by Lynne Graham
‘Not all my surprises go wrong, tabbycat,’ Rocco commented with the kind of rich self-satisfaction that she usually set out to squash flat in him.
However, as the magnificent Palladian mansion came into view round the next bend Amber was too dumbstruck to do anything other than nod agreement in slow motion.
‘Although I have to confess that this particular surprise felt like it had gone very wrong when I got Wychwood without you included,’ Rocco confided ruefully.
In normal mode, Amber would have told him that that was the direct result of his having dumped her and that he had deserved to have had his surprise backfire on him. But the truth was she was so thunderstruck by the sheer size of the house and the surprise, she was feeling generous.
Rocco lifted her out of the Rolls and up into his arms. It was just as well: she honestly didn’t believe her legs would have held her up. ‘Rocco...?’
She collided with dark golden eyes that filled her to overflowing with joyful tenderness and what felt fearfully like adoration, so she didn’t tell him she loved him, she said instead, ‘I think you’re totally wonderful.’
Was it her imagination or did he look a little disappointed?
‘Absolutely fantastic...the most terrific husband in the world?’ she added in a rush.
Evidently she finally struck the right note of appreciation because he took her mouth with hungry, plundering intensity. As excitement charged her every skin-cell, she realised just how miserably long a few days without Rocco’s passion could feel.
‘Incredibly sexy too,’ she mumbled, coming up for air again as he carried her over the impressive threshold of Wychwood House.
A towering Christmas tree festooned with ornaments and beautiful twinkling lights took pride of place in the wonderful reception hall where a log fire burned. ‘Oh, my...’ she whispered, appreciation growing by the second. ‘Rocco, please, please tell me we’re going to spend Christmas here.’
He smiled. ‘The day after Boxing Day, we set off for warmer climes.’
All the photographers then sprang out from behind the tree to take loads more pictures of them and she tried not to let her jaw drop too obviously. ‘Really conscientious, aren’t they?’ she whispered to Rocco when they had to stop to load more film.
‘I told them I didn’t want a single second of this day to go unrecorded.’
Freddy was belatedly fetched out of the Rolls where he had been abandoned because he was fast asleep. Reunited with his nanny when she arrived, he was borne upstairs to complete his nap in greater comfort and Rocco and Amber were free to greet their guests. Some of them she had met when she’d been seeing Rocco the previous year. Others were strangers. And then there were the Wintons: Harris coming as close to a grin when he wished her well as he was ever likely to come, and Kaye with her gutsy smile, not one whit perturbed by any memory of having warned Amber off Rocco only a week earlier.
Neville and Opal joined them at the top table in the elegant dining room where the caterers served a magnificent meal. Amber watched for Rocco getting that glazed look men usually got around Opal, but if he was susceptible he was very good at concealing it.
‘My sister’s very beautiful, isn’t she?’ Amber was reduced to fishing for an opinion when they were walking through to the ballroom where a band was playing.
‘Do I get shot if I say no...or shot if I say yes?’ Rocco teased.
Amber coloured hotly at his insight into her feelings.
Rocco curved an arm round her taut shoulders in a soothing gesture. ‘She’s lovely and very fond of you, but I have to confess that listening to her talk to you as if you are a very small and not very bright child is extremely irritating.’
Amber paled.
‘Now what have I said? You know you rarely mention your family—’
She forced a rueful laugh. ‘My parents were very clever, just like Opal—’
‘Research scientists. I remember you telling me that.’
‘By their standards I wasn’t very bright. I’m average but they made me feel stupid,’ Amber admitted reluctantly. ‘I felt I was such a disappointment to them—’
‘So that’s why you always pushed yourself so hard. If your parents had seen how hard you’d worked and how much you had achieved by the time I met you, they would have been hugely impressed,’ Rocco swore vehemently.
‘You sound like you really mean that, but I remember you offering me employment and behaving as if the job I had was nothing—’
‘Give me a break.’ Rocco laughed softly. The protective tenderness in his gaze warmed her like summer sunlight. ‘All I was thinking of was being able to see more of you and you were wasted in the position you were in then.’
Amber stood up on tiptoe and whispered playfully, ‘Go on, tell me more, tell me how bright I am—’
Rocco caught her to him with a strong arm, making her urgently aware of him and the glinting gold of his smouldering scrutiny. ‘You picked me didn’t you?’
‘Is that really one of the brighter moves I’ve made?’
Rocco looked down into her animated face and murmured with ragged fervour, ‘I hope so because I love you like crazy, bella mia.’
Amber stilled. ‘Honestly?’
‘Why are you looking so shocked?’
She linked her arms round his neck and sighed helplessly. ‘You let me go, Rocco...you never came after me—’
A dark rise of colour had accentuated his fabulous cheekbones. ‘I did come after you. It took me two months to get to that point. Two months of sleepless nights and hating every other woman because she wasn’t you. I told myself I just wanted to confront you...which is pretty much what I told myself when I saw you with your wheelbarrow as well—’
‘You did come after me?’ Amber gasped in delight, finally willing to believe he might still truly love her. ‘So why didn’t you find me?’
