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

Get over it, she told herself. ‘I just need toast.’

‘I’ll make it for you.’

‘I can do it. Go back to bed.’

‘I don’t sleep much,’ he said.

‘It’s a biggie.’ She was staring into the refrigerator, thinking all sorts of things—like how hot he looked with his silk bathrobe open and...and forcing herself to think of condiments. Three types of jam. No, make that four. The raspberry looked good, but then there was quince...

‘What’s a biggie?’

Deep breath. The conversation couldn’t all be about jam, and it surely couldn’t be about silk bathrobes. ‘Learning you’re about to be a dad.’

He walked over and set about making toast while she went back to deciding on condiments. Tricky.

She was so aware of his body.

The island bench—approximately a mile long—gave her a couple of yards’ clearance from Ben. She hauled herself up on the bench to watch toast-making.

‘Most people sit on the stools,’ Ben said mildly.

She peered behind the bench to see a row of fancy designer stools. Chrome and leather. Four different colours. Or make that shades. Designers did shades.

‘How could I choose which one to sit on?’ she demanded. ‘I had enough trouble with jam.’

‘You want tea?’

‘No, thanks.’ Actually, she would like tea but it’d mean she had to stay out here for longer. With this body.

Um...Ben. His name was Ben.

Maybe she should start calling him Mr Logan.

‘I’ve been thinking I’m glad you don’t want a termination,’ he said.

She stilled. He was watching the toast. She was watching the breadth of his back. To all intents and purposes they were a couple talking cosy domestic things—like termination.

‘Why?’ she managed, and he abandoned the toast and turned to face her.

‘It’s been a shock,’ he said softly. ‘All afternoon...all tonight. Heaven knows how you slept but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have wished for it but now it’s happened...I do want this child.’

And he said it so fiercely that it was lucky she’d put the jam down.

There was a lot to think about in that statement. A lot to make her heart falter.

‘One part of me’s pleased to hear you say that,’ she admitted at last. ‘I was never going to terminate, not for a moment, but in a way I think that’s why I came here so early in the pregnancy. I needed to know your reaction. I wanted my choice to be your choice.’

‘But the other part?’

Say it like it is, she decided. Just say it. ‘Another part of me almost had a heart attack, just this minute,’ she admitted. ‘Do you want this child like you want another Logan? And how much do you want it? Enough to sue me for custody? I hadn’t even thought about that.’

‘I would never do that to you. And she’s your baby.’

‘She?’

‘I thought tonight...’ He looked at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable, but when he spoke, it was all tenderness. ‘I thought, what if she’s a girl, just like her mother?’

What was there in that statement to take her breath away? What was there in that statement to make her forget toast and jam, to forget where she was, to forget everything except those words?

What if she’s a girl, just like her mother?

She’d been terrific when she’d found out she was pregnant, she’d decided. She’d surprised herself by how calm she’d been. She’d set about making plans, figuring how she could manage.

She’d decided to tell Ben, rationally and coolly. She’d prided herself on her efficiency, getting a passport, deciding on flights, choosing the hotel Ben had so rudely rejected.

She’d told him calmly. Everything was going as planned.

But one little statement...

What if she’s a girl, just like her mother?

She sat on the bench and stared, and suddenly the cool control she’d kept herself under for the last couple of months snapped.

She couldn’t help it. Tears were rolling down her cheeks and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. She couldn’t speak. She just sat there and cried like a baby.

Ben looked like he didn’t have a clue how to handle it. That made two of them.

‘Mary, I didn’t mean...’ He sounded appalled. ‘Mary, stop.’

That’d be like asking the tide to turn. She gave her tears an angry swipe but nothing could stop these suckers.

She didn’t have a tissue. She didn’t have thirty tissues. Where were tissues in this über-rich mausoleum of a marble apartment?

* * *

One minute he was standing by the kitchen bench, talking to a woman he’d decided he hardly knew. The next moment the woman had turned into Mary. His Mary.

He knew this woman like he knew himself.

Tears were rolling down her cheeks and she was making no effort to check them. It was as if she didn’t know what to do with them.

This was a woman who seldom cried. He knew that. What was happening now was shocking her—as well as shocking him.

She needed tissues, but his shoulder was closer. He stepped forward, gathered a sodden Mary into his arms and held her.

He should wear a towelling robe, he thought ruefully. Silk didn’t cut it with tears.

Silk didn’t cut it when the feel of her body was soaking through. But he held her and held her, until the shuddering eased, until she’d cried herself out, until he felt the imperceptible stiffening that told him she’d realised what she’d done, where she was.