Surprise: Outback Proposal. Sarah Mayberry

not after the way they’d both been sidestepping the issue for so long. It had become a game of sorts, the way they skirted around the all-consuming subject of when to start a family.

      “I’m not not ready,” Rosie said quickly, even though her stomach tensed with anxiety. “I’m not stringing you along. The time simply hasn’t been right before.”

      Andrew sighed heavily. His blue eyes were intent as he looked into her face. “So when will the time be right if we give all our savings to Lucy? Five years? Ten years? You’re thirty-one. How old do you plan on being when our kids are in college? You’re the one who insisted we needed to add a junior partner to the firm before we even considered starting a family. And we both agreed we couldn’t do that until we’d renovated the practice to create an extra office.”

      Again the tightness in her belly.

      “Lucy probably only needs the money for a year or two,” she said. “As soon as she’s paid us back, we’ll renovate and start trying.”

      “Rosie. Be serious. It will take longer than two years for Lucy to pay out a loan. She’ll be working part-time, she’ll have expenses for the baby. It could take her years to get on top of things. We’ve dealt with enough bankruptcies to know that most small businesses don’t survive the first few years.”

      “Lucy is not going to go bankrupt!”

      “I didn’t say she was. But she’s also not going to suddenly become Martha Stewart, either.”

      He watched her, waiting for her to acknowledge that he was speaking the truth.

      Finally she nodded. “Okay. You’re right. It probably won’t be two years.”

      He returned to the dining table and sat. His meal was only half-eaten, but he pushed it away.

      “So we need to make a decision. Do we invest in our dream or your sister’s?” he asked quietly.

      She sat, too. Suddenly she felt very heavy.

      “We could remortgage,” she suggested.

      “We’re already leveraged because of buying the office. And once you have a baby and we put a partner on, our income will be reduced. That was the whole point of socking away extra money to pay for the renovations rather than taking on more debt. You know I would have been happy if we were pregnant years ago. But I know financial security is important to you, so we did things your way. Now you’re telling me you want to put things off again while we lend our renovation fund to your sister?”

      Rosie picked up her fork and pushed it into the pile of cold peas on her plate.

      “Do we put off having a family or not, Rosie?” he asked.

      She raised her gaze to him. She knew exactly how much he wanted children. It was one of the first things they’d discussed when they got together all those years ago. He wanted at least three children, wanted to build a family that would make up for the lack in his own shitty childhood. Even though the thought had scared her even back then, she’d invested in his dream, built castles in the air with him. And for the past eight years she’d been burying her head in the sand, pretending this day would never come.

      “I shouldn’t have offered the money to Lucy,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

      Andrew waited patiently for her to answer properly.

      “We’re not putting off starting a family,” she confirmed. “I’ll tell Lucy that we can’t lend her the money after all.”

      Andrew’s shoulders relaxed. She saw for the first time that there was a sheen of tears in his eyes. This meant so much to him.

      “I’ll come with you. We’ll explain together,” he said.

      Rosie shook her head.

      “No. It was my mistake. I’ll do it.”

      She stood. She hated to think of how disappointed Lucy would be. Her sister had been so excited this afternoon.

      If only she hadn’t acted so impetuously. If only she’d stopped to think, waited to talk to Andrew tonight. But she hadn’t, and now she had to go break her sister’s heart to avoid breaking her husband’s. And then, somehow, she had to overcome this terror that struck her every time she thought about becoming a mother.

      LUCY DRAGGED HERSELF to the market the next morning. Never had she wanted to stay in bed so badly, not even the morning after Marcus left.

      She felt defeated, and it scared her that she couldn’t see a way out. She had no choice but to keep on working for as long as she could and hope that her cousin was prepared to drive for her at minimum wage and that she had a problem-free pregnancy before giving birth to the world’s most perfect baby.

      She didn’t blame her sister for reneging on the loan. Rosie’s offer had been generous and impulsive, and Lucy totally understood why she and Andrew had decided they had to retract it once cooler heads had prevailed.

      She just wished she had an Option C to fall back on now that Option B had gone up in flames.

      “Lucy. Managed to brave the cold, I see,” Dom said as she stopped her trolley in front of the Bianco Brothers stall.

      “Yeah,” she said. Today even Dom’s smile and charm couldn’t nudge her out of her funk. All she wanted to do was to go home, curl into a ball and sleep until the world had righted itself. She fished in her bag for her shopping list, growing increasingly frustrated when she couldn’t put her hand on it.

      “Sorry. Give me a minute,” she said. She pulled hand-fuls of paper from her bag, angrily riffling through them for the one she needed. She was such a train wreck—couldn’t even get one little thing right today.

      She could feel Dom watching her as she went back and forth through the papers. The list had to be in here somewhere. And if it wasn’t, it meant a trip home to collect it from her flat. She felt dangerously close to bursting into tears and she blinked rapidly.

      “Here.”

      She looked up to find a takeout coffee cup under her nose. She automatically shook her head.

      “I can’t drink coffee.”

      “It’s hot chocolate. And you look like you need it more than I do.”

      As he spoke, the smell of warm chocolate hit her nose and her mouth watered.

      “Come on, take it,” he said, waving the cup invitingly.

      “Thanks.” She took the cup with a small smile. The first mouthful was hot and full of sugar. Just what she needed.

      “Better?” Dom asked.

      “Thanks.”

      He smiled, the dimple in his cheek popping. She glanced down at her papers and realized her shopping list was right on top of the pile.

      “Typical,” she muttered as she handed it over.

      Dom scanned it quickly. “No problems here. Why don’t you kick back and I’ll get this sorted?”

      He was already moving off. She knew she should object, at least pretend to inspect the produce on offer. But she trusted him. And today—just today—she needed a break. Tomorrow she would take on all comers again.

      She rested her elbows on the push bar of her trolley, watching Dom sort through produce for her as she sipped his hot chocolate.

      He was a nice man. Sexy, too. Although she still wasn’t sure that she was grateful to her sister for pointing that fact out. She wondered what had gone wrong with his marriage. Then she realized what she was doing and dragged her attention away from his broad shoulders and flat belly.

      “Okay. I think that’s everything. I threw in some extra leeks for you. We overordered, and I’m sure you can find a customer to give them to,” Dom said when he’d finished loading her trolley.

      Lucy