‘You’d moved out of your flat without leaving a forwarding address and I had no relatives or anyone else to contact,’ Rocco ground out in frustration. ‘I even got a friend to run your Social Security number through a computer search system...that’s illegal, but it didn’t turn up anything helpful.’
‘I forgive you for everything...I love you, I love you, I love you!’ Amber told him, bouncing up and down on the spot, so intense was her happiness and excitement.
‘For goodness’ sake, Amber...remember where you are,’ Opal’s voice interposed in pained and mortified reproof.
‘She’s in her own home and I’m enjoying this tremendously, Opal. If you’ll excuse us,’ Rocco murmured with a brilliant smile as he whirled his ebullient bride onto the floor to open the dancing.
* * *
AT THREE IN the morning, Amber and Rocco came downstairs with Freddy to open some Christmas presents.
Freddy was in the best of good humour. It was Christmas Day and it was also his first birthday. He was truly aware of neither occasion but was enthralled by the big tree and all the twinkly lights and the shiny ornaments. He played with the card he was given and he played with the wrapping paper, watching while his parents struggled to get the elephant rocker out of its box, and then struggled even more on the discovery that it was only part-assembled. He sat in the rocker for about one minute before crawling off it again to head for the much more exciting box he wanted to explore.
‘I think the rocker just bombed,’ Rocco groaned. ‘He’s happier with the paper and the packaging.’
‘As long as he’s happy, who cares?’ Amber said sunnily, entranced in watching the lights send fire glittering from the superb diamond engagement ring Rocco had slid onto her finger. ‘I bet I’m the only bride for miles around who got an engagement ring after the wedding and it’s really gorgeous!’
‘Just arriving eighteen months late, tabbycat.’ Rocco surveyed her with loving but amus
ed eyes as she whooped over the matching eternity ring she had just unwrapped. ‘That’s for suffering all those weeks in hospital to have Freddy.’
‘Well, perhaps it wasn’t as bad as I made out...if I’d had you visiting, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been feeling sorry for myself. Next time—’
‘Next time? Are you kidding?’ Rocco exclaimed in horror. ‘Freddy’s going to be an only child!’
As Freddy had crawled into the box and now couldn’t get out of the box and was behaving very much as if the box were attacking him, Amber rescued him and put him back on the rocker. After that disturbing experience, the elephant’s quieter charms were more appreciated.
‘I’ll be fine the next time,’ Amber told him soothingly.
‘I love Freddy, but I value your health more, bella mia.’
‘Yes...you worship the ground I walk on,’ Amber reminded him chattily as she measured the huge pile of presents still awaiting her and looked at Freddy and Rocco, especially Rocco. Rocco who was so incredibly romantic and passionate and hers now. Rocco winced. ‘Did I say that?’
‘And lots of other things too...you got quite carried away around midnight.’ Confident as only a woman who knew she was loved could be, Amber gave him a glorious, wicked smile.
Rocco entwined his fingers round hers and hauled her back to him with possessive hands. ‘You’re a witch and I adore you—’
‘I adore you too...so I didn’t buy you the book on how to pleasure a woman in two hundred ways in case you thought I was dropping hints,’ she said teasingly. ‘I mean, I might die of exhaustion if I got any more pleasure. So I got you this instead. Merry Christmas, Rocco.’
Rocco unwrapped his miniature gold wheelbarrow and dealt her a vibrant grin of appreciation, which just turned her heart over. ‘I’ll keep it on my desk, cara.’
Freddy was slumped asleep over the elephant’s head.
‘You and Freddy are the best Christmas presents I have ever had,’ Rocco confided with touching sincerity as he cradled his gently snoring son.
‘Well, I did even better,’ Amber pointed out, resting back beneath his other arm, blissfully content as she stared into the glowing embers of the fire. ‘I got you, a fantastic wedding and this is going to be the most wonderful Christmas because it’s our first together—’
Rocco urged her round to him and claimed her mouth in a sweet, delicious kiss that left her melting into his hard, muscular frame. ‘Magical,’ he groaned hungrily, and only Freddy’s snuffly little complaint about being squashed got them back upstairs again.
* * * * *
A Marriage Proposal for Christmas
Carole Mortimer
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
‘I KNOW NO one is available to take my call at the moment, and no, I will not leave a message after the tone!’ the man’s voice snarled. ‘I’ve already left four messages, and I’m sick of talking to this damned machine. I intend coming round there in person in the hopes that I can talk to a human being!’
Cally stood arrested in the doorway of the office as she heard the disembodied voice on the message her sister Pam was playing back on the answering machine. ‘Not a dissatisfied customer, I hope?’ She raised questioning brows as she came fully into the office and closed the door behind her, instantly shutting out the cold December wind blowing outside.
‘Not yet.’ Her sister looked up and smiled as she switched off the answering machine. ‘So far he’s just another person who seems to have forgotten that this is the season of peace and good will to all men.’
