Read Online The Pregnancy Contract by Yvonne Lindsay - Free Book Online

office. No doubt he’d be changing and then returning downstairs for a predinner drink. The footsteps slowed before continuing along the landing toward his bedroom.
    He’d expect an answer from her shortly and she still had no idea of what she was going to say. What could she say? She had no means to pay him back, of which he was fully aware, which left her very little option for anything else. She was exactly where he wanted her. But why her? Why a baby?
    She didn’t believe for a minute that he didn’t have time for a relationship. There were umpteen women who would happily have his child for the chance to have a piece of him, no matter how small. Was that what it was? Did he think the old animosity between them would stop her from being a problem? Prevent her from wanting a proper relationship with him?
    A twinge deep inside reminded her how she’d destroyed the relationship they’d had through her petty selfishness, her unwillingness to share any part of his love. That had to be why he was prepared to offer her the deal he had. Deal? Who was she kidding? The word implied something reciprocal, but she still stood to be the loser even if she did agree to his outrageous suggestion.
    So she wouldn’t have a debt to him anymore. She certainly wouldn’t have anything else, either. She’d be beholden to him for everything. Hell, she already was.
    But what of the baby he said he wanted so very much? There was no doubt in her mind he would love his son or daughter with a single-minded devotion that only a parent could give. But would that excuse the lack of any kind of warmth or affection with which the child would be created? She couldn’t help thinking back to her last pregnancy—to thechild who had been conceived without conscious intention, and yet with so much deep, genuine passion.
    Piper sat back on her bed and placed both her hands over her belly. The miscarriage of his baby had been one of the hardest things she’d ever had to go through in her life. When she’d first discovered she was pregnant, she’d considered coming home. Facing Wade with the truth that their lovemaking had given them both something they’d never dreamed they deserved. A child to love together.
    But, in her mind, had been the bitter reminder that he’d chosen her father over her. That he’d made a conscious decision to further his career rather than be with the woman he’d said he loved. To her, back then, his decision had been all about putting her father and, most especially, his work before her. Something her father had always done all her life. It had been the final nail in the coffin that bore their dead relationship.
    She’d finally resolved to go through the pregnancy alone. A decision that, in the end, proved futile when she’d suffered a miscarriage at fourteen weeks. Brokenhearted all over again, Piper had responded the same way she had every other time her hopes for love or happiness had fallen apart. She’d picked up her life anew. Partied hard, then partied harder still. No matter what she’d done, even though the hurt didn’t show, the pain lingered inside her—and it was as fresh today as it was when she’d realized there was nothing she could do to prevent the infinite sense of loss. Their baby was gone—and Wade’s rejection all those years ago meant that he still didn’t even know she’d ever been pregnant.
    Of course time and distance and even a little maturity had shown her that Wade had taken the right course. To have left his job back then would have been foolish in the extreme, and Wade was anything but foolish. It was why her father had taken him on in the first place—initially as an intern, then subsequently as a junior executive. She knew his loyaltyto Rex Mitchell was absolute and came from a deep-seated respect and gratitude toward her father for taking a chance on him. And now look where he was. Head of