A Baby on Her Christmas List by Louisa George

couldn’t deny him that, couldn’t deny her child the right to know its father.
    Why did this have to be so complicated? Why couldn’t he have kept to his side of the deal? Why did she have to have developed more than friendly feelings for him? Those emotions were tainting things, making her think in a way she’d never done before. This whole morning wasn’t about the kiss at all. It had never been about the kiss.
    His hand was on her arm now. ‘Georgie, I don’t want to have this conversation here on the street and I don’t want to argue. This was the furthest thing from my mind. You look upset and that really wasn’t my intention. I honestly thought you’d be pleased.’
    Pleased? If his intentions were genuine then she’d be delighted. How could she not want him to be a father? He was smart, funny and, if she was honest, would make a great daddy—if he stuck around long enough. And there it was again, her immediate concern: he just wasn’t the staying sort of guy. For whatever reason—and she only knew half of his story—he didn’t commit.
    She picked the pieces of paper up and shoved them at him. Then hesitated on her doorstep. ‘Can we talk later? This is pretty big for me, I need some time to think things through.’
    ‘Yes, by all means, think it through.’ He followed her up the steps and when it was clear he wasn’t giving up, she took her key out of her bag. As he watched her he shook his head. ‘But I need to say this now, Geo, and I need you to listen. It’s tough work, bringing up a child. I don’t want you to go through it on your own and I don’t want our child to miss out on having a father. I know how that feels and I couldn’t condemn my own flesh and blood to that kind of life. Don’t you want me to be involved?’
    ‘This is my flesh and blood too. My only flesh and blood. So I’ve got to be careful, make the right decisions.’ At least he had a family. He might not want to have them, but he was tied to them. And now she would be tied to him for ever. Oh, why the hell hadn’t she thought this through more thoroughly at the beginning? ‘What exactly do you mean by “involved”? Cash? Because that’s not enough. Is that why you’re here? To pay us off or something?’
    ‘It’s been in my head for the last few weeks, I just didn’t know how to say it. When to say it. What to say, even. But the more I see you, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.’
    ‘It’s not about making sense, it’s about how you feel. In here.’ She touched her chest. It felt a little cracked open and raw. ‘In your heart and your soul. You can’t do something because it makes sense, otherwise we’d never do any of the rash, amazing stuff we do. Like this pregnancy thing from the start. None of it made sense, not to you or anyone else. But it did to me.’
    ‘And it does to me now.’
    His words hovered in the air as she thrust the key in the lock and threw the door open. She took several long deep breaths and tried to clear her thoughts.
    Then tried to explain them to him. ‘If I was going to co-parent I would expect a fully one hundred per cent committed father who was around, who wouldn’t flinch during the darker times. Because there will be some, I’m sure.’ And although she adored Liam, he wasn’t reliable. He was away a lot of the time, never knowing when he’d be home. And she couldn’t get past the fact that he’d told her that this baby plan was the worst thing he’d ever heard.
    ‘It’s got to be for ever, you can’t change your mind again. I don’t want to open our child up to a whole world of hurt. I saw plenty of kids at the home whose families made promises and broke them, and in the end broke their kids’ hearts and crushed their spirits.’
    ‘I know you had a hard time, Georgie. And that’s why I’m here now. So our child doesn’t have to go through what you went through.’
    ‘You have no idea. You don’t know what it means to be alone. To