The Best Laid Plans (3 page)

Ethan regarded her for a long beat. “Maybe we should take a break. Or call it quits until next week.”

“No!” She heard the desperation in her own voice and tried to find the words to convince him to keep playing. It seemed vitally important that she be allowed to keep running around this small box, smashing the hell out of a rubber ball. She opened her mouth, but her throat seized and heat pressed at the back of her eyes. She spun away.

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t you dare cry.

She stared fiercely at the floor, clenching and unclenching her hand on the grip of her racquet.

“Hey.” Ethan’s hand landed on her shoulder. “What’s going on, Alex?”

“I’m fine,” she managed to say.

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m fine.” But her voice caught on the last word then tears were falling down her face.

“Shit,” she said under her breath. Of all the people to break down in front of.

“It’s okay,” Ethan said from behind her. “Whatever it is, I’m sure you can work it out.”

It was so far from the truth that she laughed harshly. “Sure I can. I can make myself younger. I can turn back time and make Jacob want to have a child with me. Hell, I can probably click my fingers and make myself pregnant.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth she was acutely aware of how much she’d revealed, how exposed she was and how really inappropriate this conversation was. This was Ethan Stone, after all. Mr. Suave and Sophisticated, her fellow partner. Just because they shared lunch occasionally and played racquetball regularly didn’t mean he wanted to know all the gory, messy details of her private life. And she didn’t want him to know. Work was work, this was…very private.

“Who’s Jacob?” Ethan asked.

“Nobody important. Forget I said anything.”

She wiped her cheeks with her fingertips and sucked in a shaky breath. She had to get a grip. Had to put on her game face and convince him that she was good and to forget what she’d said.

“Alex…”

“I’m okay. A little stressed, that’s all.” But the damned tears wouldn’t stop.

Warm, strong arms closed around her, pulling her toward a big, broad chest. Instinctively she resisted his embrace, trying to pull away.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he said, the sound vibrating through his chest and into hers, his arms tightening around her.

Finally she gave in, although she couldn’t bring herself to return the embrace—that would be admitting too much, asking for too much. Instead, she stood with her arms hanging uselessly by her sides, her body rigid with tension, waiting for this moment of pity or sympathy or whatever it was to be done with so she could make her excuses and get the hell out of here.

He didn’t seem in any hurry to let her go, however. She could hear his heart beating steadily beneath her ear and she could smell his aftershave, something with sandalwood and musk notes. It had been a long time since she’d been held by a man—eighteen months.

She’d forgotten how good it felt.

Slowly, despite herself, some of the tension eased from her body.

“Nothing wrong with being upset, Alex,” Ethan said.

She sniffed, in desperate need of a tissue. This time when she pushed Ethan away he let her go. She kept her face averted as she crossed to her gym bag. She squatted to rummage inside for her towel, then pressed the soft fabric against her face until she was sure she’d blotted away all evidence of her outburst. Then and only then did she push herself upright and face him again.

They eyed each other for a long beat. Finally Alex cleared her throat.

“I don’t suppose you’d be prepared to pretend the last few minutes never happened?”

“Who’s Jacob?” he asked again.

“I appreciate the concern, I really do, but you don’t want to hear the pathetic details of my personal life.” She worked hard to keep her tone light and dry.

His gaze searched her face for a long moment. “Let me guess. Jacob’s your ex, right? What happened? Is he getting married? Moving countries? Dying from an obscure disease?”

“I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“So he’s getting married.”

“He’s not getting married. Can we just leave it?”

“How long ago did you break up?”

She threw her hands in the air. “He was pushing a baby stroller, okay? He’s a father. Is that what you wanted to know?”

There was a short silence. She could see the surprise on Ethan’s face, as though she’d presented him with a puzzle piece and he didn’t know where it fit. Like Dr. Ramsay, he was probably shocked that she wanted to be a mother. She’d done such a good job of building the facade of Alexandra Knight, cool, efficient corporate lawyer, that no one had any idea what lay behind the power suits and overtime. Which was the way she liked it. Most of the time.

“How old are you?” Ethan asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Thirty-five? Thirty-six?”

“I’m thirty-nine this year.”

“Thirty-nine’s not old—”

She held up a hand. “Please don’t tell me that I have plenty of time to meet someone else and have a child. I know it might be hard for someone who only has to click his fingers to have half a dozen women panting at his front door to understand, but men over thirty-five who want to get married and have kids are a little thin on the ground. And I have it on the good authority of my doctor that my chances of conceiving drop to ten per cent once I hit my forties.”

“I see,” he said.

And she knew he did—too much.

She stood, shouldering her bag. “Look, I really have to go. I’m sorry about the game. And the blubbering. I’ll make it up to you next week.”

She didn’t wait for him to respond, simply strode for the door. She should have stuck to her first instinct and canceled the game. Should have gone home and gotten all the anger and hurt and despair out of her system before she’d had to face the world again.

She didn’t relax until she was behind the wheel of her car, cocooned by the dark outside and the instant warmth of her heater. Then and only then did her shoulders and stomach muscles relax. She sank against the seat and exhaled noisily. She felt so bloody weary and defeated. Overwhelmed. Filled with regret.

