‘Have some.’ She saw his eyes linger on them.
‘Who’d have thought?’ Ethan said.
‘I’m good at sharing.’
‘I meant the two of us being out together. What a difference a week can make.’
Penny smiled and he rather wished she hadn’t.
‘How come you’re so petrified of needles?’
‘I’m not as bad as I used to be,’ Penny said. ‘I did hypnosis, counselling and everything, just to get to where I could let someone give me one.’
‘So you think hypnosis works?’
She saw his sceptical frown. ‘I don’t know,’ Penny admitted. ‘I mean, I’m still scared of needles but the hypnotherapist did get me to remember the first time that I freaked out—I was at school and we were all lined up to get an injection and the girl in front of me passed out.’
‘Mass hysteria?’
‘Possibly.’ Penny had thought about it practically. ‘But my father had just left my mother a couple of weeks before, so apparently, according to the counsellor, it was my excuse to scream and cry.’ She gave a very wicked smile. ‘Load of rubbish really.’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘All I know is that the fear is there and I’m having to face it over and over and over. Sometimes it’s terrible, sometimes it’s not so bad. I was good at my blood test this morning.’
‘You were good tonight.’
‘Yep,’ Penny said. ‘And had Jasmine’s mother-in-law not had a stroke, you’d never have known and we’d have been able to look each other in the eye.’
‘I’m looking you in the eye now, Penny.’
She looked up and so he was. She saw that his eyes were more amber than hazel and there was a quickening to her pulse. How could she possibly be thinking such thoughts? She couldn’t be attracted to Ethan. She had to stay focussed on her treatment—her plan to become a mother. Except thinking about babies had her thinking about making babies the old-fashioned way!
With Ethan?
It was very warm in the bar; it must have been that causing this sear of heat between them, and Ethan wished he’d asked for his steak rare because it was taking for ever to come.
‘Do you have any phobias?’ she asked when thankfully his order had been delivered and normality was starting to return.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Flying?’
‘Love it.’ Ethan smiled.
‘Heights?’
‘They don’t bother me in the least.’
She did, though, Ethan thought as he ate his steak and tried to tell himself he was out with a colleague, but Penny was starting to bother him a lot, only not in the way she once had. He was just in no position to say. To his absolute surprise where Penny was concerned, since that morning when she’d turned round and smiled, there had been a charge in the air.
One that to Ethan really didn’t make sense, because he liked his women soft, curvy and cute, which was a terrible word and one he’d never admit to out loud, but that was what he liked.
And there was nothing soft about Penny and there wasn’t a curve to be seen, and as for cute …
‘What are you smiling at?’ Penny frowned.
‘Nothing.’ He reminded himself of the reason they were actually out. ‘So,’ he asked, ‘assuming this round of treatment is a success, how many embryos are you having put back?’ He saw her blink at the rather personal question.
‘Two.’
‘I think I’ve just found my phobia.’
Penny grinned. He made no secret of the fact he had no desire to ever be a parent, so she asked him why.
‘I’m not sure really,’ Ethan admitted. ‘It’s the responsibility, I guess. I save it all for work. I’ve just never wanted to settle down, let alone have a baby.’ He gave her a wide-eyed look. ‘And certainly not two at the same time.’
‘Twins would be lovely,’ she said, ‘then I’d never have to go through this again.’
‘You should speak to my mum first,’ Ethan said. ‘I guarantee if you did you’d only put one back.’
‘You said she was a single mum?’
‘No,’ he corrected her. ‘I said that she raised us on her own. My father died when we were six.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She looked at him. ‘Same age as Justin.’
He gave a small mirthless smile, her hit just a little too direct.
‘How did you deal with it?’
Ethan gave a shrug. ‘You just grow up overnight.’ He never really talked about it with anyone. ‘It’s tough, though. I heard Vera, my aunt, telling Justin to be brave, and it was all the same stuff she told me. Then there was Jack, my uncle, he’s my dad’s brother, giving me lectures over the years about how I was the man of the house and I needed to be more responsible. I hope they don’t say the same to Justin, it scared the life out of me.’
Maybe that was why he held on to his freedom so much, Penny mused, and she couldn’t help asking more.
‘And were you the man of the house?’ Penny asked, and she gave a thin smile when he shrugged.
‘I tried to be,’ Ethan said. ‘And resented every minute of it. Then being a teenager sort of got in the way of being sensible.’
‘Did you miss having a dad?’
They were both being honest, and after all she had asked, and he wasn’t going to sugar coat his response just because it was what she wanted to hear.
‘Yes,’ Ethan said. ‘But I do accept that things are very different now. Back then there weren’t so many women raising children alone. I used to feel the odd one out. I’m sure that yours won’t feel like that.’ He reminded himself to smile. ‘Anyway, what would I know?’
They ordered coffee and then chatted about work, about her case review tomorrow, where once a week the senior staff got together and reviewed a case. It was Penny’s turn and, no, she told him, she wasn’t nervous. ‘Just ill prepared,’ Penny admitted. ‘So I’d better get home and rectify that.’
They walked out to their cars and there was a strange moment because had she not been doing her level best to get pregnant, had they just been out, Ethan would have done his usual thing and kissed her. Right now that would prove no problem at all, because as they stood by her car, he actually forgot about needles and ultrasounds and little people that made an awful lot of noise and demanded to be fed a lot.
‘‘Night, then,’ she said, going into her bag for her keys and then looking up at him.
‘‘Night, Penny.’
He went to give her a kiss on the cheek, but changed his mind midway. Except it was too late for that so he went ahead, but there was an awkward moment because he missed his mark and his lips landed a little close to her mouth.
He felt the warmth of her blush on his lips and knew he should say good night and walk away. Except he wasn’t holding a needle and she wasn’t crying or asking him to stop and he could smell her hair and that musky perfume. He thought of the purple underwear he had glimpsed earlier.
It was all just a second, a very long second, and Penny was a guilty party in this too. Had been complicit as she’d carefully selected her underwear that morning, was