‘Hungry?’ Hugh checked. ‘The restaurant here is supposed to be superb!’
‘Starving!’ Bonita lied, because the toast she’d eaten just before her mother had arrived, so she wouldn’t look like a pig at dinner, had actually filled her up. He’d brought her to the most fabulous five-star hotel in Melbourne, the restaurant was reportedly to die for and they needed this, Bonita told herself—dinner, just the two of them, not talking about the twins. This was how you kept the fizz in a relationship.
‘Liar!’ Hugh grinned, because he knew her too well.
‘I’ll start drooling when I see the menu!’ Bonita promised.
‘You look great.’ Which was what a husband should say on one’s first anniversary, but it was the way he said it that made the glass miss her mouth!
They didn’t actually need any help keeping the fizz, Bonita thought, wiping her chin then sucking on her lemon and smiling over to him. There was a certain guilt that came with fancying your husband so much.
A feeling of unsolidarity as she sat at baby yoga and listened how her peers dodged their partners’ advances, a flicker of shame as her OB told her they could gently resume sexual relations about two weeks after she already had! But they didn’t have a guy who just adored you—wanted you—even when he’d seen you at your worst.
And they did have six years to make up for, Hugh had told her once.
‘You look great, too.’ Bonita smiled, staring down at his knee now, which was sort of between hers. ‘What time did you book the table for?’ she asked as she drained the ice in her empty gin and tonic.
‘I didn’t.’
‘What?’ Her eyes jerked to his.
‘I was thinking about it,’ Hugh said seriously, his knee pushing into the soft, squidgy inside of hers and making her tummy unfurl. ‘I know we don’t get out much, but when we do, we never seem to get to dessert.’
‘Er, no…’ Bonita agreed.
‘We’re always dashing home.’ The pressure was firmer on her inner knee now. ‘But we can’t tonight because your mum’s babysitting.’
‘She is.’ Bonita gulped.
‘And I know how tired you are, and I know you’ll have to feed the twins when we get in and because you’re you you’ll worry if we don’t have sex on our first wedding anniversary.’
‘That we’ll be letting things slide!” Bonita said equally seriously, but her knee was pushing his back.
‘So I made an executive decision.’ He pulled a hotel card out of his top pocket. ‘If you’re starving, there’s room service…’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘And if you’re exhausted, there’s a bed…’
‘Come to think of it,’ Bonita said, jumping off her stool. ‘I’m actually not that tired!’
‘I’m all yours till midnight!’ Hugh said, dragging her to the lift. ‘Actually, scrap that,’ he said, as they landed on the fifth floor and frantically followed the arrows towards room 505.
‘I’m all yours.’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3029-7
ENGLISH DOCTOR, ITALIAN BRIDE
First North American Publication 2009
Copyright © 2009 by Carol Marinelli
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