Nine Months to Change His Life

by Unknown

  ‘She?’

  ‘I thought tonight...’ He looked at her for a long moment, his expression unreadable, but when he spoke, it was all tenderness. ‘I thought, what if she’s a girl, just like her mother?’

  What was there in that statement to take her breath away? What was there in that statement to make her forget toast and jam, to forget where she was, to forget everything except those words?

  What if she’s a girl, just like her mother?

  She’d been terrific when she’d found out she was pregnant, she’d decided. She’d surprised herself by how calm she’d been. She’d set about making plans, figuring how she could manage.

  She’d decided to tell Ben, rationally and coolly. She’d prided herself on her efficiency, getting a passport, deciding on flights, choosing the hotel Ben had so rudely rejected.

  She’d told him calmly. Everything was going as planned.

  But one little statement...

  What if she’s a girl, just like her mother?

  She sat on the bench and stared, and suddenly the cool control she’d kept herself under for the last couple of months snapped.

  She couldn’t help it. Tears were rolling down her cheeks and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. She couldn’t speak. She just sat there and cried like a baby.

  Ben looked like he didn’t have a clue how to handle it. That made two of them.

  ‘Mary, I didn’t mean...’ He sounded appalled. ‘Mary, stop.’

  That’d be like asking the tide to turn. She gave her tears an angry swipe but nothing could stop these suckers.

  She didn’t have a tissue. She didn’t have thirty tissues. Where were tissues in this über-rich mausoleum of a marble apartment?

  * * *

  One minute he was standing by the kitchen bench, talking to a woman he’d decided he hardly knew. The next moment the woman had turned into Mary. His Mary.

  He knew this woman like he knew himself.

  Tears were rolling down her cheeks and she was making no effort to check them. It was as if she didn’t know what to do with them.

  This was a woman who seldom cried. He knew that. What was happening now was shocking her—as well as shocking him.

  She needed tissues, but his shoulder was closer. He stepped forward, gathered a sodden Mary into his arms and held her.

  He should wear a towelling robe, he thought ruefully. Silk didn’t cut it with tears.

  Silk didn’t cut it when the feel of her body was soaking through. But he held her and held her, until the shuddering eased, until she’d cried herself out, until he felt the imperceptible stiffening that told him she’d realised what she’d done, where she was.

  He still held. He was cradling her like a child but this was no child. She’d slumped against him but the slump had turned to something more. Her face was buried in his shoulder but the rest of her... She was moulded to him. Her breasts were pressed to his chest. His face was in her hair.

  ‘I can’t...’ It was a ragged whisper.

  ‘I have it in hand,’ he told her, and before she could make any objections he swung her into his arms and strode with her into his bedroom.

  The woman needed tissues. There were tissues in his bedroom and that’s where he was headed.

  * * *

  One minute she was cradled against Ben Logan, sobbing her heart out, releasing months of pent-up emotion and who knew what else besides. The next she was in his arms, being carried into his bedroom.

  She should make some sort of protest, but who was protesting? She was making no protest at all.

  They’d made love before as complete strangers. They weren’t strangers now. Or maybe they were, she thought, dazed. How did she know this man?

  She did.

  He lived in a different world from her, a world he pretty much owned.

  She felt she knew him inside out.

  To the world this man was a hero, a rich, smart, controlling wheeler and dealer in the world’s finances. But she’d seen what lay beneath. She’d seen the core that was pure need.

  Who was she kidding? The need was entirely hers and she couldn’t resist it for a minute.

  She was catching her breath, finding control of a sort. The dumb weeping had stopped so when Ben set her on the bathroom bench and handed her a wad of tissues she could do something about it.

  She blew her nose, hard, and Ben blinked.

  ‘There’s my romantic girl.’

  She choked on something between a chuckle and a sob, but it was erring more towards the chuckle.

  Something was happening inside her. She was in this man’s bathroom. He was looking at her with such concern...

  ‘Your face is puffy.’

  ‘And there’s a truly romantic statement,’ she managed. ‘I bet you say that to all the women in your life.’

  ‘There are no women in my life.’ He picked up a facecloth, wet it and gently wiped her eyes. Then her whole face. ‘Just the mother of my child.’

  What was it about that statement that took her breath away? That made her toes curl?

  That made her drop her tissues into the neat designer trash slot and look up at him and smile.

  ‘Ben...’

  It was all she had to say. All the longing in the world was in that word. It was a question and an answer all by itself.

  She put her arms up and looped her hands around his neck. He stopped and lifted her yet again.

  ‘Your place or mine?’ he asked huskily, managing to smile.

  ‘I’ve only got a king-size bed,’ she managed back. ‘Puny. I bet yours is bigger.’

  ‘You’d better believe it,’ he said, and she did.

  And that was practically the last thing she was capable of thinking for a very long time.

  * * *

  She woke and the morning sun was streaming over the luxurious white coverlet. She woke and the softness of the duvet enfolded her.

  She woke and Ben was gone.

  For a moment she refused to let herself think it. She lay and savoured the warmth, the feeling of sheer, unmitigated luxury, the knowledge that she’d been made love to with a passion that maybe she’d never feel again.

  He’d made her feel alive. He’d made her feel a woman as she’d never believed she could feel.

  He’d made her feel loved.

  But he wasn’t here now.

  She’d slept, at last, cocooned in the strength and heat of his body. She’d slept thinking everything was right in her world. What could possibly be wrong?

