Nine Month Countdown. Leah Ashton

       ‘Ivy, what’s going on?’

      She’d been staring unseeing down at her fingers, which she’d been wrapping and unwrapping around the stem of her champagne glass.

      She took a breath. The deepest breath she could remember taking.

      Then she lifted her gaze and met his.

      Even in the moody bar lighting she now finally had enough light to see the colour of his eyes. Hazel. They were lovely eyes, sexy eyes, but right now they were hard and unyielding.

      Yes, he’d worked out that this night wasn’t going to pan out the way he’d planned.

      ‘Angus—I’m pregnant.’

Dear Reader

      I started writing Ivy and Angus’s story just after my daughter turned one. The most amazing—and exhausting!—year of my life had come to an end, and I was finally writing again.

      It’s probably no surprise that a baby popped into this story! But Ivy’s story is very different from mine. Ivy certainly hasn’t planned her pregnancy. In fact Ivy falls pregnant at exactly the worst possible moment in her career. For Ivy, her career is everything—so it’s as if her whole world has collapsed around her. Plus she also has to deal with a gorgeous, charming soldier who just won’t go away!

      I now know first-hand how life-changing children are—in a way I never comprehended before. But what would it be like to share such a life-changing experience with a practical stranger? That question is where Ivy and Angus’s story begins, and I just had to keep writing until this unlikely couple made it to their happy-ever-after.

      I hope you enjoy Ivy and Angus’s story!

       Leah

      PS I’ll let you in on a secret—I often name my heroines using baby names I love but that my husband vetoed. I still think Ivy is a beautiful name!