Nine Month Countdown
One night at a wedding… !Workaholic Ivy Molyneux is primed for the biggest promotion of her life – she couldn’t be more ready to take over Australia’s biggest mining operation! Trouble is, after a wildly out-of-character and just plain wild one-night stand at her sister’s wedding, it might have to be delayed… by about nine months.Ivy thinks hooking up with fellow guest Angus Barlow is pretty crazy – until she finds herself telling this gorgeous SAS officer that she’s pregnant. Craziest thing of all? She finds him even more irresistible than ever! Ivy’s hoping it’s just the baby hormones – otherwise the next nine months are going to be even more challenging… !
Читать Nine Month Countdown онлайн беплатно
âIvy, whatâs going on?â
Sheâd been staring unseeing down at her fingers, which sheâd been wrapping and unwrapping around the stem of her champagne glass.
She took a breath. The deepest breath she could remember taking.
Then she lifted her gaze and met his.
Even in the moody bar lighting she now finally had enough light to see the colour of his eyes. Hazel. They were lovely eyes, sexy eyes, but right now they were hard and unyielding.
Yes, heâd worked out that this night wasnât going to pan out the way heâd planned.
âAngusâIâm pregnant.â
I started writing Ivy and Angusâs story just after my daughter turned one. The most amazingâand exhausting!âyear of my life had come to an end, and I was finally writing again.
Itâs probably no surprise that a baby popped into this story! But Ivyâs story is very different from mine. Ivy certainly hasnât planned her pregnancy. In fact Ivy falls pregnant at exactly the worst possible moment in her career. For Ivy, her career is everythingâso itâs as if her whole world has collapsed around her. Plus she also has to deal with a gorgeous, charming soldier who just wonât go away!
I now know first-hand how life-changing children areâin a way I never comprehended before. But what would it be like to share such a life-changing experience with a practical stranger? That question is where Ivy and Angusâs story begins, and I just had to keep writing until this unlikely couple made it to their happy-ever-after.
I hope you enjoy Ivy and Angusâs story!
Leah
PS Iâll let you in on a secretâI often name my heroines using baby names I love but that my husband vetoed. I still think Ivy is a beautiful name!
An unashamed fan of all things happily-ever-after, LEAH ASHTON has been a lifelong reader of romance. Writing came a little bit laterâalthough in hindsight sheâs been dreaming up stories for as long as she can remember. Sadly, the most popular boy in school never did suddenly fall head over heels in love with her â¦
Now she lives in Perth, Western Australia, with her own real-life hero, two gorgeous dogs and the worldâs smartest cat. By day she works in IT-land; by night she considers herself incredibly lucky to be writing the type of books she loves to read and to have the opportunity to share her own charactersâ happily-ever-afters with readers.
You can visit Leah at www.leah-ashton.com
For Reganâ
who thinks all my heroes are based on him, but theyâre not.
Youâre my hero, though, baby.
Iâm having so much fun
sharing my happy-ever-after with you.
Contents
It had started exactly eleven steps down the aisle.
Ivy knew this, because sheâd been counting.
Step, together one. Step, together two.
Generally the counting happened when she could feel the famous Molyneux temper bubbling away inside her. Or on the rare occasions she was nervousâalthough she couldnât remember the last time that had been. But today, it was neither of those things. The brideâher sister Aprilâwas the one who should be feeling anxious. Marriage wasnât something Ivy could see herself doing any time soon. She dated, occasionally, but never anything serious. Right now, her focus was on her work, and the family business, and everything else took a back seat. Because in Ivyâs experience relationships had an irritating habit of leaching into everything. And when it came to her career, wellâanything that could damage that was just not acceptable.
But anyway... Sheâd been walking down the aisle, happily aware that the crowd seated in rows of white wooden chairs were peering around her for a glimpse of the bride, when sheâd felt it. At exactly step eleven.
Someone wasnât looking around her. Not at all. Someone was looking right at her, in a way that Ivy wouldnât have thought possible. In a way that had weight.
And it was so strange, and so unexpected, that Ivy even stopped counting.
But she didnât stop walking, and she didnât shift her gaze from exactly where she was heading: the celebrant, a pretty wooden trellis temporarily constructed on the exclusive Nusa Dua beach, and the cerulean blue of the Indian Ocean beyond. Because today she was Aprilâs chief bridesmaid, and she took any job that she was given seriously. Bridesmaid or Board Executiveâit didnât matter. Work was work, and Ivy always lived by the idea that you should never do anything if you werenât going to do it right.
So she started counting afresh, and then made sure she completed her bridesmaid duties to the best of her ability.
But that weight didnât lift until well after April had kissed her new husband. In fact, it wasnât until April and Evan stood together to accept the hugs and well wishes of their guests that Ivy could finally openly search the crowd without fear of raising the ire of the videographer.
