Read Bound by a Baby Bump (Harlequin Romance Large Print) for Free Online

much I
love
surprises.’
    ‘Well, that’s me told.’ Will laughed, reaching out to shake Leo’s hand. ‘Sorry I’m a few minutes late, and, as I’m sure Rachel has already told you, I have another meeting in twenty minutes. But we can talk through a couple of ideas if you like and then follow up over Skype?’
    ‘Perfect,’ Leo said. ‘And then Rachel and I are going to head out for a bite to eat. Assuming that’s not a problem with the boss.’ Her eyes whipped to him, and her jaw dropped open at the sheer cheek of it.
    ‘No problem at all,’ Will said, with a raised eyebrow in her direction. ‘I assume everything’s set for my two o’clock?’
    Professional pride forced her not to snap at either one of them. ‘Files are on your desk, electronic copies are attached to the calendar appointment. The access codes for the teleconferencing are in there, too, but I can dial in for you if you need me to.’ She fought the urge to tell Leo to sod off. Because much as his heavy-handed interference with Will rankled, if she didn’t go now, then when was she going to tell him? It needed doing, and she’d be surprised if she was presented with a better opportunity than this.
    ‘No, it’s fine. I’m sure I can manage on my own for a couple of hours, despite what you might think. You go, enjoy yourself,’ he said with a smirk that told her she was definitely not forgiven for interfering with his love-life.
    Rachel looked pointedly at the clock. ‘Your next meeting is in fifteen minutes, Will. Do I need to contact everyone and let them know it’ll be late starting?’
    He laughed, and she cursed the permanent good mood he’d been in since the night of the fundraiser. He had been so much easier to manage before. And she had no one to blame but herself.
    ‘Come on through, Leo,’ he said, with a smile in his voice that matched the grin on his face.
    Rachel busied herself working through straining inboxes, her own, Will’s, as well as one of the generic admin accounts. Then she flicked through her hard-copy inbox, separating out her own items from Will’s, checking that the assistants had marked the correct pages for him to sign, adding sticky tabs where they hadn’t. Finally she tackled the outbox, dividing up the signed documents into the recipients they needed to be sent to next. The second hand on the clock above Will’s door crawled round, until she was certain that physics was working against her.
    Except this was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To put this off—for ever, if that were an option. She didn’t want to see Leo. Didn’t want to have lunch with him. She wanted to never see him again, never feel the loss of control that she’d experienced that night. And that had had consequences just as frightening as she’d ever imagined.
    A baby. Where was she meant to fit a baby into her life? The Friday-afternoon ‘catching up with the trade press’ hour? She wasn’t exactly experienced at motherhood, but she was pretty sure that a baby needed more than an hour a week. Even if she pulled together every single one of her contingency and emergency hours it was less than a day a week. No, having this baby meant ripping up everything that made her feel safe and secure, and starting over completely. She leant back in her chair, surveying the piles of paperwork covering her desk. What was the point to this? Because it wouldn’t matter how neat the piles, how precise and efficient her system. At some point, this would all fall apart.
    She had choices. She didn’t have to do this, to have this baby. But even as she thought it, the tearing pain in her heart told her that it wasn’t the right choice for her.
    She was having this baby.
    Now she just had to tell Leo.
    She glanced up at the clock again—one-fifty-eight—and wondered if Will would remember his call. Should she buzz through and remind him? So that he didn’t run late or so that she could get to lunch with Leo? She didn’t want to think too