A Baby on Her Christmas List

Praise for

Louisa George:

‘HOW TO RESIST A HEARTBREAKER keeps you hooked from beginning to end, but make sure you have a tissue handy for this one will break your heart only to heal it in the end.’

—HarlequinJunkie

‘A moving, uplifting and feel-good romance, this is packed with witty dialogue, intense emotion and sizzling love scenes. Louisa George once again brings an emotional and poignant story of past hurts, dealing with grief and new beginnings which will keep a reader turning pages with its captivating blend of medical drama, family dynamics and romance.’

—GoodReads on

HOW TO RESIST A BEARTBREAKER

‘Louisa George is a bright star at Mills & Boon^>® and I can highly recommend this book to those that believe romance rocks the world.’

—GoodReads reader review on

HOW TO RESIST A HEARTBREAKER

www.millsandboon.co.uk

A lifelong reader of most genres, LOUISA GEORGE discovered romance novels later than most, but immediately fell in love with the intensity of emotion, the high drama and the family focus of Mills & Boon^>® Medical Romance™.

With a Bachelors Degree in Communication and a nursing qualification under her belt, writing medical romance seemed a natural progression and the perfect combination of her two interests. And making things up is a great way to spend the day!

An English ex-pat, Louisa now lives north of Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband, two teenage sons and two male cats. Writing romance is her opportunity to covertly inject a hefty dose of pink into her heavily testosterone-dominated household. When she’s not writing or researching Louisa loves to spend time with her family and friends, enjoys travelling and adores great food. She’s also hopelessly addicted to Zumba^>®.

With a background of working in medical laboratories and a love of the romance genre, it is no surprise that Sue MacKay writes Mills & Boon^>® Medical Romance^>™ stories. An avid reader all her life, she wrote her first story at age eight—about a prince, of course. She lives with her own hero in the beautiful Marlborough Sounds, at the top of New Zealand’s South Island, where she indulges her passions for the outdoors, the sea and cycling.

To Iona Jones, Sue MacKay, Barbara DeLeo, Kate David and Nadine Taylor, my gorgeous Blenheim girls—thank you for the great weekend at the cottage and your amazing help to brainstorm this book.

You guys definitely know how to rock a writing retreat. xx

Cover

Praise for Louisa George

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Copyright

Nine months ago …

‘I’VE FOUND A baby daddy!’ Georgie’s wide grin shone brighter than the Southern Cross, her dark brown eyes sparkling even in the bar’s dim light.

Liam watched, dumbfounded, as excitement rolled off her, so intense it was almost tangible.

‘Well, not a daddy as such. I should really stop saying that. But I have found someone who would be perfect to donate his sperm … which I know makes you shudder, so I’m sorry for saying The Word.’ She gave Liam a wicked wink that was absolutely at odds with this whole one-sided conversation.

Whoa.

Too gobsmacked to speak, Liam indicated to her to sit. She tossed her silk wrap and bag on the back of a chair, put her drink down on the table and plonked in the seat opposite him at the only free table in Indigo’s crowded lounge.

A baby?

He felt the frown forming and couldn’t control it—even if he’d wanted to—and finally found his voice. ‘Hey, back right up, missy. Am I dreaming here? I thought you just said something about a baby …’

It had been too long since he’d seen her looking so happy so he was wary about bursting her bubble—but, hell, he was going to burst it anyway. Because that’s what real friends did—they talked sense. Just like she’d done the first time they’d met, in the sluice room of the ER; he a lowly med student, losing his cool at the sight of a lifeless newborn, she a student nurse with more calm and control and outright guts than anyone he’d ever met. She’d let him shake, allowed him five minutes to stress out, then had forced him back into the ER to help save the kid’s life. And they’d been pretty much glued at the hip ever since.

So he needed to be honest. He raised his voice over the thump-thump-thump of the bar’s background bass that usually fuelled their regular Friday night drinking session, but tonight the noise was irritating and obnoxious. ‘I go away for three months and come back to sheer madness. What happened to the Nothing’s going to get in the way of those renovations this time? I’m on the real estate ladder now and going up. What the hell, Geo? A baby? Since when was that on your to-do list?’

Stabbing the ice in her long glass with a straw, she looked up at him, eyes darker now, and he caught a yearning he’d seen glimpses of over the last ten years. She thought she hid it well, but sometimes, when she was distracted or excited, she let her tough guard slip. ‘You, of all people, know I’ve always wanted a family, Liam. It may not have been at the top of my list because I always believed it would just happen at some point. But I can’t keep putting it off and leaving it to chance, because chance isn’t going my way. And I refuse to prioritise decorating over having a baby. That would be stupid.’