Читать книгу Secret Heirs Collection - Кейт Хьюит, Коллектив авторов - Страница 20

‘I THINK I felt something…’

Sergio looked up from the report he had been scanning on his computer. Sometimes he found it hard to believe that he was the same man who had wined and dined women, slept with them, moved on… The same man whose entire life had been focused on work and the thrill of making money and growing an empire. A man who had enjoyed the freedom of living exclusively for himself.

He had moved in with her seven weeks previously and they had settled into a routine which was one born of necessity. He knew that. Of course he did. Circumstances had compelled him to live life at a pace he would never have imagined possible. What made him uneasy was the fact that he had adapted so fast.

They were living in a weird kind of bubble, in which they functioned as a couple for the sake of their unborn child. Bubbles eventually burst. When this one did the dithering would be over and she would accept the inevitable. He had indulged her by not forcing her hand, but in the end the result would be the same.

Except now the certainty that this was going to work out as planned seemed to hang in the balance, and he felt a rare surge of confusion.

‘No, it’s nothing.’

Susie had been frankly terrified of this arrangement, and sometimes when she thought about it she was still terrified—because she had become so accustomed to sharing space with him. Had he been right all along? That a marriage of convenience would be a workable marriage? Had she made far too big a deal of wanting the fairy tale of love and romance and assuming that anything that fell short of that was a waste of time?

‘You’re becoming the queen of the false alarm,’ Sergio said drily, flipping shut his laptop and standing to stretch out his muscles, which had tightened from sitting in one place for too long.

He had gone into the office today, had successfully signed on the dotted line for a deal that had been brewing for nearly a year and a half, and yet his only thoughts had been of how fast he could get back to her.

He looked at her broodingly and she met his gaze and then glanced away.

This happened a lot less than she had feared…this flipping over of her heart when their eyes met and held for a fraction too long…when she happened to see something in his gaze that spoke of other stuff…not just the normal, casual, comfortable stuff that passed between them from day to day.

It was like looking down into a clear stream and glimpsing the swirl of dangerous currents moving so fast and so deep that they didn’t ruffle the calm surface except very occasionally, when they glittered and seduced and held her temporarily captive.

Dry-mouthed, she dragged her eyes away from him, half wishing that he wouldn’t stand there, stretching, so that his shirt tugged free from the waistband of his trousers, exposing a sliver of bronzed flat belly that tempted her fingers.

‘I know…’ Her breath hitched in her throat. ‘Every time I feel anything I think I’m about to go into labour—even though the midwife’s told me a hundred times that it’s only labour if I can time the contractions. Getting something that feels like a contraction every other day doesn’t count.’

‘You’d be forgiven for getting panicky—especially in light of that scare…not to mention the fact that the baby’s due any day now.’

‘I know. It’s come round so quickly since…since…’

‘Since you sprang it on me?’

His voice was low and serious, and for some reason she felt a little thread of alarm race through her because this was as serious as he had been since… Well, since he had moved in.

The intimacy of their shared situation settled like a weight on her. It was pitch-black outside. Dinner had been eaten, dishes stacked in the dishwasher, and she was a handful of minutes away from heading upstairs for the night, leaving Sergio in the sitting room. He would resume work and then would retire to bed at some point during the night or the early hours of the morning.

Winter was all around them. The homely warmth of the house kept it at bay, but as he continued to look at her she was aware of the fact that, yes, there really were only the two of them in this place. Ex-lovers who had created a baby between them… Herself and the man she was compelled to look at, driven to want…

She licked her lips and set aside the little sketch pad on which she had been drawing.

‘I…er…’ She cleared her throat and looked at him. ‘I’ve never thanked you for being so decent about the whole thing. Your whole life’s been turned on its head.’ She laughed. ‘Can you believe that this is the first time we’re really talking about this?’

