Special Deliveries: Her Gift, His Baby: Secrets of a Career Girl / For the Baby's Sake / A Very Special Delivery

‘I don’t know,’ Penny said. ‘Probably. But they like you to wait a couple of months.’

‘You’re thirty-four, Penny,’ Ethan said.

‘Thirty-five,’ Penny said. ‘It’s my birthday.’

He didn’t know what to say.

And clearly neither did Jasmine, because the phone rang then and Penny took it into her bedroom. It was a very short, terse phone call and when it was over Penny looked up at him in the doorway, only this time he came in.

‘Do you ever fight with your sister?’ she asked as he sat with her on the bed and put his arm around her.

‘Not really,’ Ethan said.

‘With anyone?’

‘No.’ He gave her a smile. ‘You.’

But it wasn’t enough for Penny. She wanted him to have done something as terrible as she had, and so he thought for a moment, searched his brain for someone he’d had a huge stand-up row with, just to make her feel better.

‘With Phil.’

‘When?’ Penny frowned.

‘Last year. There was stuff that needed dealing with and Phil wasn’t dealing with it. And I told him so and pretty loudly too.’ Ethan gave her a nudge. ‘So if you feel bad, imagine having a shouting match with someone who has a heart like a balloon about to burst.’

‘But it didn’t.’

‘No, it didn’t. Well, not for another year.’ Ethan shook his head; he wasn’t going to go there.

‘You really loved him, didn’t you?’

‘Yep.’ Ethan nodded. ‘But I’m here about you.’

They were lying on the bed now, more two friends chatting than this being about anything sexual, even as the conversation turned to sex. ‘Have you ever thought about going about it the old-fashioned way?’ Ethan asked. ‘Meet someone, fall in love, live the fairy-tale.’

‘Been there, done that. Well, I thought it was love and we were frantically trying for a baby for a very long time.’

He’d been doing really well, Kate would have been proud of him, but he grimaced a bit then and she noticed.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ Ethan shrugged. He just didn’t like the image of her frantically trying with someone else.

‘I’m not very fertile—I’m sub-fertile. Isn’t that the most horrible word? It put a terrible strain on our relationship. It wasn’t just that, though, he was …’ She was about to say it didn’t matter, but Ethan hated it when she did that. ‘Vince was all for the modern working woman, or so he said, yet I was the one who was going to be the stay-home mum.’ Ethan looked at her. ‘I earned more than him, yet it was just assumed that I’d be the one to stop work.’ She saw him frown. ‘What?’ Penny asked again.

‘Why, if you’re doing all you can to have a baby, would you want to work?’

‘I love my work, I’d go crazy without it, but I would certainly slow things down. It wasn’t just that, though, there were other things.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like I was starting to resent that it was always me stopping at the supermarket on the way home from work and getting dinner. Aside from the fact that I can’t have babies, I don’t think I’d make a very good wife.’

‘What’s for dinner, Penny?’

He made her smile.

‘What about you?’

‘I have no idea,’ he said, and turned and smiled at her now-frowning face on the pillow beside him. ‘I’ve never had my fertility checked.’

‘You think you’re funny, don’t you?’

‘I know I am,’ Ethan said, ‘because you’re trying really hard not to smile.’

‘I meant, have you been in a serious relationship?’

‘Apparently,’ Ethan said. ‘Though I didn’t know it at the time.’ He sighed at the memory. ‘I thought it was great, she wanted to move in …’

‘Oh.’

‘Or look for somewhere to live, or get engaged and then married and make lots of babies one day.’

‘What was her name?’

‘Caitlin. I led her on apparently, but I didn’t know that I was, I just thought we were having a good time. I didn’t realise it had to be leading somewhere—so now I make things a little more clear from the start.’ He waited, his eyes checking that he had.

‘I get it, Ethan.’ She gave him a smile and then she told him. ‘Jasmine said I should have a wild fling with you before I got pregnant.’

‘I’m that much of a sure thing, am I?’

‘Apparently,’ Penny said. ‘She thought I should forget about making babies and just enjoy myself for once.’

‘Have you ever had sex for the sake of it?’ He screwed up his face. ‘I mean, how long since you’ve had sex without trying for a baby?’

‘A very long time.’ She looked at him. ‘There was one time that I would have, but he declined.’

‘Well, maybe he was just being all male and territorial and couldn’t quite get his head around …’ He screwed up his face again, tried to spare the details. ‘You know in a few days’ time you …’

‘Might have been pregnant?’

‘No, not just that.’

Penny frowned and then got it. ‘With someone else’s baby!’ She actually laughed. ‘You are a caveman!’

‘Nope, just a normal man.’ Ethan grinned, glad to see her smile. ‘And the only one I want you frantically describing is me.’

And he was getting his words wrong, because he meant that he didn’t want to sit here and listen about her ex and her in bed, or did he mean that he wanted to give her something to frantically describe?