When You Least Expect by Lydia Rowan Page A

was over, so much so I couldn’t stand to look at him for a while.”
    He exhaled and shrugged again. “But I don’t hate him, and I forgave him a long time ago. It took some work, some serious work, but I’d be just like him if I dragged around the stuff I can never change.”
    “So what about family?” Ariel asked.
    A humorless laugh escaped him. “When I was a kid, I got it in my head that if I never loved someone, then they couldn’t die and leave me.”
    Ariel felt herself frowning, but Matt didn’t seem to notice and continued, “And when I got older, I saw how tough marriage was, how many of the guys ended up divorced anyway, so I just put it aside.”
    “And now?” she asked quietly.
    He turned his eyes to her then, but they were unreadable. “Honestly, Ariel, I don’t know.”

Chapter Eleven
    Ariel stared, first settling on the misshapen soap dish Dani had made in some art class, then moving to the toothbrush holder that held her purple one and Matt’s green one, a new development she couldn’t even remember happening. It was probably an accident, him needing a toothbrush, though he’d never actually slept over. A small point, especially with how much time he’d been spending at her house, which would probably be so much more soon.
    Heaving out a sigh, Ariel turned her gaze down and centered it on the piece of plastic in her hand. She was struck by the incongruous urge to laugh. There was nothing funny about this situation, any of it, but the urge was there all the same, and she gave in to it.
    She stared down at the plastic again, disbelieving. The plastic stared back at her, unchanging, practically daring her to deny the truth in front of her. There was no way for her to do so.
    It was unavoidable, undeniable.
    She was carrying Mathias Poole’s baby.
    She slumped on the toilet seat, her shoulders heavy with the weight of that knowledge. She suddenly felt tired, really tired, but even more she was happy, felt a joy that was as undeniable as her condition. And for a moment, she let her mind fill with that, her and Matt and Dani and the new baby together, making a new family.
    It was a pretty picture, them all happy together.
    It was also a fantasy.
    The picture died in her mind.
    Matt was so strong, so handsome, so passionate, so sweet to her and to her daughter. But sometimes, in those fleeting, quiet moments, she caught the faint panic in his eyes, remembered his revelations about his past, his uncertainty about the future.
    He’d been honest about his uncertainty, and she’d been wary but then careless, a fact that made this situation that much worse. Bad enough that she’d been lazy about getting back on birth control, but she’d been so needy for him, so anxious to feel him inside her, she hadn’t given the consequences of those brief moments a second thought and it had damned her completely. It’d only been seconds, but she knew better! And now there was a price to be paid.
    A bubble of panic rose with the changing tide of her thoughts. Oh God, what if he thought she’d tried to trap him? He was a good catch, and more importantly, an honorable man. He’d want to do the “right” thing, feel it was his duty, even if it was something he didn’t want. She went slack against the toilet again, practically watching the story write itself behind her eyes.
    Desperate Widowed Single Mother Traps Eligible Bachelor.
    “Jesus,” Ariel muttered. Then she laughed. This was fan-fucking-tastic.
    But there was nothing to be done about it from the master bathroom, so Ariel finally stood. She stopped at Dani’s room and peeked in, smiling at the peaceful-looking girl nestled in her princess canopy bed. Her thoughts turned to the first months of Dani’s life. Those had been hard, almost impossible with the grief that had rocked her entire universe, but she’d gotten through it.
    She’d get through this, too. It would be difficult, but she was strong and she’d handle it. Of course, she needed