‘There seemed little point in stressing you out with long-winded discussions…’ Eyes still pinned to her face, Sergio strolled to one of the chairs facing the sofa and sat down, hunching forward so that his forearms were resting on his thighs.

But now the time had come to talk. He wasn’t sure how long this had been building inside him, how long he had known that the comfortable arrangement they had fallen into would have to be broken. He just knew that the baby would be born any day now and that once that baby arrived the situation between them would change dramatically.

Opportunities would be lost for ever.

Suddenly opportunities and having access to them seemed like the most important thing in the world. So this was it. Naturally they had to talk. They couldn’t walk blindly into parenthood without first sorting out all the little details that would crash into them the second this baby was born. They had to be prepared. She had to be prepared. And this so-called conversation was going to stress her out.

‘I know you think I’ve needed watching over ever since the scare at the hospital, but I don’t,’ Susie said flatly.

Restlessness washed into her. She wondered whether she should mention that her stress levels were building—and then decided that her stress levels would rocket whenever they had this conversation, be it here and now, or next week, or when she was lying in a hospital bed with their baby in a crib next to them.

There was never going to be a right time to hear what had to be said, because she had become so accustomed to having him around.

‘You can’t blame a guy for being concerned. You are, after all, carrying my child.’

‘Shall I tell you something? I never thought you were the sort of conventional person who’d ever come out with stuff like that.’

‘I’m glad to have introduced you to a new side of my personality.’

‘I’ve seen lots of different sides of your personality over the past few weeks…’

‘Should I be uneasy when you say that?’

‘You said that we needed to talk.’

‘I don’t remember putting it quite like that.’

‘Not in so many words…’ She shrugged. ‘But I’ve developed a knack for reading between the lines.’ She sighed and sifted her fingers through her hair. ‘I guess this is as good a time as any to decide what…what’s going to happen once the baby’s born. It needs to be out in the open. I mean, there are all sorts of decisions to be made.’

‘Yes. There are.’

‘For starters, you’ve got a life to lead—a life that’s waiting out there for you.’

‘What makes you think that you know what sort of life is out there waiting for me to lead it?’

‘I feel like you’ve been forced to put your whole life on hold to move in here with me. It’s been a sacrifice.’

‘For you?’ Sergio drawled. ‘Or for me?’

‘For…both of us…’

But since when was it a great sacrifice to be living with the guy you loved, who was looking out for you? Taking care of you? What pregnant woman didn’t want to be treated like a piece of china? If she could only box up all the other anxieties that went along with that scenario…

Sergio flushed darkly. He wondered when his priorities had shifted and marvelled that he had failed to pay due attention to this sea change. He had mistakenly thought that the bombshell had been her pregnancy. He’d been wrong. The fog of confusion he had earlier dismissed returned and then cleared, and in the clear light he could see the precipice over which he was dangling.

She was fidgeting, her fingers playing with the cotton of her loose jogging bottoms. She had only just conceded in the past couple of weeks that she needed proper maternity wear. Before that she had banked on elasticated waistbands to do the trick.

‘It’s been worth it, hasn’t it? Having me here?’

‘You can be very reassuring.’

‘Is that all you have to say on the subject?’

‘What else is there to say?’ Susie cried, suddenly wanting this dreadful conversation to be over and done with, and angry with him for drawing it out with pointless questions.

The businesslike arrangement he so approved of might have taken a bit of a knock, but she wanted him to bring it back to the table now, so that she could get her head around it before the baby came.

‘Do you want me to present you with a medal because you took time out of your hectic lifestyle to supervise me and make sure I wasn’t getting up to anything that might harm the baby?’

‘I’m not looking for medals.’ Maybe this wasn’t the time to be having this conversation after all. ‘And I don’t want to stress you out, Susie. That’s not my intention.’

‘I’m not stressed out.’

She breathed evenly, deeply, clearing her head and trying to fight her way past the fog of unhappiness that threatened to smother her—because she didn’t want to think about what was going to happen tomorrow, or next week, or at the end of the month. She wanted to wallow in the present and, yes, pretend that the present wasn’t going to turn into the future. She wanted to be a coward for a little bit longer.