  She’d slept thinking she was being held by Ben and he’d never let her go.

  She stirred, tentatively, like a caterpillar nervous of emerging from the safety of its dreamlike cocoon.

  The clock on her bedside table said twelve.

  Twelve? She’d slept how long? No wonder Ben had left her.

  He’d left her.

  Hey, she was still in his bed. Possession’s nine tenths of the law, she decided, and stretched like a languorous cat.

  Cat, caterpillar, whatever. She surely wasn’t herself.

  There was a note on his pillow.

  A Dear John letter? She almost smiled. She was playing make-believe in her head. Scenario after scenario. All of them included Ben.

  The note, however, was straightforward. Not a lot of room for fantasy here.

  I need to go into work. I left loose ends yesterday and they’re getting strident. Sleep as long as you want. It’s Saturday, no cleaners come near the place so you have the apartment to yourself. I’ll be home late but tomorrow is yours. Think of what you’d like to do with it.

  Ben.

  And then a postscript.

  Last night was amazing. Please make yourself at home in my bed.

/>   There was more stuff to think about.

  She was interrupting his life, she thought. She really had pulled him out of his world yesterday. He’d need to pull it back together.

  And then come back to her?

  Just for tomorrow.

  ‘But if that’s all I can have, then that has to be enough,’ she told herself. ‘So think about it.’

  Food first. What had happened to last night’s toast? Who could remember? But she’d seen juice in the fridge, and croissants. And then...the bath in Ben’s bathroom was big enough to hold a small whale.

  ‘Which is what I’ll be in six months...

  ‘Don’t think about it. Don’t think about anything but tomorrow,’ she said severely. ‘Or maybe not even tomorrow. Let’s just concentrate on right now.’

  * * *

  The office was chaos. One day out and the sky had fallen. Still, it had been worth it, he decided, making one apologetic phone call after another, trying to draw together the threads of the deal he’d abandoned the day before.

  Mary was worth it.

  She was with him all day, her image, the memory of her body against his, the warmth of her smile, the taste of her tears.

  He was getting soft in his old age. He’d vowed never to feel this way about a woman.

  About anyone.

  He didn’t want to feel responsible for anyone but somehow it had happened. Ready or not, he was responsible for Mary. The mother of his child.

  His woman?

  He wanted to phone Jake.

  Why? To tell him he’d met someone? Jake’s attitude to women was the same as his. His brother had made one foray into marriage and it’d turned into a disaster. The woman had needed far more than Jake would—or could—give.

  The Logan boys weren’t the marrying kind.

  But Mary...

  No. He would not get emotionally involved.

  Who was he kidding? He already was.

  Which meant he had to help her, he thought as the long day wore on, as the deal finally reached its drawn-out conclusion, which meant the financial markets could relax for another week.

  He thought of what the lawyer back in New Zealand had told him. ‘She really is alone.’

  If she was alone and in trouble...with his baby... There had to be a solution.

  Finally at nine o’clock he signed the last document, left it on his secretary’s desk and prepared to leave. But first one phone call.

  Mathew Arden. Literary agent for some of the biggest names in the world.

  ‘Well,’ he said, as Mathew answered the phone. ‘Am I right?’

  * * *

  She walked her legs off. She strolled down Fifth Avenue, she checked out Tiffany & Co., was awed by the jewellery and chuckled as the salespeople were lovely to her, even though they must know she could hardly afford to look at their wares.

  She took the subway to Soho, just so she could say she’d been there, and spent time in its jumble of eclectic shops. She bought a pair of porcelain parrots for her next-door neighbour who was looking after Heinz.

  She bought a truly awesome diamanté collar for Heinz. He’d show up every dog in the North Island.

  She took the Staten Island ferry and checked out the Statue of Liberty from close quarters.

  ‘You’re just as beautiful as the pictures,’ she told her ladyship, and felt immeasurably pleased.

  She ended up on Broadway and got a cheap ticket to see the last half of a musical she’d only ever seen on film.

  She bought herself a hamburger, headed back on the subway to Ben’s apartment—and was weirdly disappointed when he wasn’t home.

  She’d sort of wanted him to be impressed that she hadn’t hung around all day waiting for him, but maybe she’d done too much trying to prove it. Her feet hurt.

  She ran a bath and soaked, all the time waiting for his key in the lock.

  ‘Just like I’m the little woman,’ she told herself. ‘Waiting for my man to come home.’

  She let herself imagine it, just for a moment. If she and Ben were to take this further...

  This’d be her life.

  ‘Um, no,’ she said, reaching out for a gorgeous-looking bottle of bath salts. Sprinkling it in. Lying back to soak some more. ‘You know you never want to commit to some guy who’ll turn out to be just like Dad. This is fantasy and nothing more.’

  * * *

  It was after ten when Ben reached home and he was feeling guilty.

  This was what it’d be like if he ever tried marriage, he told himself. This was why Jake’s marriage had foundered. The Logan boys’ lives didn’t centre round women. But still, the thoughts of the night before were with him. The memory of Mary in his bed was enough to make him turn the key with eagerness.

  ‘Mary?’

  No answer.

  Her purse was on the counter. Her jacket was hanging on the chair. It felt good to see them. He liked it that Mary was in his apartment.

  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

  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,’ h
e 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.’

  ‘So we’re ruling out anywhere with pavements.’

  ‘It’s fine. Ben, you don’t need to play travel escort.’