Bound by a Baby Bump (Harlequin Romance Large Print) Read Online Free PDF

day had been a whole load of nothing. And this after a half-hearted, barely-there appearance last month.
    How long did she wait? she wondered. A week wasn’t that big a deal, was it? She’d been busier than ever since that night—with Will’s eye somewhat off the ball now he actually had a personal life. And then he and Maya had started coming up with more and more fundraising ideas to support the charity, and it felt as if she hadn’t had a moment to herself since then. It was just the stress. Except she wasn’t stressed. She’d just worked the new projects into their routine and it had been fine. She wasn’t stressed; she was just late. And it seemed like a little too much of a coincidence that the first time she’d ever been late coincided with her first ever sexual wardrobe malfunction. That ninety-five-per-cent figure had been haunting her thoughts for six days now.
    She should probably talk to Leo, she thought. But she hadn’t asked for his number that night—could she face calling his father, whose gala invitation he had taken, to try and get hold of him?
    At least at the moment she had nothing to tell. But she couldn’t leave it that way for long. She needed to know what she was dealing with. If—and it was still a big one—but if she was pregnant, then the sooner she knew, the sooner she could formulate a plan. It was twelve-thirty now, which gave her enough time to nip to the chemist’s around the corner, grab a pregnancy test and a sandwich, and be back at her desk well before Will’s two o’clock meeting. She locked her computer and grabbed her bag from her drawer, then headed out of the building.
    Twenty minutes later she locked the cubicle door and sat on the lid of the toilet, reading through the packet instructions.
    Pee, wait, read. And then she’d know.
    She peed. She waited. The seconds on her phone stopwatch ticked by slowly, as if the whole universe wanted to put this off as much as she did.
    At twelve fifty-nine she took a deep breath, closed her eyes for that last, long second, and then looked at the stick.
    Pregnant.
    She could barely see as she walked—dazed—out of the bathroom. She stopped at the coffee machine, as was her habit after lunch, and as she was about to select her usual order she stopped herself, blinked a couple of times, and selected decaf instead. She reached for the cup and took a sip, and felt the relief and comfort of her routine in place of the caffeine rush.
    ‘Got the jitters?’
    She whipped around at the sound of that familiar voice and felt the blood drain from her face.
    ‘Leo, what a—’
    She couldn’t finish the word, never mind the sentence. What was he doing here? Why today? Why right now? Why did he have to look even better than she remembered? Sun-bleached, tanned and twinkling with humour.
    He was watching her with careful eyes. And he reached out and took the cup from her shaking hands. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. But you looked as if you were in a world of your own.’
    ‘No, it’s... It’s... Leo?’
    He gave her a smug grin, and that helped her regain her senses somewhat. He wouldn’t be looking at me like that if he knew what I knew, she thought. If he knew that in a few short months he’d be dad to a bouncing baby boy or...
    She felt her blood drain lower still, and had to lean back against the counter in the small kitchen to keep her balance. Leo took a step closer and set the coffee down beside her, before taking her hand and looking closely at her face.
    ‘You’re white as a sheet,’ he said. ‘I’d love to take the credit for you swooning and all, but I’m worried. Are you ill? Should I call someone?’
    ‘No, no,’ she said, trying to regain composure amid the rush of her thoughts and the swirl of sensation from his fingertips. ‘I’m surprised, that’s all. And in need of a coffee.’
    ‘So why are you drinking decaf?’
    Great, she thought. Walked straight into that one.