Secrets of a Career Girl Read online

  ‘I know I am,’ Ethan said, ‘because you’re trying really hard not to smile.’

  ‘I meant, have you been in a serious relationship?’

  ‘Apparently,’ Ethan said. ‘Though I didn’t know it at the time.’ He sighed at the memory. ‘I thought it was great, she wanted to move in...’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Or look for somewhere to live, or get engaged and then married and make lots of babies one day.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Caitlin. I led her on apparently, but I didn’t know that I was, I just thought we were having a good time. I didn’t realise it had to be leading somewhere—so now I make things a little more clear from the start.’ He waited, his eyes checking that he had.

  ‘I get it, Ethan.’ She gave him a smile and then she told him. ‘Jasmine said I should have a wild fling with you before I got pregnant.’

  ‘I’m that much of a sure thing, am I?’

  ‘Apparently,’ Penny said. ‘She thought I should forget about making babies and just enjoy myself for once.’

  ‘Have you ever had sex for the sake of it?’ He screwed up his face. ‘I mean, how long since you’ve had sex without trying for a baby?’

  ‘A very long time.’ She looked at him. ‘There was one time that I would have, but he declined.’

  ‘Well, maybe he was just being all male and territorial and couldn’t quite get his head around...’ He screwed up his face again, tried to spare the details. ‘You know in a few days’ time you...’

  ‘Might have been pregnant?’

  ‘No, not just that.’

  Penny frowned and then got it. ‘With someone else’s baby!’ She actually laughed. ‘You are a caveman!’

  ‘Nope, just a normal man.’ Ethan grinned, glad to see her smile. ‘And the only one I want you frantically describing is me.’

  And he was getting his words wrong, because he meant that he didn’t want to sit here and listen about her ex and her in bed, or did he mean that he wanted to give her something to frantically describe?

  That wasn’t what he’d come here for.

  ‘I’m going to go.’

  He pulled up on his elbow and gave her a kiss, though it was a bit pointless to pretend it was a friendly one, given what they’d been like, and that they were lying on the bed, but Ethan did kiss her with no intention other than to say goodbye.

  Except he’d forgotten just how much he liked kissing her till he was back there, and Penny was remembering all over again too. It was so nice to be lying down being kissed by him, nicer too when a little while later his hands crept to her breasts that clearly didn’t disappoint because she could feel him harden against her thigh as he stroked.

  Only this time he did what he had wanted to that time, his mouth moving down, slipping down the fabric and licking around the areola and then taking her in his mouth.

  She was on her back, his expert mouth suckling her hard, and Penny was gasping, wanting to turn to get to him, to explore him too, but loath to end the bliss of his mouth.

  He turned her to him, gave her other breast the same attention. Ethan, who loved breasts, actually loved that she hardly had any. Penny was grappling to pull out his top, desperate to feel his skin as his mouth sucking her breast drove her to higher pleasures.

  But Ethan moved her hands away, his intention to take his time, but as his hand slid down the jut of her hips, her nightdress had ridden up and he found his hand cupping her bare bottom. ‘Hell, Penny,’ he moaned, ‘have you been walking around all this time with no knickers on?’ He blew out a breath, remembered then the reason he was there, and when Kate had said to be ready for anything, he was quite sure she hadn’t meant that. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Taking things too far.’

  ‘You’ve never taken things too far,’ Penny said. ‘You haven’t taken things far enough.’

  They were at each other again, a knot of arms and legs and deep kisses, her hands going to his buckle, but he halted her.

  ‘Penny.’ He took her face in his hands and he wrestled with indecision, not sure if it was Hot Mess Penny he was talking to, whom he completely adored and could deal with, or Baby Making Mode Penny, who terrified him, and she got that much.

  ‘I’m not asking you to get me pregnant.’

  ‘Isn’t it too soon?’ Ethan checked.

