A Family for Good : A sweet, small town, second chance romance (Tall Dark and Driven Book 6)

by Barbara Deleo

  He should’ve known she’d want to do this—clear the air, be practical and straightforward.

  The crunch of tires on the shell driveway outside indicated Eleni had arrived with the babies.

  He wanted to say one more thing to her while they were still alone, so he took a step closer. Her eyes widened, rounded a little and the pull of her indicated he was only inches from a touch.

  Strangely, he wanted her to really see him this time, to acknowledge who and what he was and that he should’ve, could’ve, been the one for her all those years ago.

  He risked another step and was so close her heat warmed him. A light, heady and floral scent, probably one of her own creations, surrounded her. Her violet eyes softened, and the last two years disintegrated.

  The sound of Eleni climbing the stairs to the door brought him to his senses. He spoke quietly, but with the conviction she’d expect from him. “We will make this work, Olivia. For the sake of Phoebe and Zoë. We will.”

  And as he watched Liv move quickly to the door, he hoped that, in making it work, he could ignore the siren call of her lips and guard the barrier he’d so carefully built around his heart.

  3

  They were alone —Liv, Markus, and two tiny bundles in baby seats—in this cliff-top mansion, and nobody made a sound.

  Slowly, Liv knelt and laid a tentative hand on the petal pink blanket that covered one of the girls. The baby’s big brown eyes opened and closed in slow, languid blinks. “Hello, baby girl,” she whispered, her voice catching as she stroked the soft cotton covering, and her hand warmed by the tiny body beneath. Every nerve ending hummed with this connection and sang with the love she felt for this tiny child.

  She swung her gaze to Markus, her mind gripped by a terrible thought. “Which is which?” she asked, as cold tentacles wrapping around her heart tightened her words. “They’re dressed exactly the same! What if we get them mixed up - can you tell who’s who?”

  Markus was leaning against a dark leather couch watching her, with his head tilted as if in deep thought. The corner of his mouth lifted in the teasing, knowing way that had always sent a spiral of want through her. He had a way of waiting a few moments before replying, almost as if he could communicate without speaking. Even now, it felt like an intimate bond and her pulse quickened. “Not right now, I can’t.” The warmth of his voice settled on her like a familiar touch. A lover’s touch—and she ached for the loss of it.

  “Well, we have to find out.” She hastily looked away as she got to her feet. “They should be dressed in different clothes or have different bootees or something. We can’t go around mixing them up.”

  Markus crouched by a baby seat, as she’d just done, and laid his broad tan hand across the blanket. Something kicked sharply inside her—a feeling of loss, of desperate want and hope—and for a second she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

  “. . . in the bath. You won’t be able to tell the difference then.”

  Reality dragged her back to what he was saying as he unwrapped the end of one of the blankets to reveal a tiny bootee-clad foot.

  So carefully, as if touching a fragile piece of china or removing a delicate butterfly from a cobweb, he took the bootee off and laid it on the floor. “This is Phoebe.”

  And then Liv saw it. A speck of bright pink nail polish on one of the baby’s toenails. She let out a laugh of relief and a shroud of tension lifted from her shoulders.

  “I borrowed some nail polish from Eleni and painted one of Phoebe’s toenails pink and one of Zoë’s red. Chances are the colors will stay on for a while, but even if one wears off, we can tell who the other is. I suppose you’ll have some polish so we can maintain it.” He gave her a look she couldn’t interpret. “You always did like your nail polish, so I thought . . .” He trailed off, but the ghost of a smile lingered.

  Her breath caught at the sight of it. He’d liked to tease her about her femininity, her love of clothes and makeup. He’d been deeply fascinated by her parfumier study, though, so there was always respect behind his words.

  “I think I’ve brought a bottle or five.” She let a grin tug at her lips, too. She was still mesmerized by the little foot in his beautiful, strong hand and his thumb stroking a tiny toe.

