Their Unexpected Babies

‘You’re wrong—’

‘I’m going to have a baby.’

He sat up straight and looked at her, the smile gone from his face.

A baby? What? He looked down at her abdomen, trying to think back to how she’d looked, naked in the moonlight streaming in through her open curtains. The soft swell of her abdomen...her wondrous curves...

‘No, not me. Not me in person. I have a surrogate. My best friend Sally—she’s carrying my baby for me and she’s got seven more months before she gives birth.’

He stared. Shocked beyond words. He’d found the perfect woman. At least he thought he had.

This changes everything!

She was going to have a baby. She was going to become a mother. Which was great for her, but not for him. He didn’t need that kind of complication in his life. Parenthood? Responsibilities? Resentment? Exhaustion?

No, thanks. No way, José.

CHAPTER THREE (#ufab99083-6508-5bf0-b2de-de0bf1cc9687)

‘YOU’RE SHOCKED. I know you’re shocked. I would be, too, if I were in your shoes.’

She smiled a little, to show him she understood. That she wasn’t going to blame him if he walked away now. In fact she needed him to walk away. Because he was a complication that she didn’t need in her life right now. A stunningly attractive complication, yes, but not the kind she would be able to rely on with a baby around. He’d hardly signed up for this, after all. It was only right he knew from the start, so he could make decisions with all the facts at his fingertips.

He could cause wonders with those fingertips... Don’t think about those. Focus!

‘A baby? You’re going to be a mum?’

‘Yes. I am.’

‘But...isn’t surrogacy like a last chance kind of thing?’

She could see what he wanted to ask. Why can’t you have the child yourself? Perhaps she needed to explain? But this felt awkward. She barely knew him, after all. Carnal knowledge of a person didn’t count in this situation. She wasn’t used to sharing personal information with someone she hardly knew. But it had to be done.

‘It is a last chance kind of thing.’

‘But why? You’re only in your thirties, I’m guessing. You still might meet someone.’

‘I appreciate your optimism—I do. But it’s not that simple.’

‘I don’t understand. What aren’t you telling me?’

Boy, those eyes of his are intense!

She sucked in a deep breath. Here goes.

‘I’ve been told that I probably can’t carry a baby to term due to an anomaly in my uterus, but I want to start a family and this seemed the safest way to do that.’

Ben frowned, a small divot forming between his brows. ‘What kind of anomaly?’

‘A bicornuate uterus.’

He sucked in a breath. ‘It’s partially split?’

He was a good listener. It made him easy to tell.

‘Mine’s quite severe. My doctors told me that any baby I carry would most likely be lost in the second trimester, or that there’d be foetal growth retardation—especially if the foetus implanted in one of the two halves.’

He nodded. ‘I’ve heard of it. But I’ve never met anyone with it before.’

‘That you know of.’

He smiled. ‘You’re my first.’

She nodded, smiling. ‘Yes, well. There you go. Intimacy and a medical revelation. Aren’t you a lucky guy?’

He nodded.

‘I’ve never had family,’ she said. ‘I want to belong to someone. I want someone who is my blood. Someone to love and cherish, who cherishes me in return. I always knew I wanted a child and I just felt that time was running out for me to find that with someone I could trust enough.’

He looked doubtful. ‘So you’re doing it on your own?’

She smiled, glad that he understood and didn’t appear to be judging her. ‘So I’m doing it on my own.’

He didn’t need to hear about the long months of needles and hormones and egg collection procedures. She’d had one hot night with this man—she didn’t want him to think of her lying back in a room with her legs in stirrups. She didn’t want him thinking of her as a patient. Those days, she hoped, were over. The future was going to be everything.

‘Which is why you needed to know.’

‘And you think I won’t be interested in you because you’re about to become a parent?’

Leah cocked her head to one side, smiling. ‘Well? Are you?’

He leaned back in his chair, considering his answer. ‘You think I’ll run a mile because a baby is on the way?’

She laughed. ‘Yes.’

He held his chest as if she’d just stabbed him in the heart and mock-groaned. ‘I’m hurt!’

‘Come on! Are you seriously trying to tell me that a man like you isn’t put off by a woman like me?’

His eyes twinkled. ‘“A man like me”?’

Clearly he wanted clarification.

‘You have a reputation, Mr Willoughby. As a bit of a player.’

He shook his head, smiling, as if he were disappointed in her. ‘You’ve been here one morning and already you’re listening to gossip?’

She maintained eye contact. ‘You still haven’t answered my question.’