Nine Month Countdown

by Leah Ashton

  But, it couldn’t be helped.

  Not that the not looking helped a lot. Because he’d definitely just kept on looking at her.

  She knew it, because her whole body felt his concentrated attention. It had only been sheer will that had prevented the stupid racing of her heart or the odd, inexplicable nerves that churned through her belly from impacting her voice. Honestly, she felt as though, if she let herself, she’d come over all soft and breathy and...pathetic.

  But of course she hadn’t, and April had given her the tightest of hugs after her speech, so that was a relief. That was all that mattered tonight, that April was happy.

  Even her mother—on the parents’ table in prime position near the cake—had lifted her chin in the subtlest of actions. Ivy had learnt long ago that that was about as effusive as Irene Molyneux ever got, so she’d take it.

  With her formal duties out of the way, Ivy should now be able to relax for the remainder of the speeches. But of course she couldn’t.

  By the time dessert was served, and Evan had delivered his—hilarious by the reaction of the guests, even if Ivy registered barely a word—speech, Ivy was about to crawl out of her skin in frustration.

  Finally the dancing began—and Ivy made her escape.

  With the straps of her heels tangled in her fingers, the lawn outside the marquee was cool beneath her bare feet. She had to walk some distance before she could hear the ocean above the exuberant cacophony of music and voices of the reception.

  The hotel gardens stretched along the beach from either side of the main hotel building. Lights dotted pathways that led to bungalows and villas, but they were all empty, with every guest at the hotel also a guest at the wedding.

  And it felt empty, which Ivy appreciated. She’d flown in from London only...yesterday? No, the day before.

  Ivy smiled—it was recently enough, anyway, that jet lag still had her confusing her days.

  But after a series of intense business meetings, a thirty-six-hour journey from London after delays in Dubai, the madness that was the last-minute planning for the wedding, and then that disconcerting attention from Angus Whoever—Ivy was seriously happy to finally be alone.

  She took a long, measured breath and waited for her muscles to relax as she exhaled.

  But they didn’t.

  ‘Ivy.’

  She spun around to confront the reason for the tension throughout her body. Angus wore a cream linen shirt, untucked, and dark knee-length tailored shorts—a variation of what the majority of male guests were wearing. Unlike the majority of male guests, he still managed what should be impossible—to look as if he was attending a wedding, rather than a barbeque. Maybe it was his posture? The extreme straightness of how he stood, combined with the way his clothing hung so perfectly from his muscular frame? Whatever it was, Ivy suspected he looked equally gorgeous taking out his garbage.

  ‘You followed me,’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘You knew I would.’

  Ivy’s mouth dropped open. ‘Don’t be absurd.’

  While his shirt was clearly visible in the limited light, the rest of him blurred into the darkness behind him, his face all angles and shadows. Even so, Ivy knew, knew, he was looking at her in disbelief.

  ‘Look,’ she said, in her no-nonsense work voice, ‘I really don’t have time for this.’

  ‘This being?’

  He really did have a fantastic voice. Deep and authoritative.

  Not that it made any difference.

  ‘This,’ she said, waving her hands to encompass them both.

  ‘I’m still confused,’ he said. ‘Can you elaborate?’

  Ivy gave a little huff of frustration. ‘I don’t have time for whatever two random strangers might do when they meet at a wedding.’

  And she didn’t. It had been hours since she’d checked her email.

  A laugh. ‘C’mon, Ivy. I’m sure you can think up a far more interesting descriptor than whatever.’

  ‘I could,’ she said. ‘But that would take more of my precious time. So—’

  She was half a step towards the path when Angus’s hand wrapped around her lower arm. He wore a light bandage that encircled his palm and extended halfway to his elbow, the fabric just the tiniest bit rough against her skin.

  ‘Honey, everyone has time for...’ his grip loosened and his fingers briefly traced a path across her wrist ‘...talking.’

  Ignoring her body’s traitorous shivery reaction to his touch, Ivy went on the defensive. ‘This isn’t just talking.’

  But, of course, that was a mistake.

  She sensed, rather than saw, his smile.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s the point, isn’t it?’

  Ivy shook her head, as if that would somehow help her brain reorganise itself. She was just...off. Unbalanced. If she was to walk away from him now, she’d be counting her steps, definitely.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘The point is there is no point. That’s the point.’ Seriously? Could she be any more ridiculous?

  She tried again. ‘You’re not my type, Angus.’

  The shadow of his smile told her immediately that she’d made a mistake. Now he knew she knew his name.

  But standing so close to him, Ivy supposed she should be relieved she could speak at all. What did this man do to her?

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said. As if that was that.

  And then he surprised her by casually sitting on the sand. He leant right back on his elbows, his legs crossed at the ankles. ‘Sit.’

  Logic would’ve had her back at the marquee by now, so it came as no surprise that she found herself seated beside him. She sat more stiffly though, her hands rested on the silk skirt that covered her knees, her gaze firmly on the black of the ocean.

