Her Boss's Baby Plan. Jessica Hart

Martha didn’t seem to have noticed. She was shaking her head.

      ‘No.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘To be honest, I think it was more a case of lust at first sight! I met Rory at a party. It wasn’t long after I’d broken up with Paul and my confidence had taken a knock. I was feeling my age too. Suddenly I seemed to be hurtling into middle age with nothing to look forward to.

      ‘And then I saw Rory,’ she said, remembering. ‘He’s quite a bit younger than me and incredibly good-looking. We were all pale and pasty after a London winter and he’d just breezed in from the Indian Ocean, all blond and tanned and gorgeous! When he walked into that party I swear every woman in the room sucked in her breath and her stomach! Rory could have had his pick. There were lots of really pretty girls there, even a few models, but he spent the entire evening with me. I suppose I was flattered.’

      Lewis heard the undercurrent of secret amazement and pleasure she had felt that night in her voice, and wondered if she really didn’t know how attractive she was. Personally, he wasn’t surprised that Rory had singled her out. The intelligence and character in her face more than compensated for the fine lines round her eyes, and that lush mouth was much more tantalising than the perfect body or smooth, untried expression of a twenty-year-old.

      ‘Rory was just what I needed after Paul,’ Martha was saying. ‘He made me feel desirable again. It wasn’t love at first sight, no, but we did get on really well in spite of the difference in our ages. If we’d had longer together, who knows? Maybe we could have built a good long-term relationship but, as it was, he had to go back to St Bonaventure. We both knew that it was never going to be a permanent thing, so we just enjoyed it for what it was—a lot of fun.’

      Lewis was getting a bit tired of hearing about Rory, who was so attractive and such fun and no doubt a real stud in bed, too, he thought sourly. ‘Did the fun include getting pregnant?’ he asked disapprovingly.

      ‘No, that was an accident,’ said Martha. ‘We’d been to Paris for the weekend—Rory had never been and I used to go to all the fashion shows—so we thought we’d treat ourselves to a great meal on our last night, and I had oysters. Big mistake! I was on the pill, but those oysters definitely disagreed with me. I had an upset stomach for a couple of days after we got back and…well, it happens.’

      She shrugged. ‘A touch of food poisoning isn’t the best of reasons to start a family, I know, but I wouldn’t change Noah for the world now. Anyway,’ she went on with a sideways glance at Lewis, ‘you don’t need to worry that I’ll do an Eve and throw out all your arrangements by deciding I have met the man of my dreams on St Bonaventure. I’m too much of a realist about love now for that, and even if I wasn’t quite frankly I’m too tired to fall in love at the moment!’