  Although he wasn’t the girls’ father, the way his eyes softened when he looked at them, and an unspoken emotion that rippled below the surface of his tanned face, indicated he loved them as much as any new dad.

  She knelt down to one of three enormous baby bags Eleni had brought and began rummaging. How on earth could two immobile things require so much equipment? Diapers, clothes, boxes of baby wipes and plastic mats—surely they wouldn’t need all this?

  “What are you looking for?” Markus asked as he carefully replaced the bootee.

  “Hats. Different colored hats so we can tell who’s who in the meantime. We can dress them in different clothes later, but I’d like to . . .” She held two miniature hats aloft, one lemon and one pink. “Got them. Pink for Phoebe and yellow for Zoë.”

  He held a hand out, and she passed them to him without looking up, pretending to search for something else in the bag. But the touch of his hand as their skin brushed, just for a second, sent a tingling warmth up her arm.

  They were speaking normally to each other, as if the events of two years ago had never happened, as if he hadn’t scared the life from her and she hadn’t had to leave him.

  “They’re so quiet,” he said, as she carried the bag to the table and started removing stuff and making little piles. “As if they know they’ve lost their mommy.”

  Her heart staggered. When she caught his eye as he looked up from tucking Phoebe’s blanket back in, his face was filled with emotion. The same sort of sorrow that kicked her deep in the chest every time she thought of these gorgeous girls without a mother.

  A lump hurt her throat as she thought of a life without Polly’s spontaneous sunshine and laughter, without even the troubles she’d tumbled into. How would she get through the rest of her life without her oldest friend?

  “Right,” she said, trying to deflect the unintended connection between them and the hole of emotion she’d fall down if she let herself. “I guess we should get these little ones fed, then down for a sleep.”

  “Yep.” He stood and waited, watching her with the concentrated gaze that had the power to make her knees weak.

  If I let it.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said. “I wouldn’t know where to start!"

  He put both hands low on his hips, causing his black T-shirt to pull taut across his upper arms. “There are tins of formula and baby bottles in one of the bags. I’ll do it while you watch the girls.”

  “No, it’s fine,” she said. “I want to learn what to do.” Again, she’d assumed he’d have Eleni or the nanny do this. That he’d pay someone to make it all easy for him. The fact he hadn’t was surprising, and confusing.

  “I asked Eleni to find some baby-care books for you in English.” He moved to a pile of paperbacks on a side table and flicked through one. “Trouble is, you can read about feeding and routine and how to get a baby to sleep in one of these, but it’s always about a single baby. They don’t tell you what to do when one baby sleeps all night and the other sleeps all day, or how to cope when one’s waking every hour. Maybe we can look online for solutions.

  Liv took an unsteady breath. The enormity of what he’d coped with in the last ten days became stinging reality, but knowing that he’d thought about what she’d need to know and organized the books made her heart lighter.

  Who was he now? And if he had the capacity for this sort of caring, this sort of unrequited devotion, then why hadn’t she seen the depth of it before?

  “I’ll make a bottle.” She struggled to keep her voice calm as one of the girls began to whimper. “Could you pick up Phoebe . . . or is that Zoë . . . while I try and sort this out?”

  The whimper became a full-fledged cry, and a cold clutch of panic took hold. “I think s
he’s hungry,” she said, pulling more paraphernalia out of bags. “Quick, pick her up before she starts the other one off.”

  “It’s okay, Liv.” Markus’s voice was warm and calming as the second baby, picking up on her sister’s distress, started the same wail. “Do you want me to do it?”

  “Bottles!” Liv beamed, despite the rising cries. “And little measures of formula! It’s okay,” she called over the din. “I’ve got it. Just hang on!”

  Without waiting to see his reaction, she poured the formula into each bottle, put the lids on and shook them. Fine drops of milk flew everywhere—over the marble floor, her silk dress. Oh yeah, bottle teats had holes in them . . .

