Maybe he didn’t.
She sucked in an unsteady breath, determined not to let another tear fall. She hated tears. They didn’t solve anything. And she refused to be that woman who broke down rather than ask for what she wanted.
She’d been trying to have this conversation for weeks, and it had been like thumping her head against a brick wall, but he had given her an opening this time, and she would be a fool not to take it.
‘You know, I saw our baby properly for the first time today on the ultrasound,’ she said as conversationally as she could manage.
Something flickered in his eyes, something wary, tense and instantly guarded. But when he didn’t say anything, didn’t stop her or try to deflect the conversation as he always had before, the fragile bubble of hope expanded in her chest.
‘Dr Patel told me what she thinks the sex is. Would you like to know?’
He stared at her, his expression unreadable.
‘Of course, it’s not one hundred percent, but Dr Patel was pretty sure. She said about eighty-five percent sure.’ She was babbling now, but when his gaze shifted to her stomach, as she had seen it do so many times in the last few weeks as her bump had become more pronounced, the bubble grew. ‘Aren’t you even a little bit curious?’ she asked.
His gaze lifted back to her face. He wanted to say no. She could see it in his eyes. So she blurted it out before he could stop her... ‘It’s a boy.’
His brows rose, the slash of colour on his cheeks hard to interpret. Was he pleased, surprised, indifferent? Why couldn’t she tell even now? How did he manage to keep so much of himself back? Not just from her, but from their child? Would it always be like this?
Was this still all about that young boy he wouldn’t talk about? The lost, brutalised child he’d given her a glimpse of in the Maldives and then refused to acknowledge ever since?
He looked away from her and she could see he was struggling from the tell-tale muscle twitching in his jaw. But what was he struggling with?
‘I was thinking of the name Daniel,’ she ventured.
His head swung back round. ‘No. I don’t like that name.’
‘Oh, okay,’ she managed, but her heart soared. It was the most he had ever given her. The first sign he cared enough about this baby to have a preference. Maybe this didn’t have to be a lost cause. Had she given up far too soon? Allowed her own feelings for him to colour the progress they’d made? Feelings that perhaps weren’t as unrequited as she’d assumed. Perhaps this wasn’t so much about him but about her, and her own desire to protect herself. She was letting everything get mixed up in her head because she was scared too. Scared he would reject her the way her father had. But he’d already given her so much more, without even realising it.
‘If you’ve got any suggestions, I’m all ears,’ she managed, her throat thickening with emotion again. Did he know how significant this moment was?
The discomfort in his face was clear. Obviously, he did. But then he murmured, ‘I’ll think about it.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We’re supposed to be going to the Collington Charity Ball tonight.’ His penetrating gaze searched her face, the wariness returning full force. ‘You’re tired. If you’d rather avoid it, I can make your excuses.’
Not on your life.
Her heart galloped into her throat, the stupid bubble of hope expanding so fast it was almost choking her. He’d said he cared about her. He’d clearly freaked out when he’d thought she was ill. And he had offered an opinion about the baby’s name. And okay, it had been reluctantly, but after weeks of what had felt like no progress she was not about to let this shining, shimmering gift horse out of her sight.
‘Give me an hour to dress,’ she said, and left him standing in the hallway, the weary resignation lifting off her shoulders as she all but skipped up the stairs.
It wasn’t enough, but it was enough for now. This didn’t have to be about his past or hers. This could be about their future. A future she suddenly felt sure was so much brighter now than it had been an hour ago in the ultrasound suite.
Jack Wolfe could be a father. All she had to do was let go of her own insecurities long enough to show him.
A boy?
The information reverberated in Jack’s skull, doing nothing to deaden the fear that had been tormenting him for close to an hour as he paused in the doorway of his wife’s suite.
She stood in the next room, checking out the fit of her dress for tonight’s ball in the mirror, unaware of his presence.
His breath got trapped in his lungs.
The rich, red satin hugged her bold curves, lifting her full breasts, accentuating her lush bottom. The pale skin revealed by the gown’s plunging back and the sprinkle of freckles across her bare shoulder blades were given a pearly glow by the room’s diffused lighting. He wanted to put his lips at the base of her spine, trail kisses up the delicious line of her backbone to her nape.
He knew exactly how she tasted there, in the hollow beneath her earlobe. And how she would respond—first with surprise, then with excitement, exhilaration and a hunger which matched his own—holding nothing back.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and forced himself not to walk into the room and begin unravelling her outfit. Because in the last hour the flicker of joy, of belonging, of protectiveness which always assailed him when he returned to the house in Mayfair, seemed somehow threatening in a way it never had before.