‘You don’t happen to have a phone charger on you, do you? I need to call my friends.’
‘I’ll get you one from one of the doctors or nurses.’
‘Thank you.’
Jack found a phone charger within a few minutes and came back to find Harper curled up on the bed, facing the crib but fast asleep. He plugged in her phone and left it on the bedside table. He stood looking down at her for a long moment, still trying to come to terms with what had happened in the last couple of hours. He had had some pretty eventful days in his life but this one surely topped the lot.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘YOU’VEHADAWHAT?’Ruby and Aerin gasped in unison when Harper called them later that night on a video call.
‘It wasn’t backache, I mean, I did have backache, but it was actually labour,’ Harper explained about her cryptic pregnancy, still finding it hard to believe herself. And she wouldn’t have believed it if her baby wasn’t lying in the crib next to her bed, fast asleep after her last feed.
‘But you didn’t evenlookpregnant,’ Ruby said in a stunned tone.
‘You did have a certain glow about you, though,’ Aerin put in. ‘And you were eating for two. Remember that night when you cleared the platter Ruby prepared? You seemed unusually hungry, especially since you’re nearly always dieting.’
Harper didn’t have a slim build like her business partners. She had struggled with accepting her more statuesque form for years. But now she had produced a baby, she had a new respect for her body. She was amazed at what her body had done in nurturing and growing a baby and then delivering it. She angled the camera so the girls could see Marli. ‘Here’s my baby girl. What do you think of her?’
‘Oh, she’s just divine,’ Aerin said with wondrous awe in her voice.
‘What a sweet little face,’ Ruby said with equal adoration. ‘She’s like a doll.’
‘That’s what her father said.’
‘Whoisher father?’ Ruby asked. ‘Or can I take a wild guess and say it’s Jack Livingstone?’
‘Was he there for the birth?’ Aerin chipped in.
Harper took a breath and released it in a not quite steady stream. ‘Jack is Marli’s father. And yes, he managed to get here in time for the birth.’ Another point in his favour. He had mopped her brow, held her hand and had his practically crushed in return, but had he flinched? Had he complained? Had he walked away and denied parenthood?
No.
He was all in.
And insisting on marrying her, no less.
Harper’s mother had birthed her all alone, all the while knowing her baby’s father hadn’t wanted to meet his child. Hadn’t wanted anything to do with his baby girl or her mother. Now that she had given birth herself, Harper realised how awfully lonely and terrifying it must have been for her poor mother.
‘Was he...surprised? Shocked?’ Aerin asked.
‘Probably about the same as me,’ Harper said. ‘I’m glad he was here, though. With you two out of town, I didn’t know who else to call.’ It wasn’t as if she had a mother of her own to call. Jack had turned up at her request and got there in time to see his baby come into the world. Harper recalled the way he had supported her and his gentle handling of their daughter and fought against the feelings the vision stirred in her chest.
But she was not in love with her baby’s father. Jack Livingstone was practically a stranger. He might be devilishly attractive and utterly charming, but she wasnotgoing to fall in love with him.
And hot damn, she would not think aboutthatkiss.
‘So, how’s it going to go with you two bringing up a baby?’ Ruby asked. ‘I take it he wants to be involved?’
‘He wants to marry me.’
‘Marry you?’ Aerin gasped again in shock. ‘What did you say?’
‘No, of course,’ Harper said. ‘Why would I marry him just because he’s the father of my baby?’
‘What if he’s in love with you?’ Ruby said. ‘I mean, he wanted to see you again but you always refused.’
Harper gave a clipped laugh of cynicism. ‘Jack isn’t used to women saying no to him. I was a challenge he couldn’t resist.’