  And warm. Wasn’t baby milk supposed to be warm? One of her foster sister’s, Claudia, used to test a few drops on the inside of her wrist before she’d feed her baby.

  The wailing was a full blast in stereo, and as she picked up the formula tin to work out how to heat the bottle, Markus unclipped the girls from their baby seats.

  Greek. The instructions were in Greek! She threw a look at Markus as he lifted first one baby and then the other into his strong arms.

  “I’ve got the bottles and formula,” she said breathlessly. “What do I do now?”

  “Put hot water in that container by the sink.” He nodded toward the kitchen counter as the girls’ cries began to lessen while he held them close. “And put the bottles in to warm up.”

  She rushed to the sink, and when she looked up, Markus had his back to her, his T-shirt riding up to reveal a strip of deeply tanned skin at his waist. She dragged her gaze to the babies who were now quiet, one perfect head on each of his broad shoulders. Her eyes smarted at the perfection of the scene, the way his strong arms curved around their tiny bodies.

  Ten minutes later, Liv sat on the couch opposite Markus, each of them with a feeding baby in their arms. Rain fell heavily against the picture window and the sea in the distance churned wildly.

  Markus’s head was bent as he watched Phoebe, with his hand absently patting the small pink bundle. Seeing the simple beauty of it, memories of the man she’d fallen in love with long ago jostled their way into her mind. She held a breath as the old feelings touched her.

  Remember.

  She had to remember his inconsistency, his unreliability, all the reasons she’d left him. But it was so hard when he was being so constant and reliable now. He was so much more in control than she’d expected, so able to cope with the situation he’d been thrown into.

  He doesn’t really need me here at all.

  The unexpected thought stung, and she held Zoë closer.

  Having seen, even in the short time she’d been here how much Markus obviously cared for the babies made her question what had gone wrong between the two of them. What would the four weeks she’d be here do to her?

  She’d suggested she could feed the girls herself while he got some work done. But he’d insisted he’d help and hadn’t spoken to her since. He wasn’t about to let her completely take over the care of the girls. He’d made that quite clear. And if she were truly honest, especially after the circus that feeding them just now had been, she had an awful lot to learn about how to take care of two babies at the same time.

  “So, you said you could work from home,” she ventured, wanting to find out more about this new Markus. “You’re not practicing law anymore?”

  He looked up, the tenderness she’d seen on his face when he looked at Phoebe changing to polite tolerance. “I’m in manufacturing.”

  Liv frowned. “Oh.”

  She would’ve been less surprised if he’d said he was studying to be an astronaut. Manufacturing didn’t fit him at all. He was a risk taker, a highly charged go-getter who lived life on the edge. Or he had been those things. The things that had made him a world class litigator and had blown their relationship apart.

  “I think she’s finished.” His voice was low. “They need to sleep.”

  “Of course,” Liv said, disappointed he’d changed the subject, but glad the girls would go down for a sleep so they could talk some more.

  He stood, and she saw that Zoë had fallen asleep, so she pulled the teat from her perfect little lips, held the baby against her shoulder and then followed him across the room.

  They moved down a long, marbled corridor and Liv suddenly realized what the rich, sweet smell was that she’d noticed as soon as she’d arrived. Vanilla.

  She looked outside. Down the length of the glassed corridor sat pots and pots of what she guessed were vanilla orchids, the scent of the shiny green vines filling the house. And it hit her.

  A woman had lived here.

  Markus had never been interested in plants. And he’d made the comment about a wife. These plants must belong to a woman.

  The thought curled through her and she clutched the baby closer. Why did the thought of another woman here with him—sharing his house, his bed—eat at her?

  It had been two long years and she couldn’t possibly have believed he’d met no one else—the way she hadn’t. Yet, to see evidence of another woman’s touch here, in his home, his private place, hurt more than she could’ve imagined.

