Gripping the handrail, Saskia stopped in a glass hallway and fought to draw a breath. She’d thought she didn’t know what she wanted. Apparently she knew more than she’d realised.
She wanted her baby to have its father.
Not necessarily marriage, as Malachi had put forward, but...something. She’d been lying when she’d told him she could do it alone. Lying to him or to herself, she couldn’t be sure. Either way, she should have bent a little more. She should have compromised.
But then she’d never been very good at that. It had been one of the many criticisms that Andy had levelled at her which he’d been right about. Of course there was also an argument to say that if Andy had been a fairer, more honest, more loyal fiancé, then perhaps she would have actually wanted to compromise more.
Well, it was too late now. She’d made her bed, as they said. Now she had to go and get scanned on it.
Maybe afterwards, if she was feeling brave, she would take a detour past Malachi’s apartment. Perhaps even apologise for her curtness last week.
Lifting her head, Saskia focused on moving forward, one step at a time, until she finally reached the end of the corridor and went through the double doors to the booking-in desk.
* * *
‘Cutting it a bit fine, aren’t you?’
His dry voice in her ear had Saskia spinning in an instant.
‘You came!’
She actually seemed pleased to see him there, and for a moment Malachi was thrown.
He’d half expected her to tell him he was not wanted at the scan. He’d even been prepared for it.
Saskia had laid her position out all too clearly the other night, when she’d turned down his marriage proposal without even a hint of a qualm. She didn’t need him and she didn’t really even want him—at least not outside the bedroom.
But he was the father of her unborn baby, and he had no intention of letting the child grow up thinking he didn’t want to be a part of its life. That he didn’t care.
He’d gone through the whole gamut of emotions after Saskia had left his apartment a week ago, yet he still didn’t know exactly how he felt. He only knew that he was this baby’s father and as such he had a responsibility both to it and to Saskia. Whatever she might wish.
And now she was smiling at him as though she was glad he was here. As though she hadn’t told him that she could do it alone. As though she hadn’t spelled out that he was nothing more than a rebound to her, and that it made no difference to her whether he was part of their lives or not. As though she hadn’t turned on him, dismissing his relevance in her life the way his mother had done to him—and to Sol—all those years ago.
He’d let his guard down with Saskia.
He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
‘Don’t worry. I’m only here for the baby—not for you,’ he murmured, as he accompanied her to the chairs, carrying her file in his hand.
She blinked at him, and something he couldn’t identify flashed through those rich chocolate depths. Then it was gone.
‘Glad to hear it. I wouldn’t want to have to turn down yet another hollow marriage proposal.’
‘Trust me, I have no intention of repeating that.’
There had to be something wrong with him, because every single word burned in his throat, acrid and bitter, whilst Saskia offered him a curt bob of the head as though finally—barely—she was satisfied.
Malachi gritted his teeth and waited for her name to be called, unable to stop himself from placing his hand at the small of her back as they walked in, helpless to control this protective instinct that surged inside him when he looked at her.
It made no sense. He’d vowed to himself long ago that a wife, children, weren’t for him. Hadn’t he sacrificed so much of his childhood to playing the part of a parent? It was why he’d set up Care to Play with his brother. In order to help young carers have some semblance of a childhood in a way that he had never enjoyed. But he never wanted to
bear that responsibility himself again.
And yet here he was. In a consultation room with a woman who was little more than a stranger and an unborn baby he would never have chosen to have.
But it was what it was, and he would deal with it the best way he could. The way he dealt with everything in his life...
Malachi didn’t know the exact moment he went from detached to awestruck.