Surprise Baby, Second Chance

‘And you won’t?’ He lifted his shoulders in response. She took another step forward. ‘You’re not helping me feel any less trapped than I already do, Aaron.’

Again, he shrugged. Again, she took a step forward.

‘And you’re not as unaffected by all this as you’re pretending.’

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, clasping her wrist just before her hand reached his face. Somehow, she’d closed the distance between them as she’d said her last words without him noticing.

‘I’m trying to show you that you’re not as aloof as you believe,’ she said, and dropped her hand with a triumphant smile. ‘I told you.’

He didn’t reply. He couldn’t do so without telling her that she was right—unaffected was the last thing he felt. But he showed her. Slid an arm around her waist and hauled her against him.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said, his voice slightly breathless, though measured, he thought. But he could be wrong. Hell, he could have been imitating the President of South Africa right then and he wouldn’t have known. ‘Maybe I was thinking about the first time we kissed.’ He dipped his head lower. ‘You remember.’

It wasn’t a question. And the way her breath quickened—the way her hand shook as she wiped the rain from her brow—confirmed it.

* * *

‘Aaron, wait!’

He turned back just in time to see Rosa running towards him. His stomach flipped as it always did when he saw her. And he steeled himself against it. He couldn’t fall into the attraction. He hadn’t for the last year. He could survive whatever she was running to tell him.

‘Would you give me a lift home?’ she asked breathlessly when she reached him. As she asked—as he nodded—a menacing boom sounded in the sky before rain began pouring down on them.

‘Here, get in,’ he said, starting towards the passenger’s side of the car. But she put a hand on his chest before he could make any progress, and he held his breath.

Control. Steel.

‘No,’ she replied tiredly. She leaned back against his car, dropping her hand and lifting her head to the sky. ‘No, this is exactly what I need.’

‘To be drenched in rain?’

She laughed huskily and need pierced him. ‘No. Just...a break.’

‘Hard day?’

‘Isn’t every day?’

She glanced back at the hospital where her mother was staying overnight. His mother had a chemo session but she’d left the book she’d wanted to read at home. And since Rosa’s mother—Liana’s usual companion—had started a new course of treatment, she wasn’t in Liana’s session to keep her company.

And because Liana knew Aaron would do anything to make what she was going through easier, she’d asked him to fetch her book.

‘But today was particularly hard,’ Rosa continued with a sigh. ‘I had to meet a deadline for a couple of designs. And my creativity hasn’t exactly been flowing over the last few months.’