problem,’ Ethan said.
‘Will you carry on working?’ Ethan asked, and Penny frowned as she tucked her shirt in. ‘When you have the baby I mean.’
‘If I have one,’ Penny said. ‘Did you ask Gordon the same question?’
‘No.’ He was so not into political correctness. ‘But then again, Gordon isn’t a single dad. And,’ he added, ‘despite his account of it, Gordon wasn’t actually the one who got pregnant and gave birth.’
Penny laughed.
‘Shall we go and see them?’ Ethan said. ‘It’s quiet out there at the moment and Rex is in. We could head up and just get it over with.’
‘Get it over with?’ Penny smiled. She had been thinking exactly the same thing. Gordon really could be the most crushing bore and she’d never really had a conversation with Hilary, a paediatrician, that hadn’t revolved around baby poo.
‘Sorry.’ Ethan didn’t know he was being teased. ‘That was a bit …’
‘Don’t you like babies?’ Penny asked as they headed towards the lifts that would take them to the maternity unit.
‘Actually, no.’ Ethan was honest. ‘I don’t actively dislike them or anything. My sister has had three now. I like the five-year-old, he makes me laugh sometimes.’
‘How old is your sister?’
‘Thirty-six,’ Ethan said, and she remembered their phone conversation.
‘You’re a twin.’ Penny smiled. ‘On anyone else that would be cute.’
They stopped at the gift shop and bought flowers and balloons and Penny wrote a card but Ethan had forgotten to get one and asked if he could just add his name.
‘You’re giving me injections,’ Penny said. ‘Not sperm. Buy your own card.’
She was the most horrible person he had ever met, but she did make him grin, and Ethan was still smiling when they both walked into Hilary’s room together.
‘Penny!’ Gordon seemed delighted to see them. ‘Ethan!’ He shook Ethan’s hand. ‘He’s just woken up, we’re just feeding.’
‘Well, don’t let us interrupt you. We just came in to give you these and say a quick hello.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Gordon said. ‘Completely natural. What do you think? He’s a good-looking little man, isn’t he?’
Ethan peered down at the baby and to Penny’s delight he was blushing. ‘Congratulations,’ he said to Hilary. ‘He’s very handsome.’
‘He’s gorgeous,’ Penny said. ‘He looks like you.’
‘He looks like Gordon,’ Hilary corrected her.
She could feel Ethan’s exquisite discomfort beside her and to his credit he did attempt conversation, but she almost felt him fold in relief as his phone bleeped and he excused himself for a moment.
‘I heard about Jed’s mum,’ Hilary said. ‘Have you heard any news?’
‘She’s actually improving,’ Penny said as Ethan came back in. ‘They should be home in a couple of days.’
‘I’m hoping to get him home soon.’ Hilary looked down at her baby. ‘He’s a bit small, though, and the labour—’
Thankfully Penny’s pager crackled into life, urgently summoning her down to Emergency.
‘I’ll come and see if they need me too,’ Ethan offered.
‘That was you.’ Penny grinned as they fled out of Maternity.
‘I’m sorry!’ Ethan said. ‘I just couldn’t sit there while she fed the baby. I’m fine with patients, with women in cafés, but when I know someone …’ He was honest. ‘I was the same with my sister. I just break out in a sweat. Please,’ he said. ‘I beg of you, when you have your baby, please don’t feed it when I come to visit.’
‘I promise I won’t,’ Penny assured him.
‘I know that sounds terrible.’
‘Absolutely not.’ Penny could think of nothing worse than feeding a baby in front of Ethan. ‘I don’t even know if I want to feed it myself.’
‘Stop!’ Ethan said. He just didn’t want to think about Penny and breasts and babies and the black panties she was wearing today.
Yes, he’d seen, even if he’d tried very hard not to.
‘Sorry.’ Even Penny couldn’t believe she was discussing breastfeeding with him. ‘You don’t approve, do you?’
‘Of bottle-feeding?’
She didn’t smile at his joke. ‘I meant you don’t approve of me doing this on my own.’
‘I can’t really say the right thing here.’
‘You can,’ she offered, because she didn’t mind people’s invited opinions.
‘No.’ He was honest. ‘I just can’t imagine that someone would choose to be a single mum. My mum raised my sister and I on her own and it wasn’t easy.’
‘My mum got divorced,’ Penny said, ‘and, believe me, things got a whole lot better when Dad wasn’t around.’ Then she checked herself. ‘Actually, things got a whole lot worse for a couple of years, but then they got better. And my sister was a single mum for a while.’
‘By choice?’
‘No,’ Penny said. ‘Well, yes, by choice, because she had no choice but to leave Simon’s dad. I really have thought things through.’
‘Tell me?’
‘I’ve got to work.’
‘Dinner?’ Ethan said, because he really was starting to like Penny, well, not fancy like, he told himself, but then he remembered the flash of her knickers and what had almost happened yesterday. Maybe he should recant that invitation to take her out for dinner, except he’d already asked.
‘Why?’
Ethan shrugged. ‘Well, I’ve been out with a new father and listened to his labour and if I add a woman going through IVF, I figure by the end of the week I could qualify as a sensitive new-age guy.’
Penny smiled and he had been right—she really was attractive when she did.
‘Okay, then.’ Her acceptance caught him just a little by surprise. He’d sort of been hoping, for safety’s sake, that she might decline. ‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘After you stab me.’
Penny was on a day off, so it was she who ‘dropped in’ just as Ethan was finishing up.
She was wearing a dress that buttoned up at the front and her heels were a little higher. He caught the musky scent of her perfume as he followed her into the office and locked the door.
‘I’ll do it,’ he said, taking her little cool bag.
She told him her doses and he heard the shake in her voice as she did so.
‘I am so sorry about this.’ He turned and she was trying to undo the little buttons on her dress. It really was a very genuine fear, made worse today because she’d had the whole drive here to think about it. Ethan actually saw her break out into a cold sweat as he approached and she was trying very hard not to cry.
‘I need a bit more skin than that, Penny.’ She’d only managed two buttons. ‘Here.’ He undid a couple more and felt the splash of a hot tear on the back of his hand. ‘You must really want this baby.’
‘I do.’
He could see tiny goose bumps rising on her stomach. He was really impressed with himself because