Secrets of a Career Girl Read online

  ‘Your hair’s nice,’ Ethan said when she got back. He was in the bathroom, shaving, the cat sitting by the sink watching him.

  ‘I didn’t get my hair done.’ Penny had to laugh.

  ‘Oh,’ Ethan said. ‘Well, it still looks nice. Where did you go?’ He saw her hesitate and he pretty much guessed she’d been to her GP.

  Penny had been fantastic and absolutely adored Jasmine’s little baby girl, Amelia, and they’d just found out that Kate was going to try for a fourth. There were so many friends and relations getting pregnant that Ethan was noticing and he was starting to feel little pinpricks of disappointment when Penny’s period rarely came.

  And not just for Penny.

  He liked the time spent with Justin, and Penny was good with him too. He wanted now what Penny had wanted—a baby—though he couldn’t really tell her that. No doubt soon they’d be off to America to look at little monkeys, but first...

  ‘You’ll be all right at the wedding?’ He rinsed his face and then turned round. ‘You’re all right with your mum and Bradley?’

  ‘Apart from his name,’ Penny said. ‘And do they have to be so affectionate in public?’

  She was the oddest person he had ever met and he loved her all the more for it. And maybe the timing wasn’t right, maybe he should bring it up after the wedding because he didn’t want to upset her beforehand, but right or wrong he said what was on his mind.

  ‘If you want to go again...’

  ‘Go again?’

  ‘On IVF,’ Ethan said. ‘I’d be fine with that.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Penny’s eyes narrowed. ‘That doesn’t sound very enthusiastic.’

  ‘Okay.’ He tried again. ‘Why don’t we go on IVF?’ He thought for a moment. ‘That makes me sound like Gordon.’ And then he was serious. ‘If you want to then so do I.’

  ‘What do you want, Ethan?’

  ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this,’ Ethan admitted. ‘But I’d like to try for a baby...’ He rushed into his ‘but if it doesn’t work then I won’t be disappointed’ speech, but she halted him. There was no need for that. She loved it that he wanted this too, that it wasn’t something she was foisting on them too soon.

  ‘We don’t need to try,’ Penny said. ‘I’ve just come from the doctor’s.’

  He was scared to get too excited, just in case it was like last time, only it was nothing like last time.

  ‘I’m thirteen weeks,’ Penny said, and she watched his reaction as it sank in that while they’d been busy with weddings and football matches and honeymoons and juggling work and falling deeper and deeper in love, she’d been pregnant.

  ‘Can we tell people?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘I guess,’ Penny said, because they were out of the first trimester. ‘But not just yet. It’s Mum’s day today.’

  And it was just as well she didn’t get her hair done because it would have been messed up anyway as they were soon off to bed to celebrate. Ethan had the good sense to set the alarm just in case they got a bit carried away.

  ‘Can’t be late for your mum’s wedding,’ he said as a very tanned Penny stripped off.

  They were on two sets to one, with Ethan winning, and each game spent an awful lot of time at deuce.

  Record times!

  ‘Hey, I bet when you were fantasising about having your wild fling with me,’ Ethan said as he dropped his towel, ‘you never imagined it ending up like this.’

  ‘No,’ Penny said, because the best she had been able to imagine then had been a shocked reaction and a baby that wasn’t his.

  The truth was so much better.

  * * * * *

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  ISBN: 9781460316276

  Copyright © 2013 by Carol Marinelli

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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