Just like that? Pick up on a whim because she was his responsibility and he was lumbered with her? Because he thought they should give it a go? ‘No.’
‘Maggie.’
‘No.’
‘Come on, it’s London,’ he cajoled. ‘It’s magic.’
‘I know,’ she said frostily. ‘I’ve lived there. Back when you were in high school.’ She suppressed the urge to say little boy.
Nash groaned. ‘Oh, Maggie, not the age thing again.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Not the age thing again. But if you think I’m going to fly to London and shack up with my toy boy who wants to give it a go just because I’m pregnant with his child, you’re nuts.’
Nash winced. He hadn’t meant it to sound like that. So...temporary. So ill-conceived. He hadn’t meant that way at all. ‘I’m sorry. I’m saying it all wrong.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue velvet box and put it on the table. ‘Marry me.’
This time, Maggie plonked her mug on the table for fear that she really was going to upend its contents in her lap. Or over his head...
She stared at the box then at him, struck dumb for a few seconds. When she did find her voice it sounded all high and breathy. ‘Did you just...propose to me?’
Nash frowned. He couldn’t work out if she was happy or annoyed. Wasn’t that what women wanted? A wedding band?
That’s what most women to date had wanted from him.
Okay, it hadn’t exactly been a romantic proposal but this wasn’t any ordinary situation. This was never the way or the circumstances he’d ever pictured proposing under. Not that he’d ever pictured it.
Hell!
He rubbed his forehead, blaming his tiredness. He hadn’t planned on this when he’d knocked on her door that morning. ‘Sorry, I know it wasn’t exactly hearts and flowers.’
Maggie blinked. Now, that was the world’s biggest understatement! Had he just asked her to marry him out of some warped sense of duty? She supposed she should be admiring his strong honourable streak — there weren’t a lot of men like him around these days — but she was too stunned.
Reaching for some composure amidst her galloping thoughts and thrumming pulse, Maggie ignored the lure of the little blue box. ‘Do you love me, Nash?’
Her quiet question took Nash unawares. He’d thought for a moment she was going to explode and had been bracing himself for it when her calm enquiry hit him fair in the solar plexus.
The L word.
He’d avoided saying it to any woman to date. Not because he was afraid of it but because no one had ever claimed that sort of place in his heart and he’d always deplored men who bandied it about like it was some trivial emotion. What his parents had, his grandparents had was not remotely trivial.
And no one had even come close.
Not even a little. Until Maggie.
‘I like you. A lot. You’re like no one I’ve ever met. I love what we have. I love being with you. I love waking up next to you.’
It was as honest as he could be right now.
Maggie nodded slowly. Even if she hadn’t been able to read the unspoken but, his stricken face gave it away.
But. I don’t love you.
Her chest grew tighter and tighter and it took a moment to figure out she’d been holding her breath. She sucked in air, her lungs filling with a much-needed rush of oxygen as her brain staggered under the weight of a sudden realisation.
Oh, God! She loved him.
How? How had this happened? When? But even as she asked herself, she knew the answer. The day he’d decorated a serving tray with frangipani blossom from her garden because he’d known after an ugly night shift how much she’d needed to see a little beauty.
And every little romantic gesture since that had made their time together so special.
How could she have spent all this time pretending that their relationship had been purely physical? That she could spend three months in his arms and be able to wave him off in January like nothing had ever happened.
What a farce!
Even just looking at him now, with weariness etched into the furrows on his forehead and the crinkles around his eyes, she loved him so much she felt like she was going to burst with it.
Placing a hand on her belly, another realisation hit home. She wasn’t just carrying Nash’s child. Not anymore. She was pregnant by the man she loved.
Their baby had been conceived out of love.
The desire to give way to full-blown panic blossomed. But amidst the ringing bells and clanging clocks echoing inside her head, a part of Maggie knew that to reveal her inner turmoil would be stupid. That she loved him was immaterial, that she wanted what was in that box didn’t matter, when he obviously didn’t feel the same way.
‘Look, Nash, I understand that you have strong feelings about responsibility and duty. I mean, you’re fulfilling a childhood promise to your sister so I get it. You’re a man of your word.’ She paused, searching for the right thing to say. ‘But let’s not compound this issue by doing something rash like marrying for all the wrong reasons. I already have one divorce to my name.’
Maggie was proud of how calm she sounded. How rational. And she didn’t miss the slight sag to Nash’s shoulders either.
‘I’m not going to shirk this,’ Nash said.
Maggie shivered at the steel in his voice and wished with all her heart that his insistence came out of love instead of honour. She wasn’t prepared to disrupt her life and pine away in a loveless partnership on the other side of the world with a man who’d only married her out of duty. But she knew she’d follow him to Antarctica if he just said the three magic words.
She shrugged. ‘So send money.’
Nash stilled as she presented him with the perfect solution. Support Maggie and the baby financially here in Australia while fulfilling his own dreams on the other side of the world.
But even as his head turned it over, his heart rejected it outright.
Whether he liked it or not, he’d helped form a new life. And already he was thinking of it as flesh and blood instead of a contraception failure. As his baby.
Didn’t every child deserve to have two parents?
Okay, he might only be away for a couple of years but did he want to miss out on such a vital, formative time in his child’s life? ‘I want to teach my kid how to kick a ball.’
Despite her resolve, Maggie was assailed with images of Nash standing behind a little blue-eyed blond demonstrating the perfect technique with a footy.
And I want you to love me. But Maggie’s heart knew there were just some things you couldn’t have. ‘Commute.’
Nash gave her an exasperated look. See his kid once every few months? No. ‘Fine...’ He rubbed his eyes as all his dreams, his promises, crumpled before him. ‘I’ll stay.’
Maggie shook her head vigorously. ‘No. Oh, no,’ she rejected vehemently. ‘I’m not having you blame me, or the baby, in years to come because you didn’t get your time at Great Ormond Street.’
Nash reached across the table and grasped her hands, brushing a thumb back and forth over the prominent veins in the back of her hand. ‘So come with me. Let’s see how things pan out.’
Maggie fought against the pull of him that she felt at a visceral level, in every pulse stroke, every cell. But where would she be if they didn’t pan out?