  ‘Nope.’ And she thought of sex for the sake of it, and how lovely he had been and how badly she wanted the rest of that chocolate bar out of the fridge now. And so too did Ethan. They were back to kissing, only pausing to strip the other off and pray for condoms in his wallet, which, hurrah, there were.

  She buried her head in his chest and smelt and felt close-up and naked Ethan. He was stunning, muscled but not too much with a smooth tanned chest and flat brown nipples that shifted from view as his mouth slid down again, only this time not to her breasts. He licked down to her stomach and he did what he had wanted to do that first day he had given her her injection, and he kissed her till she was writhing.

  Penny had felt like a pincushion these past weeks, a failed baby-making machine at times, but his mouth was slowly turning her back into a woman as he lingered at each step. Penny closed her eyes in bliss as his mouth moved lower still and with each measured stroke she lost a little more control but gained mounting pleasure. Her hands pulled tight on his hair as Ethan revelled in the taste of her. The scent that had been alluring him for weeks was now his to savour and he carried on kissing her deeply there as she throbbed to his mouth and he returned her to herself.

  A new self.

  ‘Ethan.’ Penny lay catching her breath, went to say something, she didn’t know what. She wanted to sit up and face him, wanted to go down on him. It took a moment to realise it wasn’t her decision to make. He was over her, sheathed and poised at her entrance.

  ‘Love-thirty,’ he said, sexy and smiling and not a moment too soon for Penny, through with being patient.

  She moaned as he filled her. Ethan folded his arms behind her head so that her face was right up to him, and she had forgotten how lovely sex could be. Or rather, Penny amended as he moved deep inside her, she’d never really known just how lovely sex could be. Then, as Ethan shifted tempo she made one final amendment before she lost rational thought. She’d never known sex could be so hot.

  She didn’t get poor-Penny sex; she got the full bull in Ethan. A surprise birthday present that had her as wild as him. One of his arms moved down to her hips and he practically lifted her off the bed each time he thrust into her. Had Penny ever had any doubt as to all those times she’d thought him aroused, they were gone, because every missed opportunity, every subdued thought Ethan had had seemed to be being banished now over and over deep in her centre.

  His want, his desire, the absence of tentativeness had Penny flooded in warmth, her legs wrapping around him, her skin scalding, grinding into him as she tipped into climax.

  ‘Penny...’ Ethan was trying to hold on, but feeling her shatter, feeling her jolt as if she’d been stunned, by the time he felt her strong, rapid clenches Ethan was on the way to meeting them.

  Almost dizzy, he collapsed on top of her and then moved to the side, pulling her with him, more than a bit bewildered about what had happened, because Ethan loved sex but had never had sex like that, and while going down on her his intention had been to be gentle.

  ‘Did we land on the beach?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Penny admitted. ‘I can’t actually see.’ She felt a gurgle of laughter swirl inside her, only it wasn’t laughter, she realised, just this glimpse of being free. ‘And it’s actually thirty-fifteen now,’ Penny said. ‘You forfeited the last game if I remember rightly.’

  He’d had no idea what to expect when he’d arrived tonight at her door, but felt as if, in tha
t small conversation, he’d met the real Penny, the one that he’d sometimes glimpsed. Or was it more that it was a different him? Usually Ethan was snoring his head off right about now, but instead it was Penny dozing as he went and dimmed the lights before climbing into bed beside her.

  ‘Happy birthday, Penny.’

  And as she lay there, feeling his big body beside her, she thought that it really shouldn’t have been a happy birthday; it had had every ingredient for it not to be, except it had just turned into her most memorable, possibly favourite one.

  ‘Thank you,’ Penny said, and then turned over to him. ‘You were right—it wasn’t the drugs.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘IT’S MY MUM.’

  Unfortunately Penny hadn’t come into the bathroom to join him in the shower later the next morning. They were up to deuce after a much more tender lovemaking session and Penny was fixing some breakfast while Ethan showered when the intercom buzzed. ‘I know this sounds like I’m eighteen...’

  ‘You want me to hide?’ Ethan grinned as she pulled on her nightdress and then her dressing gown.

