That made her drop her tissues into the neat designer trash slot and look up at him and smile.
‘Ben...’
It was all she had to say. All the longing in the world was in that word. It was a question and an answer all by itself.
She put her arms up and looped her hands around his neck. He stopped and lifted her yet again.
‘Your place or mine?’ he asked huskily, managing to smile.
‘I’ve only got a king-size bed,’ she managed back. ‘Puny. I bet yours is bigger.’
‘You’d better believe it,’ he said, and she did.
And that was practically the last thing she was capable of thinking for a very long time.
* * *
She woke and the morning sun was streaming over the luxurious white coverlet. She woke and the softness of the duvet enfolded her.
She woke and Ben was gone.
For a moment she refused to let herself think it. She lay and savoured the warmth, the feeling of sheer, unmitigated luxury, the knowledge that she’d been made love to with a passion that maybe she’d never feel again.
He’d made her feel alive. He’d made her feel a woman as she’d never believed she could feel.
He’d made her feel loved.
But he wasn’t here now.
She’d slept, at last, cocooned in the strength and heat of his body. She’d slept thinking everything was right in her world. What could possibly be wrong?
She’d slept thinking she was being held by Ben and he’d never let her go.
She stirred, tentatively, like a caterpillar nervous of emerging from the safety of its dreamlike cocoon.
The clock on her bedside table said twelve.
Twelve? She’d slept how long? No wonder Ben had left her.
He’d left her.
Hey, she was still in his bed. Possession’s nine tenths of the law, she decided, and stretched like a languorous cat.
Cat, caterpillar, whatever. She surely wasn’t herself.
There was a note on his pillow.
A Dear John letter? She almost smiled. She was playing make-believe in her head. Scenario after scenario. All of them included Ben.
The note, however, was straightforward. Not a lot of room for fantasy here.
I need to go into work. I left loose ends yesterday and they’re getting strident. Sleep as long as you want. It’s Saturday, no cleaners come near the place so you have the apartment to yourself. I’ll be home late but tomorrow is yours. Think of what you’d like to do with it.
Ben.
And then a postscript.
Last night was amazing. Please make yourself at home in my bed.
There was more stuff to think about.
She was interrupting his life, she thought. She really had pulled him out of his world yesterday. He’d need to pull it back together.
And then come back to her?
Just for tomorrow.
‘But if that’s all I can have, then that has to be enough,’ she told herself. ‘So think about it.’
Food first. What had happened to last night’s toast? Who could remember? But she’d seen juice in the fridge, and croissants. And then...the bath in Ben’s bathroom was big enough to hold a small whale.
‘Which is what I’ll be in six months...
‘Don’t think about it. Don’t think about anything but tomorrow,’ she said severely. ‘Or maybe not even tomorrow. Let’s just concentrate on right now.’
* * *
The office was chaos. One day out and the sky had fallen. Still, it had been worth it, he decided, making one apologetic phone call after another, trying to draw together the threads of the deal he’d abandoned the day before.
Mary was worth it.
She was with him all day, her image, the memory of her body against his, the warmth of her smile, the taste of her tears.
He was getting soft in his old age. He’d vowed never to feel this way about a woman.
About anyone.
He didn’t want to feel responsible for anyone but somehow it had happened. Ready or not, he was responsible for Mary. The mother of his child.
His woman?
He wanted to phone Jake.
Why? To tell him he’d met someone? Jake’s attitude to women was the same as his. His brother had made one foray into marriage and it’d turned into a disaster. The woman had needed far more than Jake would—or could—give.
The Logan boys weren’t the marrying kind.
But Mary...
No. He would not get emotionally involved.
Who was he kidding? He already was.
Which meant he had to help her, he thought as the long day wore on, as the deal finally reached its drawn-out conclusion, which meant the financial markets could relax for another week.
He thought of what the lawyer back in New Zealand had told him. ‘She really is alone.’
If she was alone and in trouble...with his baby... There had to be a solution.
Finally at nine o’clock he signed the last document, left it on his secretary’s desk and prepared to leave. But first one phone call.
Mathew Arden. Literary agent for some of the biggest names in the world.
‘Well,’ he said, as Mathew answered the phone. ‘Am I right?’
* * *
She walked her legs off. She strolled down Fifth Avenue, she checked out Tiffany & Co., was awed by the jewellery and chuckled as the salespeople were lovely to her, even though they must know she could hardly afford to look at their wares.
She took the subway to Soho, just so she could say she’d been there, and spent time in its jumble of eclectic shops. She bought a pair of porcelain parrots for her next-door neighbour who was looking after Heinz.
She bought a truly awesome diamanté collar for Heinz. He’d show up every dog in the North Island.
