Raye Morgan - Baby on Board - Secret Baby, Surprise Parents / Her Baby Wish / Keeping Her Baby's Secret

‘Right. Well, I suppose I should go to the workshop. Process what orders I can fill from stock, send notes to people about anything that’s going to be delayed, give them the chance to cancel.’

‘Maybe you should think about taking someone on to help out for the time being,’ he suggested. ‘Who takes care of things when you’re gallivanting off to the Isle of Man?’

‘I wasn’t gallivanting. The craft centre received an invitation from a fair being held over a holiday weekend and a group of us went.’

‘You’re getting very adventurous.’ Then, ‘A group?’

‘I wouldn’t have gone on my own, but Mike Armstrong sent some of his smaller pieces of furniture, there was a candlemaker, Toby took some of his toys and one of his rocking horses and there was—’

‘So who took care of the shop while you were away?’ he asked, cutting her off.

‘Abby. She started as one of my students. She’s very gifted.’

‘Then call her. You can’t afford to turn down business.’

‘That’s the tycoon speaking. I’m sorry, Josh, but the world won’t end if Baubles and Beads is closed for a few weeks. I promise you it’s never going to trouble the FTSE 100.’

‘No? You don’t see yourself as a franchise operation with a shop in every shopping mall five years from now?’ he asked, with a smile that she remembered from the days when he’d been planning to be the world’s youngest billionaire.

Did he make it?

‘Er… No.’ She liked the way things were. Controllable. Totally hers.

‘No surprise there,’ he said.

Did he look a touch disappointed in her lack of ambition? He was the one who, when she had made jewellery for college fund-raisers, her friends, had pushed her into taking a Saturday stall at Melchester market. It was Josh who’d printed flyers on his computer, handed them out, called the local press who’d sent out a photographer to take pictures. He’d gone out of his way to prove to her that it wasn’t only friends and family who would pay good money for something original, different.

‘I’m not into mass production, Josh. People come to me because they know they’ll never see anyone else wearing the same pair of earrings. The same necklace.’

‘Then you need to find some other way to grow. A static business is a dying business.’

‘Possibly, but not now.’ Then she groaned.

‘What?’

‘I promised Geena Wagner that I’d make a wedding tiara for one of her brides. It’s almost done. I can bring it home, finish it here.’

‘No,’ he said, and she looked up, startled by the insistence in his voice. ‘I really don’t think that’s wise.’

‘But Posie…’

‘You need to keep your work and your home life separate.’ Again he had the look of a man with something on his mind.

‘Easy to say. Elspeth would take care of her, but Posie needs continuity, Josh. She’s already confused. Leaving her with anyone who has an hour to spare just so that I can keep working won’t do.’

‘I know,’ he said. Then, more gently, ‘I know.’

‘I suppose I could take her with me.’ Was that his point? That she was about to become a single mother with a business to run and she needed to think about how she was going to manage that. Answering herself, she said, ‘I’d have to install some basic essentials if it’s going to be a permanent thing.’

‘Like what?’

‘You want a list?’ she asked, smiling despite everything. ‘How long have you got?’

‘I’m in no hurry.’

‘Do you have the slightest idea how much stuff a baby on the move needs?’ It was a rhetorical question and she wasn’t expecting an answer. ‘Actually, I suppose I could ask Toby to partition off the far end of the workshop so that I could turn it into a little nursery.’ Then, irritated at how easily he’d manipulated her into thinking about the future when she didn’t want to think about anything, she said, ‘Okay, that’s my life sorted. Now tell me about yours. About Nepal. China. What are you doing there?’

He began to talk about a major engineering project which should have bored her witless, but just being the centre of his attention, being able to listen to him without pretence was such a rare treat that she didn’t actually care what he was saying.

And when he turned the conversation to the jewellery-making workshops she ran, showing a keen interest in what she did, her stories about some of the odder characters who came to them made him laugh.

He told her about places he’d visited, both fabulous and foul. The wonders of the world, natural and man-made. The remote, the exotic, the emptiness of a tropical beach lit only by the stars.

She told him about her recent trip to Brighton for a jewellery convention.

Finally, long after they’d finished eating, Josh stood up. ‘It’s late, you’re tired,’ he said, clearing the dishes.

She didn’t bother to fight with him over it—he was right, she was finding it hard to stay awake—but instead rinsed plates and cutlery, stacking them in the dishwasher as he cleared the table. She wiped mats as he put away the butter, the wine. Their hands momentarily entangled as they both reached for the cruet and she found herself looking up at him.

‘I’ll take the pepper. You take the salt,’ he said after a moment.

‘No,’ she said, pulling back. ‘It’s all yours, Josh. You’re right. I’m done and by the time I’ve had a bath, Posie will be awake again, demanding food.’

‘Are you okay up there by yourself now that Elspeth’s gone home?’ he asked. ‘I could just as easily sleep in one of the spare rooms.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

He lifted a hand, laid his palm against her cheek. ‘Sure?’ he asked.

She swallowed. ‘Really. Besides, if Posie is restless she’ll keep you awake.’

‘I have to fall asleep first. I’m going to look through some of Michael’s things before I go down to the flat.’

‘Right, but don’t forget you’re supposed to be working on UK time.’

He smiled. ‘I won’t.’ Then, before she could move, he leaned close and kissed her cheek. ‘Good night, Grace.’

‘Um… good night,’ she said, backing away until she reached the door, then turning and running up the stairs before she said or did something stupid.

She took a steadying breath before she glanced in at Posie and then, in the safety of the bathroom, she leaned back against the door, her hand to her cheek, still feeling the soft prickle of his close-cropped beard as it brushed against her skin.

Remembering the shock of his kiss as he’d woken her—when she was anything but Sleeping Beauty—knowing how easy it would have been for her to have asked him to stay with her. How easy it would have been to turn into his arms for the comfort they both craved.

Wondering what would it be like to lie beside Josh Kingsley on a white beach in the starlight with only the sound of the ocean shirring through the sand, the chirruping of tree frogs, the scent of frangipani on the wind.

He’d made it sound so magical. Doubtless it had been. And she wondered who had shared that tropical night with him?

He hadn’t said and, unable to bear the thought of him with another woman, she hadn’t asked.

He’d only once brought someone home. They’d been expecting him, but not the tall, tanned Australian girl he’d married without telling a soul. A girl who was, in every way, her opposite. Outgoing, lively, ready to follow him to the ends of the earth. Or so she’d said. It had lasted a little over a year. Since then he’d never brought anyone home, never even talked about anyone in his life, at least while she was around and although he was, by any standards, a rich and eligible bachelor, he didn’t seem to live the kind of lifestyle that brought him into contact with gossip magazines. But just because he didn’t date the kind of glamorous women who were pursued by the paparazzi meant absolutely nothing.