  ‘Not hide, just don’t come out of the bedroom,’ Penny said. ‘She’ll tell Jasmine and, honestly, by the time we get back to work they’ll all have us engaged or something.’

  ‘Mum!’ Penny opened the door and stood as her mum gave her a cuddle.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Penny, I wish I’d been here. I told you not to try till after my trip.’

  And there were so many things she could have said to that, but Penny buttoned her lip and forced a smile.

  ‘How was the cruise?’

  ‘It was amazing!’ It must have been because Louise looked amazing! She was suntanned and relaxed-looking and wearing new clothes and jewellery, and her hair was a fabulous caramel colour and very well cut. ‘I had the best time, Penny. You’d love it!’

  ‘I think I might,’ Penny said, because till her mother had set off, she’d never even considered one, but she was seeing the benefits now.

  ‘All you do is eat and be pampered—I’ve got so much to tell you!’

  And Ethan lay on the bed, reading magazines, listening as Penny did her best to limit his exposure to her mother’s love life, because Penny kept asking her to describe islands, but her mum just kept talking about a man she had met. ‘I go all the way to Greece and Bradley’s from Melbourne and he’s so romantic. One night—’

  ‘Hold on a minute, Mum,’ Penny interrupted. ‘I’m just going to get changed.’

  She brought Ethan in a coffee, which she would pretend she’d left in her room, not that her mother would notice. She was way too busy discussing Bradley and comparing the differences with Penny’s father.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s interesting.’

  It was, and it became more so because Penny could not stop her mother from talking, and Ethan heard how useless her father had been and that maybe Louise had been a bit harsh in her summing up of all men to her daughters, because Bradley was nothing like that at all.

  They were serious, in fact, he heard her tell Penny.

  ‘It’s a month, Mum.’

  ‘And I’m old enough to know what I like and that this is right.’

  ‘Well, why not just see how it goes now you’re back?’ He could hear Penny’s wariness and then her mother’s exasperation.

  ‘Can’t you just be happy for me, Penny?’

  ‘Of course I am.’

  But they all knew it was qualified and then the strain was back in Penny’s voice, especially when her mother asked how she felt about losing the baby.

  ‘It wasn’t a baby, Mum! I got my period.’ Ethan closed his eyes. Kate had been right—it was different for everyone, because Kate had had photos and named every embryo. ‘It just didn’t work.’

  ‘Okay, Penny.’

  They chatted some more and then with Penny promising to go round tomorrow she finally got her mother out of the door. Ethan looked up at Penny’s strained features as she came through the bedroom door.

  ‘Sorry about that.’

  ‘No need to say sorry.’

  ‘She just goes too far.’ Penny let out an angry breath. ‘I can’t think of it as a baby.’ Ethan was terribly aware suddenly that he was lying not in a bed but a minefield. ‘I’d go mad otherwise, if I thought like that.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I bet she didn’t ask Jasmine to hold off trying to conceive till she got back.’ Ethan swallowed, thought it best not to say a thing, though was tempted to fire a quick SOS to his sister just in case he said the wrong thing. ‘Well, she can go over there now and hear Jasmine’s latest happy news.’ Penny joined him on the bed. ‘She’s met the love of her life, apparently.’

  ‘Bradley,’ Ethan said, and she gave a little laugh.

  She turned to him. ‘I’m supposed to be happy for her.’

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  Penny looked back at him. ‘From past experience I really don’t trust my mother’s taste in men so no, I’m not going to clap hands and get all excited. He’s the first person she’s seriously dated since my father left.’

  ‘Do you ever see him?’

  ‘Never,’ Penny said. ‘And I’ve never wanted to. I see enough of his sort at work and I’ve stitched up enough of his sort’s handiwork too.’ She didn’t want to talk about her father. ‘What did you do while we were talking?’ Penny asked.

  ‘Read,’ Ethan said. ‘Had a little walk around the bed, worked out that you rotate your wardrobe...’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Penny said. ‘I haven’t got time to think what to wear each day.’ She climbed off the bed. ‘I’m going to have a shower.’

