The Secretary's Secret by Michelle Douglas

child she was carrying was his…
    He leapt up and stomped off to find a broom, a bucket and some cleaning cloths. Tonight he’d be sleeping on plastic because he wasn’t taking the wrapping off the sofas until he’d had a chance to vacuum, and he wasn’t vacuuming tonight. It’d wake Kit and she needed to rest.
     
     
    Alex checked on Kit again at midnight. She’d taken her antibiotics, she’d eaten some dinner and then she’d slept. So far, so good. She needed to get well. He wanted her to get well as soon as possible.
    So you can leave?
    He tried not to scowl.
    From the light of the hallway he caught sight of the title of the book on her bedside table— What To Expect When You’re Expecting . He picked it up and tiptoed back out into the living room. Lowering himself to the sofa that would be his bed for the night, he turned to the page she had bookmarked.
    And froze.
    Everything went blank.
    The bookmark—it was an ultrasound photograph of Kit’s child.
    Of his child.
    He snapped the book shut and rested his head in his hands. A baby. A child.
    He lifted his head, darkness surging up to fill the empty places inside him. He wasn’t doing that again. He couldn’t.
    You don’t care what’s best for our baby. All you care about is what’s best for you.
    Kit didn’t understand. Him getting out of her and the baby’s lives—that would be best for her and the baby.
    And for you too.
    He nodded heavily. And for him too. It didn’t stop a part of him from feeling as if it were dying, though.
     
     
    When he finally fell asleep that night, Alex had a nightmare about Chad. He raced through a darkened mansion, his legs wooden and heavy, his heart pounding faster and faster as he searched for the two-year-old. Chad’s laughter, always just out of reach, taunted him and spurred him on. The rooms in the mansion went on and on. He tried calling out Chad’s name but his voice wouldn’t work. His legs grew heavier and heavier. It took all his energy to push forward. He pulled open the final door, surged through it, to find himself plummeting off the edge of a cliff.
    He woke before he slammed into the jagged rocks at the bottom, breathing hard and with Chad’s name on his lips. He lay in the dark and tried to catch his breath, his skin damp and clammy with perspiration. He tried telling himself Chad was safe, living somewhere in Buenos Aires with his mother, but that didn’t ease the darkness that stole through his soul.
    Before he and Kit had made love, he hadn’t had a nightmare about Chad in over ten months.
    He shoved the thought away. It wasn’t Kit’s fault she made him feel things he hadn’t felt in a long time. It was his fault for giving in to temptation. Biting back a groan, he pushed up into a sitting position. Past experience told him he would get no more sleep tonight. He dragged a hand down his face. That was okay. There was still plenty of cleaning to do.
     
     
    A sharp rap on the front door just after nine o’clock had Alex falling over his feet to answer it before the noise of another knock could wake Kit.
    The woman who stood on the other side raked him up and down with bold, unimpressed eyes. ‘I’m Caro,’ she said without preamble. ‘Kit’s best friend.’ She didn’t stick her hand out. ‘Doreen rang me. I take it you’re Alex?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    She folded her arms. ‘I’ve heard all about you.’
    He gathered none of it had been complimentary.
    ‘How’s Kit?’
    ‘Asleep,’ he ground out.
    ‘All night?’
    ‘She was up—’
    She brushed past him into the living room. ‘She’s not supposed to be up!’
    He clenched his jaw till he thought his teeth might snap. He unclenched it to say, ‘The doctor said she was allowed up to have a quick shower once a day.’ He felt like a schoolboy hauled up in front of the principal. ‘She had breakfast, took her antibiotics and now she’s sleeping again.’
    ‘You’d better tell me you prepared her