Undertaking Love Page 0,35

of cycle. April 16th, ovulation due. And there, with a bold red ring around it, was April 30th. The day her regular-as-clockwork period was due. Two days ago. She sank down onto the nearest chair. Elation soared through her heart like a songbird, followed by a great crashing tsunami of fear. Three minutes later, a trip to the bathroom delivered the life-changing news she’d previously longed for. A precociously bright line popped up with indecent haste in the window that up to now had remained so stubbornly empty month on month.

She was pregnant.

Chapter Fifteen

‘Champagne, please. Your best.’ Marla cringed a little at Rupert’s dismissive tone, and smiled at the unimpressed waitress.

‘Are we celebrating?’ She shuffled along the bench seat in the booth to give herself some breathing space from Rupert, who’d shunted himself in right next to her.

‘Tada!’ He whipped the freshly printed wedding supplement for the upcoming Sunday edition out of his briefcase and slapped it down on the table in front of them. ‘Look. Go on, centre spread.’

She smoothed it out on the restaurant table and studied the splash of wedding pictures from Alaric and Gelvira’s big day. The Herald photographer had managed to perfectly capture the essence of the day with his lens, the pictures bubbled over with fun and love. The accompanying piece on the chapel was undeniably fabulous PR, and would hopefully encourage the villagers to feel proud of the unique chapel in their midst.

She laughed at the shot of Bluey in the top hat, and then found herself unable to look away from Gabe in the background of the frame. It had been just over two weeks since the finger-sucking incident, and she’d gone to considerable lengths to avoid him ever since. She could only thank her lucky stars that Rupert had text to let her know that he’d be there in five minutes, or else who knows what he might have walked in on. She badly needed to cool her engines as far as Gabe was concerned. She was old enough to have learned the hard way that a physical reaction to someone meant next to nothing; being turned on by a hot body was never to be confused with real feelings. She couldn’t deny that the chemical reaction between herself and Gabriel fizzed like popping candy, but she also knew that too much candy would make a girl sick.

Marla accepted a glass of champagne from Rupert with a grateful smile, and clinked obediently when he held his own glass out with an expectant look.

‘It’s brilliant. Thank you, Rupert.’

‘Should piss on Gabriel Ryan’s bonfire, anyway,’ he smirked. Marla’s smile faltered. As much as she appreciated Rupert’s help, sometimes she wondered if he was more interested in saving the chapel or bringing Gabe down. He was right, though; the article would be a strong piece of supportive evidence to include in the dossier she was preparing to submit to the council on the matter. The petition might have been sidelined, but she was still intent on lobbying the council to make them see sense about the situation.

The feel of Rupert’s hand massaging her knee under the table brought her swiftly back to the present.

‘So, am I the best boyfriend you’ve ever had, or what?’

She laughed and rolled her eyes. ‘And so modest, too.’

‘Should I take that as a yes, then?’ Marla coughed on her champagne. Jeez, it wasn’t a rhetorical question. He actually wanted an answer. But then, it was one of those questions with only one possible answer anyway, wasn’t it?

‘Um … let me think.’ She smiled and played for time. Was he the best boyfriend she’d ever had? Actually, he might be. He wasn’t married to anyone else, for a start, which gave him a big advantage over the other two men who made up her significant romantic history to date. She enjoyed his company, and he could make her squirm with pleasure in bed – or at least he had been able to, before a certain dark-eyed Irish man had set up his x-rated camp temporarily in her head. Rupert was entertaining. He made her laugh. But the most important thing about him was that he could never break her heart, because it would never be his to break.

‘You know what, Rupert? I can hand on heart say that, yes, you are the best boyfriend I’ve ever had.’

He leaned in and kissed her for longer than she was entirely comfortable with in a restaurant, even if they were tucked away in