Nine Month Countdown. Leah Ashton

Ivy said, smiling. Then added in an obedient sing-song voice: ‘So, Angus, tell me something about yourself.’

      ‘I don’t leave ladies waiting on the street in the dark. Come on, I’ll drive you home.’

      Ivy raised her eyebrows. ‘What if I live on the other side of the city?’

      Angus had already walked a few steps, and looked surprised she hadn’t already followed. ‘Do you?’

      She lived a five-minute drive away. ‘No.’

      He smiled. ‘Well, there you go. But it wouldn’t have mattered. I like driving.’

      He waited another moment. ‘So am I waiting here while you call your driver, or are you letting me drive you home?’

      It would take longer to call Simon and wait for him than for Angus to drive her home, and she could think of no good reason to refuse. So she found herself walking beside Angus the short distance to his car, parked around the corner.

      It was exactly the type of car she’d expect him to drive: big and black and foreboding. Although its vast size didn’t assist with the unexpected sensation of intimacy when the doors were shut and they both sank into the lush leather seats.

      Angus didn’t switch the radio on, and they sat in silence after she gave him the brief directions to her house.

      Now it did feel like a first date. As if they’d just been out for a romantic dinner and Angus were driving her home and they were both wondering if there’d be a kiss on her doorstep.

      How sweet. How quaint. How backwards given how she and Angus had met.

      Ivy dug her nails into her palms, needing to force herself to face reality.

      She couldn’t let her thoughts wander like this. She needed to focus, to remember what this really was.

      ‘I have an estimated due date,’ she said, the words sounding brittle in the silence. ‘July the second.’

      Instantly the atmosphere in the car shifted.

      There. Romantic notions gone.

      ‘Okay,’ Angus said. And Ivy supposed he couldn’t say much else.

      ‘That was what we were supposed to talk about today,’ she said. ‘That’s why I wanted to meet. To tell you that I had a scan today, and the baby has measured at five weeks and one day and that it’s due on July the second.’

      Her words were more jumbled than brittle, now.

      ‘Thank you,’ Angus said, and Ivy couldn’t interpret his tone at all.

      He slowed the car to turn into her driveway. The entrance was gated, but Ivy reached into her handbag for the small remote that swung the gates open.

      Angus nosed the car up the long curved driveway and came to a stop before the limestone steps that led to the front door of her rambling nineteen-thirties double-storey home.

      An automatic porch light flicked on, but otherwise the house was in darkness.

      ‘No butler to meet you?’ Angus asked, although his tone was not pointed, but curious.

      Ivy laughed. ‘Do you think I have someone feed me grapes as I bathe, too?’

      He shrugged. ‘You have a driver, so I assumed you had other staff.’

      ‘No,’ Ivy said. ‘I mean, because of the hours I work I have a weekly cleaner and a regular gardener, but that’s it. My home is my sanctuary, and I value my privacy.’

      It already felt a little too private in the car, so Ivy opened her door and slid her feet out onto the driveway. She turned to thank Angus for the lift, but he’d climbed out of his seat too, and in a few strides stood beside her at the bottom of the steps.

      Ivy didn’t know what to do now. Why had he done that? Why hadn’t he driven off and escaped while he could?

      ‘So I’m confused. If you value your privacy, why have your driver ferry you to meet me, twice? Where did you tell him you were going?’

      ‘Simon would never intrude on my personal life,’ Ivy said.

      Although it had taken considerable subterfuge to attend her dating scan today without Simon knowing. In the end, she’d had him drop her off some distance away, and she’d walked to her appointment.

      He never would’ve commented if she’d asked him to drop her off right outside the ultrasound clinic. But really? April and Mila didn’t even know yet. She couldn’t have her driver find out first, no matter how discreet he might be.

      ‘But regardless,’ Angus said, ‘wouldn’t it just be easier to drive five minutes from your house to meet me?’

      He appeared genuinely flummoxed, and Ivy couldn’t help but smile. ‘Easier, yes—if I had a licence.’