LITMIR.BIZ

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at his shirt, willing to beg if that was what it took. Anything for Molly. ‘To save a child’s life.’

      She watched the anguish turn to anger. Disgust leached out at her and he pulled away from her. ‘Let me see if I understand this—you tricked me out of one child, and now you’re trying to emotionally blackmail me into fathering another one?’

      ‘No. This is not blackmail.’

      ‘Really? “Give me a child or this one dies”—what would you call it?’

      She sucked in a wounded breath. ‘The last act of a desperate woman! I didn’t have to tell you, Reilly. I could have just arranged to bump into you somewhere, sweet-talked you into a repeat performance for old time’s sake.’

      He snorted. ‘You overestimate your charms, Lea.’

      She knew she deserved the pain that lanced through her. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I wanted to be honest this time. I couldn’t do it that way again.’

      ‘Why not? You applied yourself so diligently to the task last time. Or have you forgotten?’

      Never. He’d been so gentle that night, as she had fallen apart from grief in his arms, grief from losing the father she’d never been able to love. Grief enough to make her do something entirely out of character while the rest of her family had been off burying him.

      She might have shoved it far down into her subconscious, but no; she’d never forgotten that afternoon. ‘I’ve lived with that decision for five years, knowing it was the wrong thing to do. Knowing I should have told you.’

      ‘You didn’t exactly rush to rectify it.’

      She dropped her eyes and cleared her thick throat. ‘I was ashamed. I thought…’

      ‘What?’

      She looked over at her baby. ‘Maybe Molly is sick because of me. Because of the lie I told, every day I didn’t tell you about her.’

      All the anger drained from his handsome face. ‘You don’t seriously believe that?’

      ‘I believe in a whole bunch of things I never used to.’ She dragged her eyes up to his and hated herself for the tears that started to fill them. ‘But this is my price to pay, not Molly’s. She’s barely started on life.’

      Indecision skittered across his face, and something else: a deep sadness. ‘There must be some other way to help her.’

      As if she hadn’t exhausted every possible alternative before debasing herself before the man she never thought she’d see again. Before exposing her shame. ‘Do you think I’d be here now if there was any other possible way?’

      His bitter laugh physically hurt. ‘I know you wouldn’t.’

      But he hadn’t had her escorted from the premises. Maybe there was hope yet. He cast his focus out over his vast property, hid his thoughts. Then his eyes returned, a fork of brown hair falling into his eyes as he shook his head. ‘To make a child just to save a child…’

      ‘What—seems wrong to you? You’ve been a father for three minutes, Reilly. I’ve lived with that little girl for five years. Carried her, then held her for over four years. Nothing is too great an ask.’

      ‘But a baby…’

      ‘I would love this child just as much as Molly. And she’d adore a brother or a sister to grow up with.’ Instead of having to create imaginary ones.

      ‘It just seems…’ He looked over at Molly.

      Lea grabbed his sleeve desperately. ‘They throw them away, Reilly. They toss twenty millilitres of precious, life-saving stem cells into an incinerator once the baby is born and the cord is clamped—the cells that could save Molly. How is that right?’

      His brown eyes smouldered like coals as he considered her. It pained her to see disgust in eyes so like her daughter’s.

      After an age, he spoke. ‘I’m sorry Lea. I can’t help you.’

      She staggered back, speechless. She’d been prepared for a humiliating, difficult battle, but in her wildest imaginings she’d never thought he’d simply say no. Not the man she remembered. The man whose eyes had plagued her dreams for two years until she’d finally banished him.

      ‘You won’t help?’ His lashes dropped. Lea gripped his shirt-front with both hands. ‘You don’t have to do a thing. You’ll never even see us again. There’s no expense, no obligation, I promise. Just the…’ She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘conception.’ ‘We’ve done it before. Please, Reilly. Please.’

      ‘Lea.’ He took her icy hands in his and backed her to the side of the house. ‘You barely know me, so I’ll forgive your assump-tion that I would willingly impregnate you with a spare-parts baby and then walk away from any child of mine. But you aren’t hearing me.’

      His jaw was rigid. ‘I can’t help you, Lea. I can’t give you a sibling for Molly.’ He twisted her clenched fingers away from his body. ‘You’ll have to find another way.’

      CHAPTER TWO

      THERE were no other ways.

      The reality of that had sunk in well and truly overnight, after she and Molly had returned home to Yurraji. The poor kid was crashed out in bed, exhausted from the excitement of an all day road-trip, her exertions climbing Reilly’s stairs and then running around after his cat. That was all it took these days. It was now morning and Molly had slept through from sunset the night before. It was the kind of sleep Lea could only dream of.

      The sleep of the dead.

      Lea’s eyes filled with tears. It seemed impossible that she had any left at all after a night of silent sobbing. Reilly had been her best and her last hope.

      And he’d said no.

      The sheer injustice burned like battery acid in her gut. That a stranger could decide whether her daughter lived or died, and that he’d done so in a matter of moments. She twisted her entwined fingers until they ached.

      She’d already called Dr Koek and broken the bad news, and her specialist had immediately gone into super-supportive, damage-control mode, citing statistics to show that cord blood from an unrelated, unmatched baby could work.

      Statistically.

      Maybe.

      Lea let her head drop to the railing surrounding her house paddock. She would try unrelated cord blood—of course she would, as many times as the specialists would allow—but something deep down inside her told her it wasn’t going to work. This was the price she would pay—Molly would pay—for her past mistake.

      Her sisters would pray to God and the universe, respec-tively, but Lea begged karma: please, please do not make my baby pay for something I did. Punish me.

      Punish me.

      A small mob of grazing kangaroos in the next paddock stood tall and looked east to the highway.

      In the same moment, Lea realised there was no greater pun-ishment for a mother than to watch her daughter die. And then live a long, miserable life with that knowledge. Her stomach heaved.

      The roos lurched into flight, springing away and covering the large paddock in a few easy bounds. Lea frowned and turned in the direction they’d been looking. She saw the advancing plume of red dust drifting up over the kurrajongs long before she heard the engine.

      Moments later, a battered Land Rover picked its way down her rocky drive. She recognised it instantly and her gut lurched. The last thing she’d done before roaring out of Minamurra’s beautiful heart, right past this very vehicle, was to hurl a scrap of paper with her phone number and address at Reilly. She’d had no expectation that he would use it, and certainly not within fourteen hours. Not given the disgusted, pained expression on his face when she’d finally bundled

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