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‘Are you ready?’
The question produced a hard look and a long pause.
‘You can change your mind if you want to.’ Lily struggled to keep her voice free from inflection as she went to close the half-open door—this had to be his choice.
Ben leaned across her, his hand covering hers. ‘I’m ready.’
Lily fought the weird compulsion to leave her hand where it was under his. Instead she pulled it free, put her head around the door, and nodded. Elizabeth, who was sitting at the bedside of the sleeping child, got to her feet.
Lily pushed away the mental image of her mum launching a verbal attack on Ben and crossed her fingers—she was doing that a lot lately. There had been little time for her mum to adjust to the knowledge that Ben was her granddaughter’s father.
Lily hadn’t known how to break it gently so she’d just blurted it out. ‘Emmy’s father is a probable match. It’s Ben...Ben Warrender.’
After the initial stunned moments of shock, her mum had been angry and full of questions.
The former had been aimed at Ben, the latter at Lily.
‘The choice was mine, Mum. I decided it would be better if he didn’t know.’
‘You mean you didn’t even tell him you were pregnant?’
She had read the shocked condemnation in her mother’s eyes, a look she’d imagined would be duplicated by strangers who got a whiff of the scandalous story. Lily didn’t care what strangers thought of her, but it had hurt a lot to have her mum look at her with such disappointment.
‘It wasn’t that simple. There were...other factors.’ Such as he’d split from his fiancée rather than give her a family.
‘A man deserves to know he has a child, no matter what he’s done.’
Lily had no idea what terrible things her mum had been imagining Ben had done. She’d chewed her lip in anguish. Having the disapproval shift her way had been, in many ways, easier. The last thing she needed was her mum being antagonistic to Ben.
‘He really didn’t do anything bad... I’m sorry I told you like this, Mum. You’ve had a shock. He has too.’
Elizabeth had shaken her head. ‘I just don’t understand why you did this, Lily. Surely your sister told you that you should—’
‘Lara doesn’t know either. Nobody knew.’
‘You didn’t even tell Lara? But you tell each other everything!’
Lily had shaken her head sadly. ‘When we were children,’ she’d said quietly. ‘We don’t confide the way we once did.’ It saddened her that there was more distance than simple miles between them now. She missed the closeness.
Would they ever be close again?
She’d straightened her shoulders. This was her problem, not Lara’s. ‘The important thing is it looks like he is a match for Emmy and he’s willing to be a donor.’
‘Of course he’s willing to be a donor, he’s her father. If the man dared say no, you just give me five minutes with him.’
The continuing belligerence in her mother’s attitude had dismayed Lily—she had enough eggshells to walk on without having to act a peacemaker between Ben and her mum.
‘He won’t. He’s having further tests this morning and then he’ll be... He wants to meet her.’
Her mum had sat down on a chair with a bump. ‘I suppose he does,’ she’d said faintly. She’d lifted a hand to her head. ‘She looks like him, those eyes... Why on earth didn’t I see it before?’
‘I’m not Lara.’ Her twin was the one that men looked at when she walked into a room. When they were together sometimes Lily felt invisible. It wasn’t about looks, it was about confidence and personality and, yes...sensuality.
Her mother had frowned. ‘What a strange thing to say, Lily. Whatever do you mean?’ Her eyes had widened. ‘Your sister didn’t date him too?’
The mental image of her twin with Ben had been so real and the accompanying stab of shameful jealousy so strong that it had taken her a moment to react. ‘No, of course not, I just meant you weren’t looking for that connection—why would you be? I never dated men who were...like him.’ There were no men like Ben.
What they had shared did not really qualify as a date... A dreamy expression had drifted briefly across her face as an image of the seafront café, the reflection of the lights on the water, had slid into her thoughts. It seemed like a lifetime ago. She’d shifted uncomfortably under the speculation in her mother’s frowning regard.
