The Package Deal

Who was she kidding? The need was entirely hers and she couldn’t resist it for a minute.

She was catching her breath, finding control of a sort. The dumb weeping had stopped so when Ben set her on the bathroom bench and handed her a wad of tissues she could do something about it.

She blew her nose, hard, and Ben blinked.

‘There’s my romantic girl.’

She choked on something between a chuckle and a sob, but it was erring more towards the chuckle.

Something was happening inside her. She was in this man’s bathroom. He was looking at her with such concern...

‘Your face is puffy.’

‘And there’s a truly romantic statement,’ she managed. ‘I bet you say that to all the women in your life.’

‘There are no women in my life.’ He picked up a facecloth, wet it and gently wiped her eyes. Then her whole face. ‘Just the mother of my child.’

What was it about that statement that took her breath away? That made her toes curl?

That made her drop her tissues into the neat designer trash slot and look up at him and smile.

‘Ben...’

It was all she had to say. All the longing in the world was in that word. It was a question and an answer all by itself.

She put her arms up and looped her hands around his neck. He stopped and lifted her yet again.

‘Your place or mine?’ he asked huskily, managing to smile.

‘I’ve only got a king-size bed,’ she managed back. ‘Puny. I bet yours is bigger.’

‘You’d better believe it,’ he said, and she did.

And that was practically the last thing she was capable of thinking for a very long time.

* * *

She woke and the morning sun was streaming over the luxurious white coverlet. She woke and the softness of the duvet enfolded her.

She woke and Ben was gone.

For a moment she refused to let herself think it. She lay and savoured the warmth, the feeling of sheer, unmitigated luxury, the knowledge that she’d been made love to with a passion that maybe she’d never feel again.

He’d made her feel alive. He’d made her feel a woman as she’d never believed she could feel.

He’d made her feel loved.

But he wasn’t here now.

She’d slept, at last, cocooned in the strength and heat of his body. She’d slept thinking everything was right in her world. What could possibly be wrong?

She’d slept thinking she was being held by Ben and he’d never let her go.

She stirred, tentatively, like a caterpillar nervous of emerging from the safety of its dreamlike cocoon.

The clock on her bedside table said twelve.

Twelve? She’d slept how long? No wonder Ben had left her.

He’d left her.

Hey, she was still in his bed. Possession’s nine tenths of the law, she decided, and stretched like a languorous cat.

Cat, caterpillar, whatever. She surely wasn’t herself.

There was a note on his pillow.

A Dear John letter? She almost smiled. She was playing make-believe in her head. Scenario after scenario. All of them included Ben.

The note, however, was straightforward. Not a lot of room for fantasy here.

I need to go into work. I left loose ends yesterday and they’re getting strident. Sleep as long as you want. It’s Saturday, no cleaners come near the place so you have the apartment to yourself. I’ll be home late but tomorrow is yours. Think of what you’d like to do with it.

Ben.

And then a postscript.

Last night was amazing. Please make yourself at home in my bed.

There was more stuff to think about.

She was interrupting his life, she thought. She really had pulled him out of his world yesterday. He’d need to pull it back together.

And then come back to her?

Just for tomorrow.

‘But if that’s all I can have, then that has to be enough,’ she told herself. ‘So think about it.’

Food first. What had happened to last night’s toast? Who could remember? But she’d seen juice in the fridge, and croissants. And then...the bath in Ben’s bathroom was big enough to hold a small whale.

‘Which is what I’ll be in six months...

‘Don’t think about it. Don’t think about anything but tomorrow,’ she said severely. ‘Or maybe not even tomorrow. Let’s just concentrate on right now.’

* * *

The office was chaos. One day out and the sky had fallen. Still, it had been worth it, he decided, making one apologetic phone call after another, trying to draw together the threads of the deal he’d abandoned the day before.

Mary was worth it.

She was with him all day, her image, the memory of her body against his, the warmth of her smile, the taste of her tears.

He was getting soft in his old age. He’d vowed never to feel this way about a woman.

About anyone.

