One-Amazing-Night Baby!: A Wild Night & A Marriage Ultimatum / Pregnant by the Playboy Tycoon / Pleasure, Pregnancy and a Proposition

‘And sometimes it doesn’t happen even when a couple tries for years.’

Sophie sat very still, waiting for the rest. She had a feeling it would be extremely revealing.

Cooper’s brow furrowed, as if he were thinking it through. Then he indicated and veered off onto the shoulder of the expressway. With traffic zooming by, he shut off the ignition, laid an arm loosely over the back of her seat and spoke directly to her eyes.

‘I was involved with a woman for two years. I wasn’t ready to settle down. She was. She thought if she fell pregnant it would hasten the process. She broke it off a few months ago because she wanted a family and didn’t believe I was capable of giving her one.’ A muscle ticked just above the square angle of his jaw. ‘Although she’d led me to believe otherwise, she hadn’t taken the contraceptive pill for over a year.’

Sophie’s annoyed response shot out. ‘She tried to fall pregnant without telling you?’

‘Apparently her biological clock was ticking.’

When he shifted, his unbuttoned collar gaped wider, revealing a hint of the hair Sophie had ploughed her fingers through the night he’d made untiring, liberating love to her. Right or wrong, she didn’t want to think of Cooper in another relationship. But it was his confession time. It would change nothing in their situation, but she would do him the courtesy of listening.

‘Her cousin had gone through the IVF deal for years,’ he continued. ‘Evangeline saw how that affected her and her marriage, and decided to bail out of our barren relationship while she could.’

Sophie predicted how Cooper must have felt. Angry. Wounded. Worried. ‘You thought you might have the same kind of delay with any partner?’

He shrugged a maybe. ‘I didn’t know which of us was responsible for the hitch, but I knew I wanted a family some day.’ His eyes darkened. ‘Sitting at that wedding reception, it suddenly seemed right to start looking for the future Mrs Smith.’

She gave a lame smile. ‘And now the baby egg has come before the chicken, so to speak.’

He combed back the curls framing her cheek. ‘I hardly think of you in those terms.’

The gesture tied her midsection in a flurry of loops. Perhaps she should take the roundabout compliment—but the truth was obvious, and had been from the moment she’d told him of her pregnancy and he’d proposed. He wanted to commit to her not because of who she was, but because of what she could give him—a gift that a part of him had doubted he might ever receive … a child of his own.

Cooper wanted to come home to his wife and baby every night. Was she his destiny? Or simply part of a pre-wrapped package?

The car’s engine fired back to life and they drove in silence until, halfway home, he swerved off again—this time in front of an old-fashioned suburban grocery shop. He pulled on the handbrake and swung out of the car. ‘Time to sweeten the mood.’

Still mulling over their conversation and her reflections, Sophie followed and sat outside the shop at one of two round plastic tables. When Cooper returned, her tastebuds burst to life; he held two monstrous double cones.

She clapped her hands. ‘Triple choc. Just what I need.’ She’d gone mad for ice cream since she’d fallen pregnant, and right now she definitely needed a sugar boost.

After he’d handed hers over, she got down to business. She’d bitten off the lower pointed end of her cone before Cooper had even pulled in his rather rickety plastic chair.

He frowned as she munched. ‘Don’t bite the bottom off. It’ll leak everywhere.’

She didn’t bother explaining. Instead she grabbed his hand and bit the end off his cone too. She mumbled over the delicious cold and crunch, ‘Die another day.’

She brought her mouth to the lowest opening of her own cone and sucked hard.

He fell back in his chair and chuckled. Then he shrugged. ‘When in Rome …’

After striking the same elevated-cone pose, he latched on and drew the ice cream down into his mouth. He savoured the reward, swallowed, then licked his top lip.

‘To think I’d have happily gone through life licking rather than sucking. In fact, we should explore that thought a little more.’ He traced a suggestive fingertip up her arm. ‘Ask not what you can do for your ice cream, but what your ice cream can do for—’

‘Almost forgot.’ Before his finger, or temptation, snaked any higher, she cut him off. ‘Penny’s invitation came in the mail today.’

Rocking to one side, she extracted a pink sheet of paper from her back pocket. The other slip of correspondence, which she’d also received that day, accidentally came out too.

Setting the principal’s note aside, she lifted the invitation and put on a snooty voice. ‘“You are invited to Penny Newly’s Hollywood or Bust cocktail party.” ’ She slapped the paper on the table. ‘It’s tomorrow night. What should we go as?’

‘Depends on how daring you want to be.’

Conditioning, perhaps, but she couldn’t think of anything bold. ‘We could go as Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. But we’d have to do something drastic with your ears.’ She thought about pulling the closest one out, wing-nut style. ‘Or what about James Bond? And I could be the girl who holds your golden gun?’

Her cheeks bloomed. Had she truly said that?

Cooper’s smile was pure sin. ‘Consider that tabled for future discussion.’ His attention dropped to the invitation and, next to that, the note. Frowning, he picked up the latter. ‘What’s this?’

Sophie thought about dismissing it, but it was a day for sharing. The first day of at least ninety.

‘I received a message from the school principal today,’ she told him. ‘Seems he’s heard some rumours.’

Cooper’s brow dropped more. ‘About us?’

‘About the baby.’ She shrugged at his questioning look. ‘The only answer I came up with involves the principal’s daughter—a student in my tenth grade English class. Dumb of me, but after they’d all left for final home class, I pulled out a baby’s outfit I’d bought at the mall during my lunch break. I was smiling and hugging it to my belly when Samantha came back to get her sweater.’

He pushed the note back across the table. ‘She passed her suspicions on to her father?’

‘Actually, I think she told her friends. Then it was just a matter of time.’

‘Now the principal wants a “please explain”?’

Trying to keep her anxiety levels down—being upset was not good for the baby—she studied the message. ‘He can’t terminate my employment. The days when teachers had to resign due to “personal circumstances” or marriage are long gone. But if he has a problem with single mothers teaching at Unity he might consider making my life there uncomfortable.’

‘Uncomfortable enough for you to resign?’

She took a moment, then nodded.

Cooper’s face hardened. ‘I’ll talk to him.’

She held up a hand. ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’ Although his protective traits in this instance put a warm glow around her heart, Cooper’s pride might only make matters worse. ‘Anyway, I’m only surmising, thinking the worst.’ She sat back. ‘Might be he merely wants to let me know I have Unity’s unconditional support, should I need it.’

Chocolate ice cream had drained over his fist. Cooper tossed the cone in a nearby bin. ‘Either way, you can tell them as soon as tomorrow to keep their job.’

Sophie pitched her runny ice cream too. ‘Why would I do that?’

‘You don’t need it.’ He leaned forward, and she was hit anew by the searing force of his magnetism. ‘When I said I’d look after you and the baby I’d never meant anything more in my life.’

Conviction shone from his eyes. One part of her couldn’t help but be touched; another couldn’t pretend to accept the offer.

She tried to disentangle herself from his overpowering allure. ‘I told you … I like my job. I like the school.’

He wiped his fingers on the handkerchief he’d removed from his front chinos pocket. ‘You’d like being a lady of leisure just as well.’

Her mid-section pulled. Was he listening at all?