The Package Deal: Nine Months to Change His Life / From Neighbours...to Newlyweds? / The Bonus Mum

And she thought, This guy really is a billionaire. Those two words had been a dismissal to his secretary, mild and brief, but the authority behind them had been absolute.

He was a man in command of his world—and what a world!

In the last weeks she’d looked him up on the internet—of course she had. His brother Jake the actor was famous. Ben seemed to fly under the radar but his business credentials were so impressive they’d made her gasp.

She thought of the cheque her father and stepmother had given her and what a difference it was making in her life.

This guy’s fortune was enough to make her eyes water.

How could she possibly tell him what she needed to tell him without him taking it the wrong way? And what was the wrong way anyway? She was in uncharted territory.

His secretary had disappeared. They were alone in his half-acre office, with the view that looked right out over the harbour to the Statue of Liberty. Mary had been in town for twenty-four hours, working up courage to come and see him. She’d queued to climb the Empire State Building to see all over New York.

She needn’t have bothered. The view from Logan House was almost the same.

‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ he said, and she struggled to get her words in order. She was here for a reason and she needed to get it right.

‘I need to thank you.’

‘I believe you’ve already thanked me,’ he said gravely. ‘Both through my lawyer and through the very nice card you sent me.’

‘You make me sound like a ten-year-old writing thank-you notes.’

‘I kept the card,’ he said. ‘I believe I’ll always keep the card.’

There was a statement to take her breath away.

He was still holding her hands. Just holding...

‘It’s me who thanks you, though,’ he said. ‘You saved my life. I’ll owe you forever.’

She gulped. The feel of his hands holding hers was doing strange things. She felt...she felt...

Stop it with the feeling, she told herself. Just say what she needed to say.

‘I can’t tell you how grateful I was to hear that Jake was safe,’ she managed.

‘You never doubted it.’

‘I never admitted to you that I doubted it.’

He smiled, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. It was a smile that said there was trouble somewhere.

Trouble? What could be wrong in this man’s perfect world?

‘Is anything wrong?’ she asked. ‘With Jake, I mean?’

‘What should be wrong? He’s fine.’

‘It’s just...you look...’

‘He’s fine,’ he said, almost roughly. But she knew there was something.

How did she know this man so well, this man in his billionaire’s office with his billionaire’s suit? She thought, He has the hawklike, all-seeing eyes but two can play at that game. Reading minds.

She knew this guy. Inside he was just...Ben.

The thought settled her. It was okay. Underneath the glossy exterior he was still the man she’d held until the terror had faded.

She had been right to come.

‘How’s Heinz?’ he asked.

‘Probably bored. My next-door neighbour’s looking after him. How’s the knee?’

‘You came half a world to ask about my knee?’

‘No.’ It was time. She released his hands and took a step back. She wanted to watch his face when she said what she had to say.

She was here for a purpose. Do it.

‘Ben,’ she said, and then she paused.

‘Mary?’

Say it.

‘I came to tell you I’m pregnant.’

CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_cb16c188-661e-5c3a-b6af-49c34b2d9024)

HE DIDN’T GET his face right fast enough.

He didn’t know how to.

Mary had stepped back so she was standing against the closed doors. She was pressing herself hard against the doors, her chin tilted, almost defiant.

That was an appalling suit she was wearing, he thought irrelevantly. She’d looked better in torn jeans.

Pregnant.

The word seemed to echo round and round the massive office. Deals were done in this room that affected the finances of the world. Yet nothing had ever been said in this office that seemed more important than this.

Pregnant.

‘It’s okay,’ she said, hurriedly now as if she needed to clear whatever it was she saw on his face. ‘I’m not here to sue you for half you own. I don’t even want acknowledgement if you’d rather not. I just thought...I needed to tell you.’

‘But I thought...’ He was having trouble getting his voice to work. ‘I thought...’ But he hadn’t thought. That was how it had happened—thought had been shelved. Their mating had been born of primeval need, with no thought of consequences.