The Package Deal. Marion Lennox

      ‘Happy ever after works in books?’

      ‘You have to believe in it somewhere.’

      A cloud drifted over the sun. A shadow crossed Mary’s face and she shivered. Enough. He rose and put down a hand to help her up.

      She stared at it for a moment as if she was considering whether to take it. Whether she should.

      ‘You need to let me help a little,’ he said gently. ‘I’d like to.’

      ‘I’d like to help, too,’ she said. ‘Where’s Jake?’

      ‘Still in New Zealand, winding up his movie.’

      ‘Would you like me to talk to him?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘That’s not very polite.’

      ‘Families are complicated.

      ‘You don’t need to tell me that.’ She ignored his hand and pushed herself to her feet, wincing a little as she did.

      ‘You’re hurt?’ The tiny flash of pain did something to him. She was pregnant. What did he know about pregnancy? Surely she shouldn’t have flown. What if there were complications? What if...?

      ‘Twenty-four hours squashed in a tin can is enough to make anyone achy,’ she said. ‘So let’s get that “Call the artillery and have me carted off to Emergency” look off your face.’

      ‘Am I that obvious?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘You’re sure you’re okay?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Where are you staying?’

      She told him and he struggled to keep his face still. Not a salubrious district. Cheap.

      This was the mother of his child.

      No. This was Mary.

      ‘I’ll take you home,’ he said.

      ‘I’ve just figured out the subway.’

      ‘Good for you but I’ll still take you home.’

      ‘You have a car?’

      He hauled out his cellphone. ‘James will be here in two minutes.’

      ‘Wow,’ she whispered. ‘Wow, wow, wow. Bring on James.’

      * * *

      She sat in the back of a car that’d have everybody back home gathered round and staring. She sat beside Ben, and a chauffeur called James drove her back to her hotel.

      It wasn’t in a salubrious part of town. It wasn’t a salubrious hotel.

      The chauffeur pulled to a halt out the front of the less-than-five-star establishment and turned to Ben.

      ‘Is this the right address, sir?’

      ‘No,’ Ben said. ‘It’s not.’ He turned to Mary. ‘When did you arrive?’

      ‘The day before yesterday?’

      ‘You’ve stayed here for two nights?’ His tone was incredulous.

      ‘It’s clean,’ she said. ‘I checked it out on the internet before coming. It has everything I need and it’s near the subway.’

      ‘It doesn’t have everything I need. This is a dodgy neighbourhood at the best of times. I bet you’ve been walking around alone, too. It’s a miracle you weren’t mugged.’

      ‘I can look after myself.’

      ‘Not if you’re staying here you can’t.’ He sighed. ‘James, stay with the car. Do not under any circumstances leave it alone in this district. We’ll be as fast as possible.’

      ‘We?’ Mary pushed open the car door. ‘There’s no we. You’ve brought me home. Thank you very much. Goodbye.’

      ‘You’re not staying here.’

      ‘Says you and whose army?’

      ‘I am,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘a trained commando. I’ll take you by force if necessary.’

      ‘Oooooh,’ she said, pretending to cower. And then she sighed. ‘Quit it with the dramatics. Bye, Ben.’ She was out of the car and up the steps of the hotel—but he was right beside her.

      ‘I said goodbye,’ she hissed.

      ‘I heard. Let me see inside.’

      ‘No.’

      ‘It’s a public hotel.’

      ‘No!’

      ‘You’re the mother of my baby,’ he said, loudly, possessively, and she stopped and stared.

      ‘My baby?’

      ‘That’s why you came all the way to New York. To tell me I have a share in this. I might not be able to dictate where you stay but I will have a say in how safe our child is.’

      She stared at him.

      She hadn’t thought this through, she decided. Had she given him the right to dictate how she treated...his child?

      What had she done?

      ‘It’s fine,’ she said through gritted teeth, and he took her arm and smiled down at her, and she knew that smile. It was his I’m in charge and you’d better come along quietly or I’ll turn into a Logan smile.

      ‘Let’s just see, shall we?’

      * * *

      Which explained why twenty minutes later she was standing on the doorstep of what must be one of the most awesome apartments in Manhattan, staring around with shocked amazement.

      ‘I can’t stay here!’

      He hadn’t quite picked her up and carried her but he might as well have. One look at her dreary hotel room, with its window that looked at a brick wall, with the smell of the downstairs hamburger joint drifting through the window and a bathroom with mould, and the father of her child had simply gathered her possessions and led her out. All the way to his place.

      ‘I have plenty of room,’ he said, dumping her decidedly downmarket duffel on the floor of his breathtaking apartment. She could see her face in the marble floor tiles. Her duffel was travel-stained and old. It looked ridiculous sitting against such opulence.

      ‘My father bought this as his alternative to home when Rita’s histrionics got too much,’ he said briefly. ‘Five bedrooms. My father never did things small.’

      ‘N-no.’ She crossed to the wall of French windows leading to the balcony. Leading to Central Park.

      She needn’t have bothered asking to have her picnic there. She could see the Lennon garden from here.

      ‘It’s convenient,’ he told her. ‘You’ll be able to sightsee until you go home.’

      ‘I should go home now.’

      ‘But your flight isn’t until Monday.’

      ‘I... Yes.’ Her last-minute decision to come here and tell him had meant last-minute tickets. Which meant not the weekend. Today was Friday. She’d have two days living in this...this...place.

      ‘It’s scary,’ she said, staring around at the cool, grey and white marble, the kitchen that boasted four ovens, the massive leather lounge suites, the tinkling waterfall behind the living room wall. ‘It scares me to death.’

      ‘It beats the cave on Hideaway.’

      ‘On Hideaway we had cushions and Barbara’s quilt. Comfy. How do you get comfy here?’

      ‘I’m not here much.’

      ‘Social