  ‘Good,’ Ethan said. ‘And I’ll find you something to wear.’

  ‘I can choose my own clothes, thank you.’

  ‘You don’t know where we’re going.’

  ‘Ethan, I don’t want to go out.’

  ‘Which is exactly why you should.’

  Penny chose her own clothes, thank you very much. A pair of shorts and a T-shirt and wedge sandals and Ethan watched in amusement as she applied factor thirty to every exposed piece of skin. When they walked out of her smart townhouse and didn’t head straight for his car, Penny actually felt a bit shaky.

  ‘I’ve been inside too long.’

  ‘I know you have.’

  Really, since her walk on the beach with Jasmine it had been work and appointments and stopping at the supermarket on the way home, she told Ethan as they walked down to the beach.

  ‘I’m a terrible wife even to myself,’ Penny said, taking off her sandals and holding them as they walked down the path to the beach. ‘I try to remember to make lots of meals and then freeze them and I always mean to make healthy lunches and take them in.’

  ‘Same,’ Ethan said.

  ‘And I do it for one day, sometimes two.’

  ‘That’s why there’s a canteen, Penny.’ Ethan smiled. ‘For all the people who have rotting vegetables in the drawer at the bottom of their fridge and didn’t have time to make a sandwich, and if they did they don’t have any super-healthy grain bread.’

  Penny smiled. It was actually really nice to be out. It was a very clear day, the bay as blue and still as the sky, and the beach pretty empty. It was just nice to feel the sand beneath her feet and she thought of the last time she had been here with Jasmine and Simon, having hot flashes and carrying petrified hope and talking about wild flings with Ethan.

  Penny glanced over at him, glad and surprised that the one thing she hadn’t wanted that day had transpired.

  ‘How come you ended up at Peninsula?’ Penny asked.

  ‘I wanted a change.’ Ethan’s voice was wry. ‘I thought a nice bayside hospital would mean a nice laid-back lifestyle—I mean
, given we don’t have PICU and things.’ He gave a shrug. ‘I didn’t count on catchments and that we’d get everything for miles around and then end up transferring them out.’

  ‘You don’t like it?’

  ‘I love it,’ Ethan mused. ‘It just wasn’t what I was expecting it to be—and I know that I don’t do this sort of thing enough.’ Ethan thought about it all for a long moment as they walked—thought about the wall of silence he had been met with because he hadn’t been able to suddenly come back when Penny was sick. Thought about all that was silently expected of them. Ethan wasn’t a rebel, just knew that there had to be more than work, and he told her that.

  ‘You go out,’ Penny said, because she’d heard that Ethan liked to party hard.

  ‘I do,’ Ethan said, ‘but...’ Just not lately. Ethan had once thought of days off counted in parties and bars and women and how much he could cram in. But since Phil’s death it had all halted. Right now, just pausing on the beach on his one day off, Ethan actually felt like he’d escaped.

  ‘I’m going to join a gym.’ Penny broke into his thoughts.

  ‘So you can feel guilty about not going?’

  He made her smile because, yes, over the years she’d joined the hospital gym and the one near home many times.

  ‘Why don’t you just walk here more often?’ Ethan suggested.

  ‘Why don’t you?’

  They took the path off the beach that led into town and ordered brunch—smoked salmon and poached eggs on a very unhealthy white bread, washed down with coffee and fruit juice, and it was nice to sit outside and watch the world passing. Ethan was right, it was so good to be out, but being out meant exposure and after half an hour sitting at a pavement café she heard a woman call his name.

  ‘Ethan.’

  Penny looked up and it was the woman who had dropped him off that time, except she was pushing a stroller with a three-year-old and a very young baby.

  ‘Kate.’ Ethan smiled and looked down at his niece and nephew and gave them a wave then remembered to make the introductions. ‘This is Penny from work and, Penny, this is my sister, Kate.’