Her Boss's Baby Plan

‘It would be different if you had your own children.’

He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t risk it. There’s too much grief when things go wrong.’

‘And so much happiness when they go right,’ countered Martha.

‘You said yourself that having a baby is hard work and you spend most of your time exhausted.’

‘Yes, but I also said that it was worth it. And I’ve been trying to manage on my own. It wouldn’t be like that for you.’

‘That’s what Helen used to say. “It won’t be like that for us.”’ Lewis shook his head. ‘I didn’t see why it should be different for us.’

‘You’re…um…not together any more, then?’ asked Martha.

‘No.’ He glanced at her and then away. ‘Helen and I had what I thought was an ideal relationship. She’s a beautiful, smart, very talented lady.’

Oh, good, thought Martha. The ex from hell.

Although what was it to her, after all? Martha scowled down into her glass of water. Water! What was wrong with her? She had been the ultimate party girl once, the queen of champagne sippers.

‘We were together a long time,’ Lewis was saying. ‘I travel a lot, and she was busy training as a barrister.’

Excellent, a barrister! So Helen was not just beautiful and smart but a serious person. Not the kind of woman who stood around sipping champagne, then.

Oblivious to Martha’s mental running commentary, Lewis was still telling her about his relationship. ‘We both had our own lives, but we enjoyed the time we spent together and everything was perfect until one day she woke up with her hormones in overdrive.’

His mouth turned down at the edges, remembering. ‘That’s when she started lobbying for a baby. It wasn’t about getting married for Helen. She just wanted a child. “This is the right time,” she kept saying.’

‘Well, maybe it was for her,’ said Martha, beginning to feel a twinge of sympathy for Helen. She might have been intimidatingly clever and beautiful, but she obviously hadn’t got very far with Lewis.

‘It wasn’t the right time for her career,’ he said astringently. ‘She’d worked incredibly hard and had just qualified. She should have been thinking about getting experience, not babies. I couldn’t believe that she would even consider chucking it all in.’