Page 18 of Prognosis Irreconcilable Differences

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘It’s been a decade,’ she spluttered. ‘What makes you think I still want that? God, Nate, I’m thirty-eight. I gave up on that dream years ago. I’m not the same person I was back then.’

Nathan took a moment to study her. He had noticed the changes. Ten years ago she would have flayed him for offering his credit card to her. She certainly would have told him to stick his pseudo-blackmail attempt. And she would definitely have jumped at the opportunity to have a baby by any means.

‘Just a suggestion. From someone in the field.’

Jacqui shook her head at him. ‘You still don’t get me, do you? Do you think I would bring a child into the world without the benefit of a family? A mother and a father? I wanted to be a family with you, Nate. Not just the mother of your child.’

Nathan looked down at her, surprised at how her words clawed at his gut. A family. Something he’d always taken for granted until his father had done the unthinkable and smashed their family bond to smithereens.

The wind blew strands of russet curls across her face, and as much as he itched to tuck them behind her ear he didn’t dare touch her. She was pretty ticked off. And then his mobile rang, and he almost kissed it as he removed it from his belt.

A business crisis he could handle, a difficult delivery, no worries. But his ex-wife looking at him with her toffee eyes and talking about family was too confrontational.

‘I have to go,’ he said, flipping his phone shut a few moments later.

‘Then go.’

He’d been resoundingly dismissed, but for the first time in a long time Nathan was torn. He didn’t want to be here, but he didn’t want to leave either.

‘For God’s sake, Nathan,’ Jacqui said, barely holding it together. ‘Go!’

Nathan gave a terse nod. ‘See you tonight.’

Jacqui stood for an age, staring into the vast blue yonder, before plonking herself down in the shallows. The waves sucked at her, soaking her skirt and hollowing the sand beneath her.

She didn’t care.

Their conversation played like a cracked record over and over in her head. Damn Nate. Damn him for pushing his way back into her life and making her want things again that she couldn’t have.

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