  When the babies were tucked into the wooden cribs that Markus had had delivered, she and Markus both sneaked back to the living room and the sweet danger of being alone with him seeped into Liv’s body. Things should be said, ground rules should be established, if they were to survive the next few weeks.

  “I have work to do,” he said, as she stood by a chair. “If you still want to stay, you can use the apartment at the end of the west wing. Petro’s out in the garden protecting small plants from the storm. He’ll get you anything you need. I’ll go out later and get more supplies for the girls, but I’m sure you’ll be fine until I get back.” He began to walk toward a door.

  Cold shock raced through her. She’d be in charge of the girls alone? “Markus?”

  He turned his head but not his whole body. His voice was like starlight, cool and distant. “You need something?”

  “You’re not going to sit and talk with me so we can work out how we’ll do all this?” As she spoke, his eyes darkened. He was keeping as much emotional distance as he could. Protecting himself.

  He turned to face her fully, and Liv took the nearest chair, hoping he’d take the hint and sit down, too.

  He put both hands low on his hips, defensiveness projecting from every pore. “We’ve done what we need to do, what we will do until the girls’ future is determined. For now, we look after Phoebe and Zoë. That’s all.”

  Liv tried to swallow away the rock in her throat, but in the end she just had to speak through it. “But if we’re to do that without tension in the air, we need to talk about things.” Did she really mean that? Did she want to go down the gaping hole that was their past?

  She’d spent the last two years doing everything in her power to get over him, to believe she’d done the right thing in leaving the way she did. To be here in his house, on his terms, and have to see him every day would be a bigger challenge than she’d expected, but it’s what she’d do to prove her love for the girls.

  He leaned, strong and rigid, against the arm of the nearest couch, and his proximity started a familiar hum in her chest. At least he was going to keep speaking to her.

  “What is there to say, Olivia?” His deep brown irises drew her in. “We had a relationship. You gave up on it. End of story.”

  “I know I hurt you back then.” She lowered her eyes to concentrate on a gold fleck in the marble floor. “And I’m sorry for it. But I made decisions that were right for me at the time.”

  “Just as you’re doing now.”

  Something in his words disturbed her. Did he think she was putting herself first in wanting the babies?

  She clutched the cool silk of her dress and ground it through her fingers. “I came here to claim Phoebe and Zoë, Markus. You never suggested I was completely wasting my time.”

  Words squeezed directly from her hear
t—but he needed to see that all she wanted was the next four weeks to be over so she could get on a plane with the girls and leave him behind.

  Again, her heart whispered. Leave him behind again.

  She sat higher in her chair, determined to show him that she’d thought this through, that she was making the right decision this time. “It’s my chance to prove my love for Polly and for Phoebe and Zoë.”

  Her words seemed to move him, soften a small part of his rigid stance.

  “Prove your love?” His gaze locked onto hers for a long second before he crossed his arms. “I’d be delighted to see you prove your love for someone. I’d like to believe that you’d always be there for the girls in the good times and bad. That you’d always be there when they needed you. Same city, same country.”

  His insinuation that she hadn’t been there for Polly, that she couldn't settle down, hung in the air.

  “My only reference for the way you might behave in the future is the way you’ve behaved in the past—running when things get difficult, never wanting to put down roots and work at relationships.” He paused before finishing with precision. “I need to see who you are before I’ll believe you can prove your love.”

  Desperately, she tried to make a connection with him. He deserved some explanation as to why she’d left him, why she’d had to leave Paris when she did.

  She pulled in a deep breath. She could put love first, and if he knew that, he might be ready to believe she was capable of giving her life to the girls.

  “There have been times in my life,” she began slowly, her voice catching, “when I haven’t always known how to show love. Given my childhood, I’ve forgiven myself for that.”

  This was as honest as she could be. Would it be enough for him to understand that she’d changed?

  He shifted off the arm of the couch and moved to the window. The wild panorama of churning sea and scurrying clouds framed the tension in his body. “You’ve been doing a lot of thinking in the last two years.”