‘I’ve always wondered what happened to “and all women” in that particular phrase,’ Cally murmured as she slipped out of her thick outer coat, moving to hang it on the stand in the corner of the room. She appeared small and slim in the black business suit she wore, the thin green jumper beneath the jacket a perfect match for her eyes, long red hair loose about her shoulders.
Her sister, at twenty-eight the elder by three years, shrugged philosophically. ‘Different century, darling,’ she said dryly.
‘You mean we were even less equal then than we are now?’ Cally snapped irritably, moving to sit down behind the second desk in this cosily welcoming room that constituted the sisters’ base for their business.
Pam chuckled. ‘What’s upset you this morning? Or should I say, who?’ she corrected knowingly. ‘Playboy of the West been keeping you awake all night again, has he?’
Cally raised auburn brows. ‘Would you care to rephrase that?’
Pam’s grin widened. ‘Not particularly. But I will if it makes you happy,’ she added teasingly as Cally’s scowl deepened. ‘Let’s see.’ She paused for thought. ‘Has your neighbour been keeping you awake all hours of the day and night again with his noisy arrivals and departures in that gorgeous red vehicle that is just too glamorous to be called a mere car?’
‘It’s a Ferrari,’ Cally supplied disgustedly. ‘And that was at midnight last night. This morning—at six-thirty, would you believe?—it was a helicopter!’ And she could still clearly remember being startled awake by the noise of its engines as it flew over the gatehouse where she lived, before landing on the lawn of the main house—where the ‘Playboy of the West’ lived!
‘A helicopter.’ Pam nodded, suitably impressed.
‘It landed on the front lawn of the main house, continued to run its engines for ten minutes or so, and then flew off again. I was not amused, I can tell you,’ Cassie growled, not willing, at this moment, to tell her sister just how unamused she had been—she was still too angry about the whole affair!
‘Did he wake Lissa, too?’ Pam looked concerned.
‘No,’ Cally allowed grudgingly, sure that her young daughter would sleep through an earthquake.
‘Have you managed to meet Noel Carlton yet?’ her sister asked eagerly.
Pam had been fascinated by the comings and goings of Cally’s neighbour since he had moved into the main house almost a year ago. Cally didn’t share the interest; she wished he would just take his Ferrari, and his helicopter, in fact, his whole over-the-top lifestyle, and go back to wherever it was he had come from!
The fact that he had flirted with her when she’d gone up to the house to complain about the noise a couple of months ago hadn’t exactly endeared him to her, either. Especially as he hadn’t followed up on the flirtation but had suddenly become coolly aloof! a little voice taunted inside her.
‘No,’ she fibbed. She felt guilty not telling Pam the truth, but couldn’t face the grilling Pam would insist on giving her if she knew Cally had met the man twice now.
‘Still think it was a good idea to move out to the “peace and quiet” of the country?’ Pam teased as she saw Cally’s frowning look.
Until Noel Carlton had moved in next door it had been a brilliant idea. The gatehouse she rented from the Parker Estate was just perfect for her and her young daughter, Lissa. Added to that, Lissa loved her new school, and was also able to indulge her interest in horse-riding at weekends. Even the forty-minute drive into work for Cally had been worth it just to see the happy smiles on her young daughter’s face.
But Noel Carlton had moved in almost a year ago and since then it had all become a bit of a nightmare. Even complaints to the agent for the estate that she had arranged to rent the gatehouse from initially had not elicited any satisfaction.
Which was why she had paid Noel Carlton a visit herself two months ago. At that visit she had found the man absolutely charming, a fact he’
d obviously picked up on as he had suggested they go out to dinner together some time to discuss the problem further.
To say she had been stunned by the invitation would be putting it mildly.
She had been disappointed when he hadn’t bothered to call her, but had seemed to look through her the next time he’d seen her. And had continued to do so ever since.
Although, she recalled with a grimace, she hadn’t exactly given him the opportunity to ignore her this morning!
Cally set her shoulders. ‘It was an excellent idea,’ she stated firmly. ‘I’m determined that he will tire of country life before I do!’
Her sister chuckled, shaking her head. ‘I wish you luck. I—uh-oh.’ Her hazel-coloured gaze moved to the huge window that looked out on the busy high street from where they ran their business.
‘What—?’ Cally’s attention was also caught by the grim-faced man striding determinedly past the window, the colour draining from her face as she realized he was coming here. ‘It’s him!’ she squeaked breathlessly, at the same time coming sharply to her feet.
Pam turned back with a frown. ‘What—?’
‘It’s him!’ Cally repeated frantically.
‘I—where are you going?’ Pam demanded as Cally made a quick exit in the direction of the back room where they made hot drinks and kept the stationery.
‘To make some coffee. I—get rid of him!’ she pleaded before disappearing behind the open door.
But she made no effort to go and make coffee, or indeed anything else, as she heard the outer door open before being closed with suppressed violence. Nothing had changed there, then!
‘Can I help you?’ she heard Pam offer politely.
‘I certainly hope so,’ the man rasped.
Noel Carlton!
There was no doubt about it, Cally accepted with a wince after taking a surreptitious peek from behind the slightly ajar door and easily recognizing her nearest neighbour.