The Best Laid Plans

She sniffed, in desperate need of a tissue. This time when she pushed Ethan away he let her go. She kept her face averted as she crossed to her gym bag. She squatted to rummage inside for her towel, then pressed the soft fabric against her face until she was sure she’d blotted away all evidence of her outburst. Then and only then did she push herself upright and face him again.

They eyed each other for a long beat. Finally Alex cleared her throat.

“I don’t suppose you’d be prepared to pretend the last few minutes never happened? “

“Who’s Jacob?” he asked again.

“I appreciate the concern, I really do, but you don’t want to hear the pathetic details of my personal life.” She worked hard to keep her tone light and dry.

His gaze searched her face for a long moment. “Let me guess. Jacob’s your ex, right? What happened? Is he getting married? Moving countries? Dying from an obscure disease?”

“I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“So he’s getting married.”

“He’s not getting married. Can we just leave it?”

“How long ago did you break up?”

She threw her hands in the air. “He was pushing a baby stroller, okay? He’s a father. Is that what you wanted to know?”

There was a short silence. She could see the surprise on Ethan’s face, as though she’d presented him with a puzzle piece and he didn’t know where it fit. Like Dr. Ramsay, he was probably shocked that she wanted to be a mother. She’d done such a good job of building the facade of Alexandra Knight, cool, efficient corporate lawyer, that no one had any idea what lay behind the power suits and overtime. Which was the way she liked it. Most of the time.

“How old are you?” Ethan asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Thirty-five? Thirty-six?”

“I’m thirty-nine this year.”

“Thirty-nine’s not old—”

She held up a hand. “Please don’t tell me that I have plenty of time to meet someone else and have a child. I know it might be hard for someone who only has to click his fingers to have half a dozen women panting at his front door to understand, but men over thirty-five who want to get married and have kids are a little thin on the ground. And I have it on the good authority of my doctor that my chances of conceiving drop to ten per cent once I hit my forties.”

“I see,” he said.

And she knew he did—too much.

She stood, shouldering her bag. “Look, I really have to go. I’m sorry about the game. And the blubbering. I’ll make it up to you next week.”

She didn’t wait for him to respond, simply strode for the door. She should have stuck to her first instinct and canceled the game. Should have gone home and gotten all the anger and hurt and despair out of her system before she’d had to face the world again.

She didn’t relax until she was behind the wheel of her car, cocooned by the dark outside and the instant warmth of her heater. Then and only then did her shoulders and stomach muscles relax. She sank against the seat and exhaled noisily. She felt so bloody weary and defeated. Overwhelmed. Filled with regret.

But she couldn’t turn back time, could she? Couldn’t go back eighteen months and be the one to “accidentally” forget a few vital pills so that she could be the mother of Jacob’s child and force him into fatherhood against his will.

Not that she hadn’t considered doing that toward the end. She’d been tempted, more than once. The bottom line was that she hadn’t wanted to build their family on the foundation of a lie. She’d respected Jacob too much to take such an important decision out of his hands.

And now it was too late. Or close enough as made no difference. She’d missed the boat. Waited too long. And no amount of temper tantrums on the racquetball court was going to change that fact. She was simply going to have to suck it up and get on with playing the hand she’d been dealt. And if that hand meant no children … well, so be it.

CHAPTER TWO

ALEX’S MOOD OF GRIM resignation held sway until she stepped out of the shower later that evening. She’d made herself dinner when she arrived home from the gym and eaten it mechanically, then she’d settled on the couch and determinedly worked her way through the contracts she’d brought with her. She didn’t let herself think. She was good at that—it was one of her most successful survival techniques. It wasn’t until she’d showered and was toweling herself dry that she caught sight of her naked body in the bathroom mirror and stilled. She let the towel fall to the floor and pressed her hands against her belly, spreading her fingers wide, feeling the resilience of her own skin.

How many times had she imagined what it would be like to grow big with her child? To smooth her hands over her swollen belly? How many times had she tried to imagine what it would feel like to have a small, new life fluttering inside her?

Time to put that dream away.

She let her hands drop, but unlike earlier when she’d first confronted her brutal reality, a small voice piped up in the back of her mind.