He didn’t want to feel responsible for anyone but somehow it had happened. Ready or not, he was responsible for Mary. The mother of his child.

His woman?

He wanted to phone Jake.

Why? To tell him he’d met someone? Jake’s attitude to women was the same as his. His brother had made one foray into marriage and it’d turned into a disaster. The woman had needed far more than Jake would—or could—give.

The Logan boys weren’t the marrying kind.

But Mary...

No. He would not get emotionally involved.

Who was he kidding? He already was.

Which meant he had to help her, he thought as the long day wore on, as the deal finally reached its drawn-out conclusion, which meant the financial markets could relax for another week.

He thought of what the lawyer back in New Zealand had told him. ‘She really is alone.’

If she was alone and in trouble...with his baby... There had to be a solution.

Finally at nine o’clock he signed the last document, left it on his secretary’s desk and prepared to leave. But first one phone call.

Mathew Arden. Literary agent for some of the biggest names in the world.

‘Well,’ he said, as Mathew answered the phone. ‘Am I right?’

* * *

She walked her legs off. She strolled down Fifth Avenue, she checked out Tiffany & Co., was awed by the jewellery and chuckled as the salespeople were lovely to her, even though they must know she could hardly afford to look at their wares.

She took the subway to Soho, just so she could say she’d been there, and spent time in its jumble of eclectic shops. She bought a pair of porcelain parrots for her next-door neighbour who was looking after Heinz.

She bought a truly awesome diamanté collar for Heinz. He’d show up every dog in the North Island.

She took the Staten Island ferry and checked out the Statue of Liberty from close quarters.

‘You’re just as beautiful as the pictures,’ she told her ladyship, and felt immeasurably pleased.

She ended up on Broadway and got a cheap ticket to see the last half of a musical she’d only ever seen on film.

She bought herself a hamburger, headed back on the subway to Ben’s apartment—and was weirdly disappointed when he wasn’t home.

She’d sort of wanted him to be impressed that she hadn’t hung around all day waiting for him, but maybe she’d done too much trying to prove it. Her feet hurt.

She ran a bath and soaked, all the time waiting for his key in the lock.

‘Just like I’m the little woman,’ she told herself. ‘Waiting for my man to come home.’

She let herself imagine it, just for a moment. If she and Ben were to take this further...

This’d be her life.

‘Um, no,’ she said, reaching out for a gorgeous-looking bottle of bath salts. Sprinkling it in. Lying back to soak some more. ‘You know you never want to commit to some guy who’ll turn out to be just like Dad. This is fantasy and nothing more.’

* * *

It was after ten when Ben reached home and he was feeling guilty.

This was what it’d be like if he ever tried marriage, he told himself. This was why Jake’s marriage had foundered. The Logan boys’ lives didn’t centre round women. But still, the thoughts of the night before were with him. The memory of Mary in his bed was enough to make him turn the key with eagerness.

‘Mary?’

No answer.

Her purse was on the counter. Her jacket was hanging on the chair. It felt good to see them. He liked it that Mary was in his apartment.

He checked his bedroom, half-hopeful that she’d be lying there as she’d lain last night.

‘In your dreams,’ he muttered. ‘To have a woman wait for you...’

He checked her bedroom. She was curled in the centre of her bed, cocooned in pillows. She looked exhausted. She looked small and vulnerable and alone.

She looked...like Mary.

This woman was planning on returning to New Zealand to bear his child. With no support.

He didn’t wake her. He headed to his study to think, and think he did. The idea that had been idling in the back of his mind all day was starting to coalesce into a plan.

It made sense—and Mary was a sensible woman.

He wasn’t entirely sure how Heinz would fit in with the pedigree pooches who strutted round Central Park but he was pretty sure Heinz could hold his own.

Could Mary hold her own?

He was sure she could. In her own way she was as independent as he was.

He flicked open his laptop. There was work to be done, though not business. The financial world could manage without him tonight. Tonight Ben Logan was plotting a future for his child.

And his woman?

Be sensible, he told himself. There are levels of responsibility. You can take the practical route; just don’t let the emotional side interfere.

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