it over the back of the nearest chair.
He was very aware that Heather had been waiting for him to name a time and place for them to get together. Which he hadn’t done because the first thing that sprang to mind when he thought about having a coffee with another woman was that it would be a betrayal of Charlie.
Which was pretty much crazy. Especially considering the lecture he’d been giving himself in the garage not five minutes ago. He and Charlie were friends, and they were about to become parents. He owed her his support and his patience and his time. He did not owe her his emotional or sexual loyalty. They had a relationship, but they weren’t in a relationship. And the odds were good they never would be, for all the reasons he’d already listed. There was too much at stake.
So he could have said yes to Heather. Apart from a lackluster blind date that Greg’s wife, Jessica, had set up for him a few weeks after that fateful night at Café Sydney, he hadn’t been out with anyone since Charlie. He’d been too busy with work to socialize. And, if he was honest with himself, he’d been a little thrown after his experience with Charlie. The intensity of it, followed by the fact that she’d simply bailed on him the next day. He hadn’t exactly felt like diving into the dating pool.
He ran his hand through his hair, very aware that the real reason he hadn’t set up a date with Heather—and the reason why he wasn’t knocking on her door now to do so—was because, as attractive as she was, he really wasn’t that interested.
His head was too full of Charlie. And not only because of the baby.
Better get past that, buddy, because it’s never going to happen.
Stripping off his shirt, he strode through the bedroom into the en suite. He shed the rest of his clothes and stepped beneath the shower, washing away the day’s labors.
Not so long ago, his life had been simple. He’d known what he wanted, and he’d had a plan to get it. Now…he had no idea what he wanted. And half the things he’d once thought were important had lost their shiny allure. The wharf apartment, the European sports car, the high-roller lifestyle.
That apartment was no place for a baby, let alone a toddler. There was no outdoor space, and the thought of combining even a moderately enterprising kid with some outdoor furniture and a balcony frankly freaked him out. The sleek Aston Martin Vanquish he’d been stalking for the past few years… It wasn’t as though the designers had put a lot of thought into how to fit a car seat into one of those things. When he got a new vehicle, it was far more likely to be a sedan with a good safety rating. He didn’t think he could go as far as a van—he still had his pride, after all—but a new Audi or BMW would probably hit the mark. And when he moved out of this apartment, he would probably look for a house with a yard, instead of a slick bachelor pad.
He shook his head. Six weeks ago, if someone had told him that he’d relinquish long-held ambitions so easily, with so little regret, he would have laughed in their face.
And yet here he was, mentally scrapping the wharf, the Vanquish, and walking away from a potential date with a hot blonde flight attendant. All because of Charlie and the baby.
A brave new world, indeed. One that he needed to get a grip on ASAP, because it was doing his head in.
CHARLIE SPENT THE WEEKEND not waiting for Rhys to call. On Saturday she went to Paddington Markets on Oxford Street and spent several hours checking out handcrafted jewelry, leatherwork, clothes and artwork. She bought her first purchases for the nursery—a carved wooden monkey with arms and legs that moved, thanks to leather thongs at its shoulder and hips, and an elephant with a bright red trunk.
Afterward she bought a big bowl of chicken and mango salad from a nearby deli and took it to the Royal Botanic Gardens. Sitting on the grass in the warm afternoon sun, she ate her lunch and watched the ferries and pleasure boats steam across the harbor. She didn’t check her phone once, and she left it at home when she went to the movies with Gina and her boyfriend, Spencer, that night.
On Sunday she contemplated tackling