‘And there’s no need for you to be so darn gentle with me, Sergio. I’m not going to fall apart at the seams just because you want to clear the air and sort out the details before life gets busy with a baby. I want that too! So—you’ll move out and you can come and visit as often as you like. You’d just have to give me notice. I don’t want you showing up out of the blue and expecting a cup of coffee. I know you bought the house, and I know right now you have a key, but I’ll expect you to return the key when you leave. For good.’

She was holding herself ramrod-stiff. The deep breathing obviously had a way to go when it came to relaxing her. It didn’t augur well for labour.

‘Right.’

‘And I’m sure we can work out something sensible with the financial side of things. I mean, the arrangement we have at the moment seems to be working all right—and, of course, the more established I get in my freelance work, the less dependent I’ll be on you…’

‘Right.’

Her words were floating around his head without really registering. He was staring down into an abyss and for the first time in his life was paralysed with inaction. How was it that he hadn’t spotted the ground opening up beneath his feet? He had never in his entire life taken his eye off the ball, but he had done it with her.

‘And then you can get back to your busy life. I don’t know… Would you want me to sign anything?’

‘My busy life…?’

‘Earning money, running an empire, being a mover and a shaker in the big, bad world…’

Over time she had come to grasp not just the extent of his wealth but the extent of his power and influence. Neither impressed her, because if he’d been poorer and less influential, then maybe he would have wanted what she wanted: just a normal relationship. Maybe he would have loved her the way she loved him. She didn’t enjoy thinking like that, but she couldn’t help it.

‘I seem to have taken quite a bit of time out of my “busy life” over the past few weeks, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘But I didn’t force you to—’

‘Did I say that you did?’

‘No, but—’

‘Did it ever occur to you that I may have wanted to?’

‘For the baby,’ Susie inserted hastily, before her heart had time to pick up speed and before her head could start building castles in the sky.

‘Love… It comes with a lot of high hopes and bitter disappointments…’

‘I know that’s how you feel.’

‘Or so I thought.’ He ran his fingers through his hair—a gesture that was part frustration, part weird nerves. ‘My father had a long and successful marriage with my mother and it was a marriage that was arranged. When he flung himself headlong into love it crashed and burned.’

‘His marriage might have been arranged, but has it ever occurred to you that he fell in love with your mother? That what he felt for his second wife wasn’t love at all? Maybe just a reaction to loneliness? He was weak and he fell for a pretty woman who flattered him. It happens. But it isn’t love.’

‘I have been doing some thinking, and for the first time…’

For the first time he had thought of his parents, remembered the way they had been with one another, and had realised, slowly but surely, that what had begun as an arrangement had ended as true love. The story hadn’t been as black and white as he had imagined. He had always equated marriage as an arrangement as successful and marriage as a whirlwind of emotion and so-called love as a nightmare. It had subtly altered his approach to relationships.

‘For the first time…?’

‘This situation between us isn’t going to work, Susie,’ he said roughly.

It felt as though he was on the edge of a cliff, a yawning drop at his feet, but the thing was that he was going to step off the side—whatever the outcome.

‘You don’t want to be married to me—you see that as some sort of unacceptable sacrifice, where the only inevitable outcome would be both of us being miserable and resentful…’

‘You would miss your freedom.’ She stared down at her fingers while her mind darted like quicksilver in a thousand different directions.

‘I would miss you more.’ Their eyes met and he found that he was holding his breath. ‘We work. I challenge you to deny that. We can live together and it’s good between us. And that’s without sex.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I don’t want you on a part-time basis when the baby’s born. Just think about it. Think about what we have. This isn’t a relationship that’s destined to fail just because it’s been generated by the fact that you became pregnant. Maybe that was Fate. I’ve never been much of a believer in that old chestnut, but lately I’ve had a turnaround. Fate brought us together and it conspired to keep us together—and that’s what I want. To be with you. With you both. You and our baby.’