  A big part of her knew she really needed to get back to the marquee. What if April needed her? Plus it really had been hours since she’d checked her email—maybe she could pop by her suite on the way back?

  She’d levered herself onto her knees to stand when she felt Angus’s hand on her arm. Electricity shot across her skin and she found herself completely still.

  ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘We’re supposed to be having a conversation, remember?’

  ‘But, my emails—’

  The man’s laughter was loud, and strong and totally unexpected in the darkness.

  ‘Emails? You’re on a deserted tropical beach with a guy who is seriously attracted to you—and you’re thinking about email? That cuts deep.’

  Ivy smiled despite herself, and rearranged her legs so she was sitting again, his hand—unfortunately—falling away.

  ‘You’re seriously attracted to me?’ she said.

  ‘I’ll take smug if it means no more talk of work.’

  Ivy smiled again. ‘Deal,’ she said. For a long minute, she studied the ocean again. Her eyes had adjusted now, and she could just make out the occasional edge of foam along the crest of a wave.

  Something had changed, Ivy realised. The stiffness in her shoulders had loosened. A tightness in her jaw was gone.

  She couldn’t say she was relaxed, not sitting beside this man. But the tension she felt had shifted—maybe it was that her everyday tensions had lifted? Only to be replaced by another flavour of tension, but Ivy had to admit the tension that radiated between her and Angus was vastly, vastly preferable—no matter how uncomfortable it felt.

  Uncomfortable, because she didn’t know what to do with it. But also...different. Unfamiliar. Exciting.

  She twisted to face him.

  ‘Hi, I’m Ivy Molyneux,’ she said.

  ‘Angus Barlow.’

  And she smiled. It had been an intense few days, so frantic that she’d barely acknowledged her beautiful surroundings.

  For the first tim
e, she really felt the beach sand beneath her toes. Felt the kiss of the ocean breeze.

  She deserved a break, even if she didn’t have time for a holiday.

  And really, what was the harm of letting her guard down with a gorgeous, charming stranger, just for a few minutes?

  Then she’d go check her email, and then back to the wedding.

  Simple.

  TWO

  Very calmly, Ivy snapped the clear lid over the end of the test, and took a long, deep soothing breath.

  She was sitting on the closed lid of a toilet. A very nice toilet in a very expensive Perth skyscraper, but a toilet, none the less. A public toilet.

  This had been a very stupid idea.

  Buying the test itself had seemed the rational thing to do this morning. Her driver, Simon, hadn’t suspected a thing when she’d asked him to stop at a pharmacy on the way to her ten a.m. meeting. And even if he had wondered why Ivy Molyneux was bothering to run into a pharmacy for whatever lady thing he thought she needed—rather than asking one of her assistants—it wasn’t as if he’d ask her.

  Yet she’d still fidgeted in the back seat of the car as they’d driven away, as if Simon had X-ray vision and could see through the layers of her handbag and pharmacy paper bag should he glance in his rear-view mirror.

  The plan had been to wait until she was home this evening. Safely alone in the privacy of her home in Peppermint Grove, where she could pee on a stick and irrationally stress and worry alone for the two minutes she was supposed to wait because—come on, it was totally normal to be two days late, even if that had never, ever, ever happened before...

  Of course someone else had just walked into the bathroom, and now she had to wait in this excruciating state as she listened to the other woman pee—because it now seemed beyond her to look down, to look down at the test that by now would display the result.

  The reality.

  All she had to do was look down and this would all be over.

  This thing, this day, this moment that she had not expected at all. That night seemed a lifetime ago. April was already back from her honeymoon. Ivy’s work days had been as endless as ever and her weekends had been so blurred into her weeks that she’d barely noticed them. Life had gone on. She’d gone on, just as normal. That night—that totally out of character night—was long behind her. She hadn’t given it, or Angus, another thought.

  Well, barely. Maybe, just maybe, when she’d been in that space between wake and sleep when her brain finally emptied of all things Molyneux Mining, maybe she’d let herself remember. Remember the way her skin had shivered when Angus had looked at her. The way her heart had zipped to a million beats a minute when he’d finally touched her. How she’d felt in his arms. How he’d felt beneath her fingertips.

  How it had all felt. To do that. To do something so crazy, so uninhibited, so...

  Reckless.

  The toilet flushed beside her, then footsteps, and then the cubicle door closed. The basin had some silly sensor arrangement to turn on, and Ivy had to wait as the other woman tried to work it out, and then listen to her jump and giggle when the water finally gushed out.

  Just go. Just go, just go, just go.

  But also just stay. Stay, stay, stay for ever, so she never had to look down, never had to know.

  But then she wasn’t into delaying things, was she? That was why she was here, in this public toilet, holding the test.

  Because she couldn’t wait. Couldn’t even wait until her ten a.m. meeting was over. She’d excused herself mid meeting, and now she’d taken way, way too long.

  The bathroom door clicked shut, and Ivy was finally alone amongst all this marble and the softest of background music.

