‘There are plenty of frozen TV dinners.’ She shrugged at his stare. ‘I don’t cook.’

He planted his legs, hands on hips. ‘What do you mean, you don’t cook?’

She waved her hands in front of her face. ‘This is al beside the point. Alex, you’re doing my head in!’

One corner of his mouth kinked up. ‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention that to Caro.’

The silence between them fil ed with the laughter of dolphins—oddly hypnotic. She shook herself out from under its spel . He might find this amusing, but she’d lost her sense of humour. There was too much at stake for laughing. Her baby…

‘I just don’t get you at al . You wanted me to terminate my pregnancy—’

‘No, I didn’t! I—’

‘You threw up when I told you I was pregnant but now you’re doing everything you can to make sure the baby stays healthy.’

He was silent for a moment. ‘You want this baby, Kit. You’ve already given your heart to it. You love it. I would never take that away from you.’

Her chest clenched. Frustration, remembered joy and then the ensuing crushing desolation, Alex’s generosity as a lover and then his cal ousness the next day, it al rose up through her now. She didn’t understand him at al and yet she’d agreed to let him stay in her house.

She was having his baby!

She needed to understand at least some of what had happened between them or…

Or she’d have learned nothing.

‘You were the most incredible lover, Alex, generous and thoughtful. You made me feel beautiful and cherished.’ And loved, which just went to show how skewed her judgement had been.

He leapt up, going white at her words.

‘And then the next day you acted as if what had happened between us meant nothing. No, even less that that, as if what had happened between us was an aberration.’ She lifted her hands. ‘Why?’

‘It wouldn’t have been fair to let you think we had a future.’

‘But you were so utterly cold, so cal ous. You didn’t even bother trying to let me down gently. What did I do wrong? Please—I don’t ever want to make that same mistake again.’ She had a baby to think of.

Her heart jammed in her throat. What if next time it wasn’t just her heart she broke but her child’s too? If her judgement about him could be so off, how could her judgement about him could be so off, how could she ever trust it again?

‘How could you have changed so completely?

What was that al about? Was it you? Or did I do something?’ She couldn’t hold the questions back.

Her voice rose as each one burst from her. ‘Why?’

Alex’s face twisted in an emotion she couldn’t identify—anger? Panic? Horror? He thrust an arm towards her stomach. ‘Because I didn’t want that!’

The shouted words reverberated in the quiet of her cool, shady bedroom. They pulsed in the air like live things. Her hands crept across her stomach in an attempt to block her unborn baby’s ears. In an attempt to protect it from pain and hurt. In an effort to console it. Her knees drew up beneath the covers to form a barrier between him and her.

‘You real y don’t want this baby, do you?’ She’d known that before, but now she knew it in a harder, more real way. And it hurt. It died, that part of her that hadn’t been able to give up hope. Hope that once he’d recovered from the initial shock he’d come around, perhaps even welcome this baby into his life.

Alex was never going to accept this child.

‘I’m sorry.’ He’d gone a hideous kind of grey. ‘I shouldn’t have yel ed.’

Perhaps not, but she couldn’t real y blame him.

She’d pushed him. She hadn’t meant to, it had just happened. But now she had her answer.

He dragged a hand back through his hair, eyed her uncertainly. ‘Time for us to get calm again.’

‘I am calm.’

Strangely enough, that was true. She felt icily and preternatural y calm. It didn’t stop her from suspecting she may wel cry buckets over al this later. ‘I’m tired,’ she whispered.

‘I’l leave you to rest.’

CHAPTER SIX

ON WEDNESDAY evening Kit woke to the smel of something divine coming from the kitchen.

Alex poked his head around her bedroom door as if he had some finely tuned radar that let him know when she was awake. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Good, thank you. Actual y, real y good.’ Back-to-normal good. She pushed herself into a sitting position and smiled when her back proved total y pain-free. ‘I can’t believe how much I’m sleeping, though.’