‘I don’t understand…’ Because missing from all of that were the three words she wanted to hear.

‘I’m not the sort of guy you ever saw as a long-term proposition…but Susie, I could be. I mean, think about it—have we had one argument since I moved in? A single argument? No. Not one. Have I been…well…useful? Yes. Those are two things you should take into account when you decide that I’m not the one for you. You might fantasise about someone who wears an earring, has a ponytail and knows how to cook quiche, but would he really be the man for you?’

‘He might be if he loved me…’

‘No one could love you as much as I do. No one.’

‘You love me? No, you don’t. You don’t believe in love.’

Unable to tell her what he was being driven to tell her without touching her, Sergio took immediate advantage of her open-mouthed confusion to join her on the sofa. If he had to overwhelm her with his physical proximity, then so be it. He wasn’t above low tricks.

‘I never thought I did,’ he murmured, ‘but no one’s right all of the time. Even me.’

‘Now I really am shocked.’ Susie’s heart was swooping and diving so fast that she could scarcely breathe. ‘I thought you were the guy who never got it wrong?’

‘You’re going to marry me,’ he ordered shakily. ‘Aren’t you?’

Susie pulled him towards her and kissed him with all the passion she had been storing up for the past weeks and months—the passion that had lain slumbering under the surface, ever ready to leap out and take charge.

‘You love me! Of course I’m going to marry you. I’ve loved you for so long… I just never thought that you could ever love me back—and I’ve been so scared of getting used to you being around me. You never thought that you could love, and I always knew that I could…except I never expected it to be someone like you…’

‘I’m reading all sorts of terrific compliments into that,’ Sergio said huskily.

He slipped his hand under the jumper and gently, tenderly caressed her, stroked her swollen nipples, but he didn’t go further. They had a lifetime to explore one another. He could take his time. But he just had to feel her, and her body was wonderfully familiar. Everything about her filled him with a sense of completion, as though this was the woman he had been waiting to find.

He shuddered when he thought that he might not have met her at all—that she might have joined that mustard-clothed clown on her blind date and left his restaurant without throwing herself into his company.

‘You should,’ Susie whispered. ‘And you should know something else…’

‘What’s that?’

‘I feel a twinge—and this time it’s the real thing…’

Georgina Louise Francesca Burzi was born with very little fuss, after a complication-free delivery. Pink-cheeked, with a mop of dark curls, dark eyes and the same long dark killer eyelashes of her father, she was declared by every single person who came to visit the most beautiful baby on the planet.

Louise Sadler, chuffed to bits with the impending wedding—which, she declared, she had always known would happen, because what mother didn’t know when her daughter was in love—made time to gloat quietly over the fact that she had hit the grandmother post first.

‘And leave the wedding to me,’ she added sotto voce, keeping a sharp eye on her husband, who was holding the baby and attempting to look comfortable. ‘I’m suggesting small, intimate and exquisite—emphasis on the exquisite. Too big can sometimes be just a little too tacky…’

Susie was more than happy to oblige, and she realised, somewhere deep inside her, how far she had come. She was no longer trying to prove anything to any of her family. They loved her as she was…

And so did Sergio—who never tired of telling her.

Now, with their visitors all gone and back in the comfort of their house, Susie reached out and linked her fingers through his, settling with a sigh into the gentle kiss he placed on her neck. In a Moses basket next to the sofa, where they were sitting quietly relaxing, baby Georgie was sleeping, her tiny, soft snores punctuating the comfortable silence.

In three months’ time they would be having their delayed honeymoon—baby and all.

For now…

She rested her head in the crook of his neck and then raised her upturned face to his and smiled, before kissing him gently on the mouth—a sweet, long kiss that expressed more than words could ever begin to say.

I love you…I want you…I need you…and I always will.