  And now she had to look down.

  And now she couldn’t lie to herself that she was just being silly, and that there was nothing to worry about, and that she was on the pill and even if she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t forgotten a pill amongst all the time zones and delays on the way to April’s wedding that surely the odds were still in her favour. Because people tried to do this for years and it didn’t work. People who were trying, people who wanted this, people...

  Two pink lines.

  She’d looked down only to confirm what she already knew. What she’d known deep down for the past two-hundred-odd minutes since the absence of her period had suddenly dawned on her.

  She was pregnant.

  She was pregnant.

  Ivy took a deep, audible breath, and willed the tears in her eyes to go still. Then she stuffed the test back into its box, back into its pharmacy paper bag and back into her handbag.

  Then she went back to the meeting with her business face on and no one—she hoped liked hell—was the wiser.

  No, only one person knew that Ivy Molyneux’s life had just completely fallen apart.

  And unfortunately, that number would soon have to increase to two.

  * * *

  Angus’s feet pounded on the heavy rubber of the treadmill, his breaths coming slow and regular.

  Sweat had long ago soaked his grey T-shirt black, and the muscles of his calves and thighs had given up protesting and now simply burned.

  This was the bit he loved. This time after he’d conquered the arguments from both his brain and body and simply kept on going.

  He’d been like this since his late teens, since the sudden death of his father. He’d gone for his first run immediately after his mum had told him the terrible news—an impossibly long run fuelled by intense, raging grief. And that run had triggered a near addiction that had him craving the adrenalin rush of exercise, craving the burn, and craving the pain.

  He had no issue admitting that one of the reasons he’d joined the army was so he could be paid to reach this high. On some days he couldn’t believe his luck that he earned his living effectively living out many a childhood fantasy—the helicopters, the firearms, the boats, the tactical training...

  Angus shook his head as he ran, shifting his focus back to his body.

  Running on a treadmill was not his preference. Here in the gym at the barracks, he’d much rather be lifting weights, or, even better, completing a punishing PT session with the rest of his squadron.

  But when it came down to it, the method was irrelevant. Winning the battle over his body was what mattered. Especially now, especially while injured.

  Technically he was on medical leave, but clearly losing physical condition wasn’t an option in his job. He’d been down at the barracks daily, excluding that weekend in Bali. Even there he’d made locating the hotel gym a priority.

  Except the morning after the wedding. That morning he’d slept in.

  Despite the sweat and the screaming of his muscles, Angus grinned.

  Ivy must have worn him out.

  He reached out to slow the speed on the treadmill, reducing his pace from near sprint down to a brisk walk as he cooled down.

  It wasn’t the first time the beautiful billionaire had popped into his head. It surprised him. There had been no question as to what that night had been. Neither he nor Ivy wanted anything beyond those few...admittedly incredible...hours on that beach.

  Angus smiled again as he remembered the way Ivy had taken charge as they’d walked back to the hotel.

  If anyone asks—I was in my suite, working.

  He’d grinned then, too. And how would I know that?

  She’d just glared at him, and protested silently when he insisted on walking her to her room. He had, of course, checked that no one would see them.

  He wasn’t a total jerk, after all.

  Although kissing her on her doorstep had not been gentlemanly—or planned.

  He’d seen it in her eyes—and felt it in her body—that she’d been about to invite him in. But she hadn’t.


  And he would’ve declined, anyway. He was sure.

  It was for the best.

  In his experience, keeping things simple was always for the best.

  Later, after his shower and as he walked across the car park, he felt his phone vibrating in the backpack slung over his shoulder. Automatically he fished it out, then, on seeing it was an unknown number, considered for a moment whether he should bother answering.

  Work-related numbers weren’t stored on his phone, of course—but then, no one was going to be calling him while he was on leave.

  But could it be to do with his mum?

  So he answered it, if a bit gruffly, and was certainly not expecting the contradictory soft but firm—and familiar—female voice he heard.

  ‘Is that Angus Barlow?’

  ‘Ivy Molyneux,’ he replied, and then smiled when she gave a little sound of surprise.

  ‘Uh—yes,’ she said. A pause. ‘I asked Evan for your number.’

  She was nervous, her words brisker than normal.

  ‘That wasn’t very discreet,’ he said.

  Hell, it didn’t bother him. Ivy could’ve announced the fact they’d had sex on the beach to the whole wedding reception and he wouldn’t have cared.

  But he knew she did.

  Unease prickled at the back of his neck.

  ‘No, it wasn’t discreet at all,’ Ivy said, her words pancake flat.

  Then there was a long, long pause.

  ‘Why did you call me, Ivy?’ He was gruff now.

  She cleared her throat. ‘Are you free tonight?’ she asked, much more softly.

  Relief washed over him. He’d continued walking as they’d been talking, and now he propped a shoulder against the side of his black SUV.

  He smiled. He remembered that tone from that night. That soft, intimate—almost shy—voice. So different from the brash confidence of Ivy Molyneux, mining executive.