For His Baby's Sake. Jessica Hart

I ever wanted.’

      No, not everything, Rose, she corrected herself, remembering how many times she had ached to rewind time and unsay that ultimatum. But then she wouldn’t have Jack, and how could she wish that?

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were having a baby?’

      Rose lowered Jack to the floor, where he clung to her legs. ‘I didn’t think you’d be that interested, Drew. You’ve always gone out of your way to avoid babies.’ She looked at the sleeping baby in his arms, but avoided the obvious question. ‘Why should you care if I had one?’

      A dull flush spread along Drew’s cheekbones. ‘I thought we were friends,’ he said. ‘Of course I’d care about something so important to you. Maybe it wasn’t my business, but…’ He paused, and then shrugged. ‘I wish I’d known, that’s all.’

      ‘You’ve been out of touch,’ Rose reminded him, trying for a lighter note. ‘You can’t expect to keep up with all the news when you take yourself off to the middle of nowhere for years on end!’

      ‘Just under eighteen months,’ said Drew, not sure why he was feeling so defensive. ‘I’ve been out of e-mail contact, it’s true, but there’s a postal service. You could have written.’

      ‘Yes, I could have,’ she conceded. Walking awkwardly, with Jack clinging to her leg, she went over to one of the sofas and gestured to Drew to sit down on the other one. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said honestly. ‘It’s just that you seemed a long way away.’

      She should have told him about Jack. Especially since they were living in his house. She just hadn’t been able to find the words.

      ‘I did mean to write, in fact, but…’ She lifted her shoulders hopelessly. ‘To be honest, I wasn’t sure how to tell you.’

      ‘Well, there’s no reason why you should have done,’ said Drew after a moment. ‘It’s just strange seeing you with a baby.’

      ‘I could say the same about you.’ Rose looked meaningfully at the baby, still sleeping peacefully in his arms. It was obviously a little girl, and someone had dressed her carefully in a dress and little coat, with a cute striped hat, although Rose guessed that someone hadn’t been Drew. He was holding her as if she were an unexploded bomb. ‘What’s her name?’

      ‘Molly.’

      ‘Nice name,’ said Rose, puzzled by the expression on his face. ‘Whose is she?’

      Drew hesitated. ‘She’s mine,’ he said after a moment. ‘Molly’s my daughter.’

      There was a long, long silence. Even Jack seemed to sense the tension, pausing in the middle of scrambling up onto his mother’s knee to look up into her face.

      ‘Your daughter?’ Rose said in a frozen voice. It was the last, the very last thing she had expected.

      ‘I’ve only just found out myself,’ said Drew. He swallowed. This was much more difficult than he had imagined when he had gaily assured Betty Clarke that he would be able to look after Molly. ‘Rose,’ he confessed, ‘I really need your help.’

      Rose stared at the baby. At Drew’s daughter. After everything he had said about not wanting children, he was a father. Another woman had had his baby. Rose was unprepared for how much that knowledge hurt.

      Mechanically, she lifted Jack onto her lap. Swallowed. Dragged her gaze from the baby to look right into Drew’s eyes.

      ‘I think you’d better explain,’ she said.

      CHAPTER TWO

      DREW raked a harassed hand through his brown hair, making the distinctive Pemberton streak stand up on end. ‘I don’t really know where to start…’

      ‘There’s usually a pretty obvious point when babies start,’ said Rose.

      He acknowledged that with a twisted smile. ‘Yes, but you usually get a few months’ warning that a baby is going to appear in your life, too. I had none at all. Molly is just as much a surprise to me as she is to you.’

      She frowned. ‘How long have you known about her?’

      ‘About two and a half hours,’ he said, with a glance at his watch. ‘I had no idea of her existence until then.’

      ‘What? Not even a suspicion?’

      ‘Of course not,’ he said indignantly. ‘I would never have gone off to Burkina Faso if I’d known. What do you think I am?’

      ‘I think you’re a man who never wanted a baby.’

      ‘I didn’t. That’s what makes this all so…’ Drew looked down at the baby. ‘I feel like I’ve been in a car crash,’ he admitted a little helplessly to Rose. ‘One minute I’m a bachelor, fancy-free, with no responsibilities, and the next I’m a father. I can’t really take it in.’

      He did look shell-shocked, Rose had to admit. Almost as shocked as she felt. Her heart was still bruised and fluttering with shock from its plummet the moment Drew had looked at her and told her that he was a father. Drew, who had always ruled out the possibility of babies with her.

      Jack, settling into her lap, stuck his thumb in his mouth and stared at Drew and the baby as if fascinated by them, and she put her arms around him and hugged him close, not sure if she was giving reassurance or taking it.

      ‘How old is Molly?’

      ‘The Clarkes told me she was nearly eight months old.’

      ‘The Clarkes? Who are they? And where’s Molly’s mother?’

      ‘She’s dead.’ Drew heard Rose’s sharp intake of breath at the bald statement, and he rubbed his hand wearily over his face. ‘Look, you’re right. I need to start at the beginning.’

      ‘When you slept with Molly’s mother?’

      ‘Yes,’ he said, flinching slightly at her directness. ‘Her name was Hannah and she was a technician at the office. She’d do the technical drawings and…Well, it doesn’t matter what she did. I’d known her for a few years, ever since I went to work there, and we’d always got on well. Hannah was attractive, I suppose, but I never really thought about that much. She was just a friend.’

      She wasn’t you, he wanted to say to Rose, but didn’t.

      ‘If you had a baby together you were clearly more than friends,’ Rose said crisply.

      Typical Rose, thought Drew with rueful affection. She looked so sweet, but there was a refreshing and sometimes uncomfortable astringency to her, as well.

      ‘That really was all we were until my leaving party,’ he insisted. ‘But that night I was…Well, the truth is that I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing in going to Africa, but I didn’t want anyone to know that I was having doubts, so I did my best to cover it by having a good time. Drinking too much, in fact,’ he added dryly. ‘Hannah was in a strange mood, too—almost wild. I didn’t realise at the time, but her parents told me today that she had decided that she really wanted a baby.’

      ‘And she’d picked on you as the father?’ Rose raised her brows in disbelief.

      ‘I know what it sounds like…but she definitely didn’t want a relationship. She told her parents that she liked me, and thought I’d have some healthy genes to pass on, but that I’d be a disaster as a father.’

      ‘Hah!’ snorted Rose, thinking that Hannah had obviously had no illusions about Drew. Sensible woman.

      ‘I’d told her about why we’d split up, so she knew I didn’t want children myself, but she didn’t care about that. She just wanted to get pregnant.’

      Jack was beginning to squirm. He had evidently decided that Drew and Molly weren’t going to do anything alarming, and was ready to