But she couldn’t turn back time, could she? Couldn’t go back eighteen months and be the one to “accidentally” forget a few vital pills so that she could be the mother of Jacob’s child and force him into fatherhood against his will.

Not that she hadn’t considered doing that toward the end. She’d been tempted, more than once. The bottom line was that she hadn’t wanted to build their family on the foundation of a lie. She’d respected Jacob too much to take such an important decision out of his hands.

And now it was too late. Or close enough as made no difference. She’d missed the boat. Waited too long. And no amount of temper tantrums on the racquetball court was going to change that fact. She was simply going to have to suck it up and get on with playing the hand she’d been dealt. And if that hand meant no children…well, so be it.

Time to put that dream away.

She let her hands drop, but unlike earlier when she’d first confronted her brutal reality, a small voice piped up in the back of her mind.

A voice of defiance. A voice of hope.

You could still meet someone. You’ve got a few years. And it’s not like you’ve been knocking yourself out trying
to meet anyone. If you really put your mind to it, you could still have a chance.

For example, hadn’t she flicked past three whole pages of singles ads in the back section of the daily newspaper this morning? She’d always turned her nose up at the idea of advertising for a partner, no matter that she’d heard plenty of first-and second-hand accounts of how people had met their husbands and wives via dating sites. She’d been convinced that someone would come along through the normal routes—friends, or work or some other social event. But maybe it was time to make things happen instead of waiting.

She shrugged into her dressing gown and headed for the kitchen, her mind teeming with plans. She’d join every dating website she could find. She’d place her own singles ad. She’d date her ass off, make it an absolute priority in her life until she met the right man. Surely, if she committed herself to the task of finding a partner, treated it like a project, she’d be successful. After all, when hadn’t she achieved what she wanted once she put her mind to it?

She’d held the household together after her mother’s accident through sheer grit. And after her mother’s death she’d bulldozed her way through law school, then put her head down and bulldozed some more until she’d made partner in one of Melbourne’s top law firms a mere seven years after graduating. When she wanted something in her professional life, she was formidable. So why couldn’t she transfer that ethos to her personal life?

Her jaw was tense with purpose as she rescued this morning’s paper from the top of the pile in the recycle bin. She crossed to the kitchen table and spread the paper wide, thumbing through until she found the classifieds section. She stared at the columns of small print, aware of her heart beating a determined tattoo against her rib cage. Then she ran her finger down the page until she found the Male Seeks Female section and began to read.

After a few minutes she grabbed a pen from the caddy on her kitchen counter and started to circle the likely suspects.

She called up a document program on her computer and sat with her fingers hovering over the keyboard. How to best describe herself? She needed to sound appealing but not desperate. She’d never considered herself a great beauty—her jaw-length dark hair was thick and healthy but nothing spectacular, and her mouth was too wide and her eyes too large for conventional standards—but she was attractive enough and Jacob had always said that he loved her plush mouth and full breasts. But she could hardly put that in an ad. She typed a few lines, then immediately deleted them. How to get the essence of herself across in a few short paragraphs? How to cut through all the other responses these men might receive and stand out from the pack? Because the more men she met, the higher the chance of finding someone compatible and the sooner she could sound him out on the subject of children.

She jotted down some sums in the margin of the newspaper. Say it took her six months to find someone. Then another, say, four months before she felt comfortable broaching the subject of children with him. Or was four months too soon? It was hard to know.

Maybe she’d have to simply play it by ear, see what came up in conversation. But if the man was keen for a family, then they should probably wait another six months before attempting to get pregnant. Just to consolidate the relationship. In the meantime, she could talk to Dr. Ramsay about all the things she needed to do to be in tip-top condition to conceive—folate supplements and whatnot—so that she would be ready to go at the drop of a hat.

So adding the six-month search time to the four-month vetting period, then the six-month double-check time—

What are you doing? Can you hear yourself?

Alex stared at the figures. A formula for desperation—that was what she’d calculated. A formula for a woman who was terrified that she was going to miss out.

Was this what she really wanted? Did she really want a baby this much? Was motherhood so important to her that she was prepared to put it at the forefront of any potential connection she developed with a man?

She was no psychologist, but she didn’t need to be to understand that embarking on a relationship with someone while her biological clock ticked loudly in the background wasn’t exactly the ideal way to go.

But what choice did she have? It was this, or leave it to fate to throw the right man in her path before it was too late. And at the end of the day, she’d never believed in luck. She’d had to fight for every good thing that had ever come her way. Why should this be any different?

What she was planning wasn’t particularly pretty or dignified, but if it helped her reach her end goal, then so be it. Life, as she well knew, was often not pretty or dignified.

She stood and grabbed the scissors from the kitchen drawer then cut the relevant pages from the paper. She’d start a folder to keep track of the ads she’d responded to, in case she doubled up.

She was about to close the paper and return it to the recycle bin when her gaze caught on a small, neat ad in the bottom right-hand corner.