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

He checked his bedroom, half-hopeful that she’d be lying there as she’d lain last night.

‘In your dreams,’ he muttered. ‘To have a woman wait for you...’

He checked her bedroom. She was curled in the centre of her bed, cocooned in pillows. She looked exhausted. She looked small and vulnerable and alone.

She looked...like Mary.

This woman was planning on returning to New Zealand to bear his child. With no support.

He didn’t wake her. He headed to his study to think, and think he did. The idea that had been idling in the back of his mind all day was starting to coalesce into a plan.

It made sense—and Mary was a sensible woman.

He wasn’t entirely sure how Heinz would fit in with the pedigree pooches who strutted round Central Park but he was pretty sure Heinz could hold his own.

Could Mary hold her own?

He was sure she could. In her own way she was as independent as he was.

He flicked open his laptop. There was work to be done, though not business. The financial world could manage without him tonight. Tonight Ben Logan was plotting a future for his child.

And his woman?

Be sensible, he told himself. There are levels of responsibility. You can take the practical route; just don’t let the emotional side interfere.

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#ulink_a2d18e20-2e42-5517-9d28-c8e16f9eabab)

SHE WOKE AND FELT...lonely. This was crazy. How many mornings had she woken by herself in her life? Practically all of them, so what was different?

For a start, she was in Ben’s apartment.

Yes, and tomorrow she was going home. Leaving.

Ben had inferred he wanted some input into their child’s life. Did that mean he might visit? Or did it mean he might send for Ermintrude or whoever to visit him?

Worry about it when the time comes, she told herself.

He could have come to her when he got home last night.

He’d have been being kind. Letting her sleep.

‘A pox on kindness,’ she muttered.

She emerged and Ben was drinking coffee at the dining table. He had newspapers spread out before him but he wasn’t reading. He was staring out over the park.

He turned and smiled and her heart did this crazy back flip with pike that she should be getting used to now. She wasn’t.

‘I didn’t hear you come home. You should have woken me.’ She sounded cross, she thought, and she tried to reel it in. She needed to be practical. She didn’t need to admit that she wanted this man.

‘You looked exhausted.’

She flushed, knowing she didn’t look fantastic now either. Maybe she should have brought some hot lingerie for this trip. Maybe she should have at least brushed her hair before she’d emerged.

‘You look great,’ he said, and she thought again, This man had some sort of telepathy going.

‘Says the man who didn’t come to my bed last night. You could have, you know. You’re hardly likely to get me pregnant.’

‘Would you have wanted me to?’

And there was only one answer to that. Honesty. ‘Yes,’ she said. She managed a smile. ‘Not...not that that’s a come-on.’

‘It’s not taken as such,’ he said, which flattened her because if he picked her up and carried her into his bedroom right now, she wouldn’t object at all.

But he had no such intention. He looked...businesslike, she thought. He was wearing jeans and an open-necked shirt with the sleeves rolled up but he still managed to look sleek and clever. A man in control of his world.

A man not to be distracted by a woman in jogging pants.

‘I promised you today,’ he said. ‘Coffee?’

‘No, thanks, I’ve gone off it. A gallon of juice would be good. You don’t need to do anything for me today.’

‘What did you do yesterday?’

‘Saw New York.’

‘What, all of it?’

‘As much as I could fit in. Statue of Liberty, Tiffany’s, Fifth Avenue, Soho, Broadway, pastrami and rye sandwiches, bagels, New York cops being nice, wind coming up from under the pavements, markets, people, stuff.’

‘Wow,’ he said faintly. ‘No wonder you slept.’

‘My feet went to sleep first. Your pavements are hard.’

‘Poor feet. So you don’t want to walk today?’

‘I might. With only one day left I won’t waste it. But, Ben, you don’t need to share.’

‘I’m sharing,’ he said brusquely. ‘Four days to see America is ridiculous.’

‘New York is enough.’

‘It’s not. What would you like to do?’

Go back to bed, she thought. With you.

She couldn’t say it.

‘I thought I might sit on a ferry,’ she said. ‘Just sit. I could see a heap and not walk at all.’