‘At least he offered to support you,’ Aerin said. ‘That’s definitely a point in his favour.’
Harper could think of dozens of points in his favour—his strong and capable take-charge attitude, his work ethic, his unflappable temperament, his drive for success. And then there was his tall and athletic build, his too-handsome features, the blue eyes that were as dark as a mountain tarn, his lean and chiselled jaw, his swept-back jet-black hair, his long, straight nose and his sensually carved mouth...
Argh. She mustnotthink about his mouth and how it felt against her lips. Sensual and seductive, soft and yet commanding. A mouth that could distract her from all of her carefully constructed goals. A mouth that could beguile and bewitch and befuddle her until she couldn’t control herself.
But doubts about Jack supporting his child for the long haul circled around her head. Babies were cute, but toddlers could be a handful. And what about the rollercoaster time of puberty and adolescence? What if the novelty of being a father wore off sooner rather than later? What if he abandoned Marli the way Harper had been abandoned by her own father? She couldn’t allow that to happen to her little girl. The marriage Jack was proposing seemed a clinical sort of arrangement. What exactly would it entail? And how could she agree to spend her life with a man who openly admitted to not loving her? Or even believing in love? He said he had been celibate for the last nine months but she couldn’t see him being celibate for the duration of their marriage. Or would he expect they would sleep together, raise their child together but not fall in love? She had slept with him once and her heart had almost been his. Almost. Sleeping with him again would be asking for the sort of trouble she had spent her life avoiding.
Love trouble.
Deep trouble.
Inescapable trouble.
Marli woke and gave a mewling cry, her little arms waving about her head.
‘I’d better see to her,’ Harper said. ‘Come and meet her as soon as you get back to London.’
‘I’ll organise a baby shower for you,’ Aerin said. ‘I know it’s meant to be before the birth, but under these circumstances, what does it matter?’
‘That would be nice,’ Harper said. ‘I have nothing for her, although Jack promised to get me some stuff before we take her home tomorrow.’ But where would home be? His place or hers?
‘We’ll do everything we can to help you, Harper,’ Ruby said. ‘It’ll be a juggle with the bookings we’ve got coming up but you can take maternity leave if you want. We can get a stand-in photographer for a few weeks. You’ll need time to bond with Marli.’
‘But I still have to go to Paris in six weeks,’ Harper said. ‘No one can go in my place. It’s my work they want to feature. It’s a dream come true for me and I can’t back out at the last minute.’
‘Then concentrate on that and leave the weddings to us,’ Ruby said. ‘And give that gorgeous little munchkin a cuddle from me. Tell her Aunty Ruby already loves her to bits and her Uncle Lucas will be besotted as soon as he sees her.’
Harper smiled in spite of her worries for the future. Ruby was like a sister to her and so was Aerin. Through thick and thin, flood and drought and confidence and doubt, they stood by her and she stood by them. What did she need a husband for?
Especially one as dangerously distracting as Jack Livingstone.
Jack had never been in a baby goods store in his life. He stood surrounded by pastel colours, soft, fluffy toys, numerous clothes in a variety of sizes, cots and prams and pushers and baby carriers and bassinets and car seats and change tables and nappies and sippy cups and bottles and even breast pump machines. How could one tiny infant need all this stuff? Where was he supposed to start? He picked up a pink and white unicorn with a gold horn on its head and inadvertently pressed the start button on its stomach and a soothing lullaby started to play. The song from his own childhood stirred deeply buried memories of being surrounded by parents and two sets of grandparents who loved and nurtured him. Relatives who one by one had disappeared through death and disease, leaving only his mother and him still standing.
Love came with a price—loss.
Terrible, heartbreaking, unavoidable loss.
His mother had lost his father by degrees, the man she adored becoming frail and more and more difficult as the ravages of his Parkinson’s set in. And Jack had lost his father too, watching as his strong and capable body and sharp mind deteriorated, leaving him the shell of a man who had fought every inch of the way to hide his vulnerability.
And because of his father’s determination to conceal his increasing disability, the family hotel business had been all but destroyed by his father’s mismanagement, leaving Jack to pick up the pieces to rebuild the Livingstone Hotel brand to make it even better than before. But not before watching as precious heirloom after precious heirloom and property after property were sold to meet the eyewatering debts. Losses that to this day he hated thinking about. Which was why he was always on the hunt for a new property to develop, to make up for those he had lost.
Jack figured the only way to avoid such devastating losses in his own life was not to love in the first place. To keep his emotions in check. In control. Under lock and key.
Safe.
A middle-aged woman came over with a smile on her face. ‘May I help you with anything?’
Jack put the unicorn down, packing his memories away like old clothes that were no longer his size. ‘My fiancée and I have just had a baby girl and I need to get some gear.’ Call him stubborn but he was determined to keep calling Harper his fiancée.
The woman’s eyes lit up. ‘Congratulations. What things did you have in mind?’
Jack picked up a pink onesie that looked about the right size for Marli. ‘Let’s start with this and go from there.’
Harper was putting Marli back in her crib after a feed the next morning, when Jack came in carrying bulging bags from a well-known brand of babywear. ‘Looks like you’ve been busy.’
‘Just a little.’ Jack put the bags on the bed and came over to gaze down at the baby. ‘How did she sleep?’
‘Like a baby.’