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done, everything they could have done differently, and what were realistic options and what weren't. If they'd had this conversation a fortnight ago she might well have bitten Daniel's head off, but not now. It was one reason she'd delayed telling him.
    She shook her head, the dark curls tumbling on her shoulder. If there was regret in her voice there was also acceptance. ‘We did that already. It didn't help. It was time for a strategic withdrawal. We both felt the same way. We didn't storm out in a temper: we talked about it and thought about it, and reached a mature and mutual decision. The right decision. That doesn't change because there's a baby on the way.’
    ‘And yet,’ said Daniel quietly, ‘it
will
change things. It'll change your life, and Jack's. It'll create a whole new set of circumstances. Would it be so unreasonable to review the situation in the light of that?’
    Logically, he may well have been right. But Brodie's instincts told her he was wrong. ‘You shouldn't use a child asglue. He – or she, I don't know it's a boy – will have a full set of parents whether or not they live together, whether or not they're married. I've no intentions of robbing Jack of his child. But I don't think he and I can make a go of things now, and we'd only make ourselves – and Paddy, and the baby -unhappy trying.’ She shrugged in that way she had when she was trying to look tougher than she felt. ‘I've been a single parent before, I can do it again.’
    ‘Then why are you so worried?’ asked Daniel softly.
    She never could get things past him. She looked around her. On the face of it, it wasn't much – a small office, mostly filled with filing-cabinets, a miniature kitchen and cloakroom behind, a slate on the wall. It wasn't what it was so much as what it represented. Three years of hard work. Two years of success. Two years of people she'd known, and one she'd been married to, looking at her differently because they hadn't guessed she had it in her.
    ‘Mostly, about this,’ she admitted. ‘Babies take a lot of time. I can put the business on hold while the baby grows a bit, but I'm not sure it'll be here to come back to if I do. So much of my stock-in-trade is confidence. If I'm not here when people need me, they'll find someone else. I've worked so hard, Daniel! And I think I'm going to lose it.’
    ‘You need someone to keep it ticking over until you're ready to come back.’
    ‘Yeah, right,’ Brodie retorted sarcastically. Not because it was a stupid idea but because she'd already considered and dismissed it. ‘The job centres are bursting with people qualified, competent and trustworthy enough to do this job! And kind enough to do it for a year or two and then hand itback because I ask them to. Who wouldn't think of using what they've learnt here to set up in competition. Tell you what: you put together a shortlist and I'll interview them.’
    They'd known one another too long now, and too well, for Daniel not to recognise her waspishness as a guise for fear. He reached across the desk and took her hand. ‘There'll be an answer,’ he promised. ‘We'll find it.’
    She appreciated that more than she could say, or would have done if she could. Of everything he meant to her, everything he'd done for her, this uncritical faithfulness was the thing for which she'd been most grateful. She held onto his fingers as if she was teetering on the edge of an abyss.
    ‘Maybe. I hope so. But that's not it. It just isn't practical. I could afford to employ someone, but who? I could spend months finding a suitable person, and then I'd have to train them. This isn't wholesale grocery: you know, better than most, there are complex issues to negotiate. You couldn't expect someone who'd only been doing the job a few weeks to make the right calls. To see the problems coming and steer round them. To know when to walk away, and when to run.’
    ‘How long have you got?’
    ‘The baby's due at the end of May. Training