Prognosis Baby Daddy - Amy Andrews Page 0,59

tourists walked around the car, snapping photos.

Katya didn’t even know how she’d ended up here. She’d just had to get out of the flat. Being alone gave her too much time to think, to reflect.

To be miserable.

She was annoyed with herself that she couldn’t just shake it off and that after a fortnight away from Ben she still didn’t know what to do.

She yearned desperately for the old Katya to make an appearance. The one who had gone to Italy. The one who had seen her through years of hard times. The one who had ruled her life with an iron fist. But being with Ben - falling in love with him - had softened that woman. His support and understanding had dispensed with the need for her. And furthermore, she couldn’t get her back.

Loving Ben, having his baby, had changed her forever.

The ride came to an end and Katya stepped out of the slowly moving car with the other passengers. She pulled her coat collar up and fastened the buttons over her baby bump. She was grateful for the warm, knee-length wool as the crisp March air enveloped her.

Where to now? She didn’t know.

Just walk, be among crowds, wander along Oxford Street maybe or around Covent Garden. Wherever. Just not back to the poky little flat in Islington which she was house-sitting for a MedSurg colleague.

She almost wished she’d taken Gill and Harriet up on their offer of a bed in Australia. But it was too far away from Ben. And he had made it very clear from his text messages that he wanted to be part of his child’s life. And she knew that if he’d really wanted to play hard ball, he had the money and the means to provide for their son better than she did.

And the money and the means to ensure he got his way.

Going back to Italy was inevitable. She knew that deep down. Unless she could persuade Ben to come to London. But ultimately where they lived didn’t matter. It still involved seeing him regularly. Seeing him and knowing he could never be hers. Watching him with their child. Maybe even with other women.

The newer, softer Katya wasn’t strong enough for that.

She was fairly sure, though, that Ben would insist on Italy. He had the Lucia Trust, his pride and joy, still in its infancy, and also his heritage. It may have been one he hadn’t wanted but he was embracing it more and more, determined to put his own stamp on the clinic.

So it was either go to Italy willingly or face a court battle for their son. Something she wasn’t up to financially or emotionally.

Katya’s mobile rang and her heart skipped crazily in her chest. Ben. They hadn’t spoken since she’d left, communicating by text only. She flipped the phone open. ‘Hello.’

‘I’m in London.’

Katya gasped. She wasn’t ready yet. Even though every cell in her body ached to see him again. ‘I have another two weeks.’

‘We need to talk, cara.’

Katya swallowed. Even being brisk and businesslike, his voice was still as sexy as hell.

‘I couldn’t wait.’

His voice was softer this time and she shivered, her toes curling at the sensual, husky purr of his voice. Heaven help her, his voice was stroking all the places that had ached for him this last fortnight.

‘Meet me for dinner at seven tonight. One-fifty Piccadilly.’

The disconnected tone signalled Ben was done and Katya folded the phone away. She should have been annoyed at his presumption but hearing his voice again after so long had obliterated everything. And in a few hours she’d be actually seeing him.

At least he hadn’t insisted on coming to the flat. It was small, the entire thing not much bigger than their quarters at the clinic. The bed took up three-quarters of the available room. And they didn’t have a very good track record around beds. If she was going to survive with her heart intact, they could never cross that line again.

Ben waited impatiently at the table. She was late. If she didn’t show soon he was going to go to her temporary dwelling and drag her out, kicking and screaming.

Well...he wouldn’t do that but he was at his wits end.

OK, he’d changed the rules but, then, so had she. She couldn’t turn his whole world upside down and then just leave and expect him to take it on the chin. Waking up without her the morning after that fateful day two weeks ago had been the worst moment