More Than Just One Night (The Selwood Sisters Novellas) by Claire Baxter Page B

bed.
    Saturday had been a lovely day spent outdoors,
exploring the area, shopping, and generally behaving like a couple, and now
Alex was out in the private courtyard, cooking their evening meal on the
barbecue while she tossed a salad in his black and stainless steel kitchen. Life
was looking good.
    When she heard a key in the front door, she
looked up, startled, and watched a willowy redhead walk towards her, a little
girl in tow. Recognising Sophie from the photograph Alex had shown her, she
guessed that this stunner must be his ex-wife. Well, that was just great. As if
she didn’t have enough insecurity about her older woman’s body, now she knew
she was competing with his memory of his ex’s body as well. Fabulous.
    The woman gave her a direct look. “Where’s
Alex?”
    Cora tilted her head towards the courtyard.
“Barbecue.”
    Cora smiled at the little re-haired girl
trailing after her mother. She had Alex’s grey eyes. Very cute.
    She tried not to hear the conversation going
on outside, but his ex’s voice in particular was hard to ignore, and from the
snippets she picked up, it was clear that she didn’t approve of Cora being
there. Well, Cora wasn’t sure that she approved of Alex’s ex-wife letting
herself into the house without an invitation, so they were even.
    Just as Cora was wondering whether to join
them outside since she was starting to feel awkward hanging about in the
kitchen, the woman stormed back through the house, minus her daughter and
without sparing Cora a glance.
    Alex entered a moment later, his arm around
Sophie’s shoulders, and gave her a rueful smile. He guided his daughter to one
of the sofas and gave her a book from a woven wicker basket, then came over to
the kitchen.
    “Remember me saying that Annabel tends to
dump Sophie on me when it’s least convenient?” he said in a low voice as he
joined her. “This is one of those times.”
    “I thought it might be.” Cora shrugged. “I’d
better ring the airline.”
    “Why?”
    “To see whether I can change my flight, bring
it forward.”
    “Don’t go.”
    He stepped closer and put his hands on her
waist. Even that small contact gave her tingles.
    “I know it’s not exactly what you were expecting,
but we’ll be alone tonight once Sophie’s asleep. And Annabel promised to pick
her up in the morning, so we’ll have a few hours to ourselves before you go to
the airport.”
    “I don’t want to spoil your precious time
with your daughter. You should be able to focus on her while she’s here, and
keep her here all day Sunday if you have the option.”
    “I wouldn’t normally have had her this
weekend.”
    “But now that you have, you should give her
your undivided attention. I took a risk coming over unannounced — it could have
been your week to have her, and I didn’t even think about the possibility.”
    She should have thought about it, because in
all honesty, was this what she wanted? His daughter was a complication that she
hadn’t even considered. She didn’t want to be a stepmother — admittedly that
was a leap into a future they hadn’t even discussed, but she should think about it now, because clearly, Alex and Sophie came as a package deal.
There was no chance he would cut his daughter out of his life; nor would she
ask him to do so. What would be the point of waiting until she’d fallen in love
with him, and then deciding that life with him and his child was not what she
wanted?
    On that road lay pain for both of them,
especially for her. If leaving him now would hurt, she could only imagine what
it would feel like to break up once she’d fully opened the barricades to her
heart and let him inside.
    What a complete idiot she’d been, not taking
his role as a father into account when she’d rushed into saying she wanted to
make a relationship with him work. She was at an age when she wanted to
simplify her life, not make it more complicated. It was as much as she could do
to manage Selwoods, and she