery.”

Ugh.

She was very hungry.

"Okay."

She agreed as she nodded her head.

"Great! Go get dressed!"

Lori slipped out of the stool as she rushed towards the stairs, she tried hard to contain her excitement.

"Lori!"

Gabriel called out to her and she turned.

He was smirking as he folded his arms and looked her dead in the eyes and said.

"Wear something lovely."



Wear something lovely! Wear something lovely! Well, Lori didn’t have one lovely thing in her closet! She wished she had bought more clothes when she knew she was taking the job but it had not really occurred to her, it wasn’t like she had much anyways!

Somehow, no matter how long or how much she stared at her closet to look for good lovely clothes it only made the clothes in her closet even more undesirable.

Grace knocked gently at her door, announcing her presence and pulling her away from her thoughts.

“Come in.”

Lori said as she picked up a plain green T-shirt and discarded it.

There was a blue dress on a hanger in Grace’s hand.

“What’s that?”

Lori asked and Grace shrugged.

“I heard Gabriel talking about the two of you getting dinner, I was walking by the nursery when I heard how frustrated you were and decided to help.”

She said as she stretched out her hands to show Lori the dress.

“It’s a beautiful gown.”

Lori commended and Grace nodded, her eyes twinkling.

“And it’ll fit you perfectly for the dinner date.”

Lori quickly shook her head.

“Oh I can’t accept this, who does it belong to?”

Grace sighed.

“I found it in Suzie’s closet. It’s relatively new… she hasn’t tried it on yet. She bought it on a whim while she was heavily pregnant and
hoping to wear it after…”

Grace trailed off as she saw the horrified look on Lori’s face. Maybe she shouldn’t have suggested it, Lori would never try it on.


“Oh I can’t possibly accept that Grace.”

Lori flat out refused.

Grace sighed.

“It’s fine really! Grace has a dozen of clothes like that in her closet.”

“Besides, as you can see, the tag’s still on this one, she never wore it!”

She showed her the tag and Lori sighed.

She was tempered, but not nearly convinced.

Grace scoffed at her.

“At least try it on.”

She said as she handed her the dress and sat on chair in front of her vanity.

“I’ll be waiting.”