A voice of defiance. A voice of hope.

You could still meet someone. You’ve got a few years. And it’s not like you’ve been knocking yourself out tryingto meet anyone. If you really put your mind to it, you could still have a chance.

For example, hadn’t she flicked past three whole pages of singles ads in the back section of the daily newspaper this morning? She’d always turned her nose up at the idea of advertising for a partner, no matter that she’d heard plenty of first- and second-hand accounts of how people had met their husbands and wives via dating sites. She’d been convinced that someone would come along through the normal routes—friends, or work or some other social event. But maybe it was time to make things happen instead of waiting.

She shrugged into her dressing gown and headed for the kitchen, her mind teeming with plans. She’d join every dating website she could find. She’d place her own singles ad. She’d date her ass off, make it an absolute priority in her life until she met the right man. Surely, if she committed herself to the task of finding a partner, treated it like a project, she’d be successful. After all, when hadn’t she achieved what she wanted once she put her mind to it?

She’d held the household together after her mother’s accident through sheer grit. And after her mother’s death she’d bulldozed her way through law school, then put her head down and bulldozed some more until she’d made partner in one of Melbourne’s top law firms a mere seven years after graduating. When she wanted something in her professional life, she was formidable. So why couldn’t she transfer that ethos to her personal life?

Her jaw was tense with purpose as she rescued this morning’s paper from the top of the pile in the recycle bin. She crossed to the kitchen table and spread the paper wide, thumbing through until she found the classifieds section. She stared at the columns of small print, aware of her heart beating a determined tattoo against her rib cage. Then she ran her finger down the page until she found the Male Seeks Female section and began to read.

After a few minutes she grabbed a pen from the caddy on her kitchen counter and started to circle the likely suspects.

Male, mid-forties, good sense of humor, professional, seeks woman in mid- to late-thirties, attractive, good sense of humor. Enjoys movies, hiking, reading biographies …

Man, 30s, seeks woman for potential relationship. Should enjoy outdoor sports and overseas travel …

Successful professional male seeks mature, attractive woman no older than 40 with strong sense of self and independence. You should enjoy dining out, weekends away and the theater.

By the time she’d finished she had a list of eight possible prospects. Response was via email so she hauled out her laptop and fired it up. There was no reason she couldn’t send the same response to all eight men. Coming up with that response, however, that might take some time.

She called up a document program on her computer and sat with her fingers hovering over the keyboard. How to best describe herself? She needed to sound appealing but not desperate. She’d never considered herself a great beauty—her jaw-length dark hair was thick and healthy but nothing spectacular, and her mouth was too wide and her eyes too large for conventional standards—but she was attractive enough and Jacob had always said that he loved her plush mouth and full breasts. But she could hardly put that in an ad. She typed a few lines, then immediately deleted them. How to get the essence of herself across in a few short paragraphs? How to cut through all the other responses these men might receive and stand out from the pack? Because the more men she met, the higher the chance of finding someone compatible and the sooner she could sound him out on the subject of children.

She jotted down some sums in the margin of the newspaper. Say it took her six months to find someone. Then another, say, four months before she felt comfortable broaching the subject of children with him. Or was four months too soon? It was hard to know.

Maybe she’d have to simply play it by ear, see what came up in conversation. But if the man was keen for a family, then they should probably wait another six months before attempting to get pregnant. Just to consolidate the relationship. In the meantime, she could talk to Dr. Ramsay about all the things she needed to do to be in tip-top condition to conceive—folate supplements and whatnot—so that she would be ready to go at the drop of a hat.

So adding the six-month search time to the four-month vetting period, then the six-month double-check time—

What are you doing? Can you hear yourself?

Alex stared at the figures. A formula for desperation—that was what she’d calculated. A formula for a woman who was terrified that she was going to miss out.

Was this what she really wanted? Did she really want a baby this much? Was motherhood so important to her that she was prepared to put it at the forefront of any potential connection she developed with a man?

She was no psychologist, but she didn’t need to be to understand that embarking on a relationship with someone while her biological clock ticked loudly in the background wasn’t exactly the ideal way to go.