Their Newborn Gift. Nikki Logan

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СКАЧАТЬ shook her head. ‘Even if you were, the success of adult-to-child transfer is too low.’

      He ran stiff fingers through his hair. ‘I don’t understand. What do you want from me?’

      She took a deep breath and locked her hazel eyes onto his. He’d never encountered anything quite as beautiful as the loving determination burning there. For a split second, he wished it burned there for him. When had anyone looked at him like that? Ever?

      The silence screamed. And then she spoke.

      ‘I need you to get me pregnant again so we can save Molly.’

      Lea had never seen someone shrink like that right before her eyes. Reilly sagged back against the timber posts enclosing the veranda.

      ‘Molly’s dying?’

      Well, at least he was focussing on the most important part. ‘Gradually.’ Her voice cracked and she swallowed hard. ‘Yes.’

      He looked at her. ‘Is she in pain?’

      Her heart softened. Very definitely the most important part. Finding he was still capable of the compassion and kindness she remembered was a relief. He hadn’t shown much of it until just then. ‘Not always. But she’s exhausted perpetually, and she bleeds very easily.’ And four-year-olds were prone to tumbling over all the time.

      He nodded, digesting. ‘And having a second child will help her—how?’

      Lea was prepared for this question. ‘Cord blood. And placenta. The baby wouldn’t be touched at all.’ She threw that in hastily, knowing it was what she’d want to know in his position.

      ‘Stem cells?’

      Lea nodded. His eyes swam with uncertainty. His breath came heavily. Then he pinned her with his gaze. ‘How does it work?’

      Lea lightened like helium. Was he considering it? She rushed to answer, knowing this stuff back to front. ‘Cord-blood stem cells can become almost any other type of cell in the body, whatever needs repairing—bone, tissue, muscle. Marrow, in Molly’s case. She can grow healthy marrow. She can make healthy blood.’

      ‘Don’t they have banks for cord blood now?’

      Lea clamped down her frustration. Did he not think she’d thought of those things? Her child’s life had been worth an ex-ploration into every medical possibility. And every moral one. But she held her temper, moderated her breath.

      ‘The genetic mix of people from regional north-west Australia is too specific—part-indigenous, part-Asian islander, part-European. There’s nothing like that gene mix sitting in cord-blood banks around the world.’

      ‘What about a cousin or something?’

      Another deep breath. Sapphie had already offered her new baby’s cord. Anna’s infertility was none of his business. ‘Not closely related enough. This treatment requires the cells to be from a full sibling.’

      He tipped anguished eyes up to her. ‘A second baby could have the same condition.’

      Lea shook her head. ‘It’s not genetic.’

      He considered that. ‘A baby conceived with an agenda?’

      Lea laughed, an ugly, angry sound. ‘Believe it or not, this is the best available chance Molly has. Please, Reilly; I know it’s unconventional, and I know I am probably the last person in the world you would want to help, but I’m not asking for me. I’m asking for that little girl.’ They turned to watch Molly leap off the chair and limp after Max along the veranda. ‘Your little girl.’

      Reilly swung an angry gaze back to her. ‘Now that it suits you.’

      She deserved that. ‘Any little girl, then. Your body produces billions of cures for Molly in a week. I just need one. Just one, Reilly.’ She grabbed 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. СКАЧАТЬ