‘Your body needs the rest.’ He shuffled his feet, glanced away. ‘Dinner wil be ready in five if you need to…’ He waved towards the bathroom.

‘Freshen up?’ she supplied.

‘Uh, right.’

No sooner had she made it back to bed and settled the covers around her when Alex walked in with a tray. Kit groaned as he set it on her lap. ‘This smel s heavenly.’

‘It’s just a beef and potato salad.’

She could tel he was pleased, though. She speared a piece of beef, popped it into her mouth and closed her eyes in bliss as she chewed.

When she opened her eyes she found Alex frozen to the spot, his eyes glued to her mouth. Her stomach, skin, even her ears, al tightened. ‘I…um…’

She cleared her throat and tried to tamp down on the heat rising through her. She set her fork to her plate before she dropped it, and searched her mind for something to say. ‘You’re…um…not going to eat out there on your own, are you?’

He snapped back. ‘I thought—’

‘Bring your plate in here, Alex. Do you know how boring it is being confined to bed?’ And then she wondered if that was such a good idea. She didn’t real y want to spend more time in Alex’s company than she had to, did she?

‘It’s only for one more day.’

‘Half a day,’ she corrected.

He stood for a moment as if undecided before leaving the room and returning with his plate. He settled himself on his chair.

She should get a nice little tub chair for this room.

It was the last thought she was aware of thinking before she returned to her food. She couldn’t believe how ravenous she was, and how much better she was feeling. She scraped up the last of the sauce with a piece of lettuce, chewed in avid appreciation and final y set her tray aside. ‘That was unbelievably delicious. Though you didn’t have to go to any trouble, you know?’

‘No trouble.’

She didn’t believe that for a moment. ‘You could’ve just tossed a TV dinner into the microwave and I’d have been grateful for that.’

He polished off the last of his food too and set his plate on her dressing table. ‘I can’t believe you don’t cook.’

‘It’s boring and messy and takes too long.’

‘It doesn’t have to be any of those things.’

‘I do other things. I can crochet. That’s nice and domestic.’

‘You have a baby on the way. You need to know how to cook.’

Yes, she had a baby on the way. His baby. Only he didn’t want anything to do with it.

An awkward silence opened up between them, turning her tongue to lead.

Alex cleared his throat. ‘Finished?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘Would you like some more?’

‘No, thank you.’

Her hands clenched in the quilt when he left with their empty plates. Why was he still here!

He returned a short while later with two mugs of steaming tea. He handed her one and settled himself on the seat at the end of her bed again.

‘So.’ He cleared his throat. He didn’t look any more at ease than she did. ‘This is where you grew up?’

She took a careful sip and then nodded. ‘The house where I grew up is a few blocks closer to the river.’

‘And you have lots of friends here, lots of honorary aunts and uncles?’

Was he trying to reassure himself that she had Was he trying to reassure himself that she had backup for when he did leave? Was that what al this was about? Him staying here looking after her—was it his attempt to assuage a guilty conscience?

No, no, he was too ruthless for that.

She bit her lip. He’d framed her ultrasound photo.

He’d bought her a relaxation CD.

Maybe he had a seriously guilty conscience?

‘Kit?’

She shook herself, searched and found the thread of their conversation again. ‘This was a great place to grow up. Doreen next door used to be the school secretary at my old primary school and what she doesn’t know about my old classmates isn’t worth knowing.’

He grimaced and she could see how this smal -

community lifestyle might seem suffocating to him, but she wasn’t going to lie about the kind of life she wanted for herself and her baby. ‘I barely clapped eyes on my neighbours in Sydney.’ Everybody was too busy working long hours, dealing with long commutes into the CBD. ‘I like knowing my neighbours’ names. I like chatting over the back fence. I like knowing that they’re keeping an eye on me and that I can do the same for them.’

She had no regrets about leaving the busy pace of the city behind.

‘Auntie Doreen is a good friend of my grandmother’s. My grandma used to live across the street.’ Which was probably why she’d jumped at the chance to buy this house. The street held good memories for her.