Carol Marinelli – Special Deliveries: Her Gift, His Baby: Secrets of a Career Girl / For the Baby's Sake / A Very Special Delivery (страница 14)

‘By choice?’

‘No,’ Penny said. ‘Well, yes, by choice, because she had no choice but to leave Simon’s dad. I really have thought things through.’

‘Tell me?’

‘I’ve got to work.’

‘Dinner?’ Ethan said, because he really was starting to like Penny, well, not fancy like, he told himself, but then he remembered the flash of her knickers and what had almost happened yesterday. Maybe he should recant that invitation to take her out for dinner, except he’d already asked.

‘Why?’

Ethan shrugged. ‘Well, I’ve been out with a new father and listened to his labour and if I add a woman going through IVF, I figure by the end of the week I could qualify as a sensitive new-age guy.’

Penny smiled and he had been right—she really was attractive when she did.

‘Okay, then.’ Her acceptance caught him just a little by surprise. He’d sort of been hoping, for safety’s sake, that she might decline. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘After you stab me.’

Penny was on a day off, so it was she who ‘dropped in’ just as Ethan was finishing up.

She was wearing a dress that buttoned up at the front and her heels were a little higher. He caught the musky scent of her perfume as he followed her into the office and locked the door.

‘I’ll do it,’ he said, taking her little cool bag.

She told him her doses and he heard the shake in her voice as she did so.

‘I am so sorry about this.’ He turned and she was trying to undo the little buttons on her dress. It really was a very genuine fear, made worse today because she’d had the whole drive here to think about it. Ethan actually saw her break out into a cold sweat as he approached and she was trying very hard not to cry.

‘I need a bit more skin than that, Penny.’ She’d only managed two buttons. ‘Here.’ He undid a couple more and felt the splash of a hot tear on the back of his hand. ‘You must really want this baby.’

‘I do.’

He could see tiny goose bumps rising on her stomach. He was really impressed with himself because he was completely matter-of-fact and, despite a glimpse of purple underwear and the heady scent of her, he was not a bit turned on. Two evenings in a row now!

He just kept reminding himself that there’d be a baby in there any time soon and that those small breasts would soon look like Hilary’s.

‘Done,’ Ethan said.

‘Thanks.’

‘Where do you want to go and eat?’

Penny didn’t care, so they ended up in the same pub near the hospital where he had been with Gordon, and they took a booth and sat opposite each other. He saw the dark smudges under her eyes and the paleness of her skin. The treatment must really be taking its toll by now.

‘Jasmine’s coming back the day after tomorrow,’ Penny said. ‘Well, as long as Jed’s mother keeps improving, so tomorrow should be the last time you have to do it.’

‘It’s not an issue.’

‘I am very grateful to you, though. Jasmine was worried that I’d just stop the treatment and I think she was right.’

‘Have you told her I’m giving them?’

‘Yes.’ Penny nodded. ‘She sends you her sympathies.’

He’d prefer self-restraint.

‘When’s your next blood test?’

‘Seven a.m. tomorrow.’

‘Do you want to change the next one?’ Ethan asked. ‘Go in a little bit later?’

Penny shook her head. ‘Thanks, but it has to be done early.’

She ordered nachos smothered in sour cream and guacamole and cheese, and it surprised him because he’d thought she’d order a salad or something.

And usually she would but this was like PMS times a thousand so she just scooped up the cheesiest bit she could find and sank her teeth into it with such pleasure that Ethan wished he hadn’t ordered the steak.

‘Have some.’ She saw his eyes linger on them.

‘Who’d have thought?’ Ethan said.

‘I’m good at sharing.’

‘I meant the two of us being out together. What a difference a week can make.’

Penny smiled and he rather wished she hadn’t.

‘How come you’re so petrified of needles?’

‘I’m not as bad as I used to be,’ Penny said. ‘I did hypnosis, counselling and everything, just to get to where I could let someone give me one.’

‘So you think hypnosis works?’

She saw his sceptical frown. ‘I don’t know,’ Penny admitted. ‘I mean, I’m still scared of needles but the hypnotherapist did get me to remember the first time that I freaked out—I was at school and we were all lined up to get an injection and the girl in front of me passed out.’

‘Mass hysteria?’

‘Possibly.’ Penny had thought about it practically. ‘But my father had just left my mother a couple of weeks before, so apparently, according to the counsellor, it was my excuse to scream and cry.’ She gave a very wicked smile. ‘Load of rubbish really.’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘All I know is that the fear is there and I’m having to face it over and over and over. Sometimes it’s terrible, sometimes it’s not so bad. I was good at my blood test this morning.’

‘You were good tonight.’

‘Yep,’ Penny said. ‘And had Jasmine’s mother-in-law not had a stroke, you’d never have known and we’d have been able to look each other in the eye.’

‘I’m looking you in the eye now, Penny.’

She looked up and so he was. She saw that his eyes were more amber than hazel and there was a quickening to her pulse. How could she possibly be thinking such thoughts? She couldn’t be attracted to Ethan. She had to stay focussed on her treatment—her plan to become a mother. Except thinking about babies had her thinking about making babies the old-fashioned way!

With Ethan?

It was very warm in the bar; it must have been that causing this sear of heat between them, and Ethan wished he’d asked for his steak rare because it was taking for ever to come.

‘Do you have any phobias?’ she asked when thankfully his order had been delivered and normality was starting to return.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Flying?’

‘Love it.’ Ethan smiled.

‘Heights?’

‘They don’t bother me in the least.’

She did, though, Ethan thought as he ate his steak and tried to tell himself he was out with a colleague, but Penny was starting to bother him a lot, only not in the way she once had. He was just in no position to say. To his absolute surprise where Penny was concerned, since that morning when she’d turned round and smiled, there had been a charge in the air.

One that to Ethan really didn’t make sense, because he liked his women soft, curvy and cute, which was a terrible word and one he’d never admit to out loud, but that was what he liked.

And there was nothing soft about Penny and there wasn’t a curve to be seen, and as for cute …

‘What are you smiling at?’ Penny frowned.

‘Nothing.’ He reminded himself of the reason they were actually out. ‘So,’ he asked, ‘assuming this round of treatment is a success, how many embryos are you having put back?’ He saw her blink at the rather personal question.

‘Two.’

‘I think I’ve just found my phobia.’

Penny grinned. He made no secret of the fact he had no desire to ever be a parent, so she asked him why.