Fatherhood Fever!

by Emma Darcy

  His mother stunned Matt by bursting into tears just as he’d picked up his car keys, ready to leave.

  “It’s my fault,” she cried, wringing her hands in despairing anguish. “I know it’s my fault. If I hadn’t nagged you about a grandchild...”

  “Mum!” He banged the keys down on the kitchen counter in sheer exasperation. “I’ve heard enough of this ridiculous nonsense. Will you get it through your head I’m doing what I want to do? It has nothing to do with you!”

  “I pushed you together and now she’s marrying you for your money,” she wailed.

  “Well, thanks a lot, Mum. I thought I had other things going for me.” Sarcasm, he knew, was not becoming, but he was being pushed to the limit here.

  “I’ll go out more. I’ll join clubs.” Her voice rose hysterically. “I’ll go on a diet and look after myself. You needn’t worry about me. I can make a life without any grandchildren.”

  “Good!”

  “So you don’t have to get married and...”

  “I want to marry Peta Kelly and nothing you say is going to stop me, so you might as well accept it, Mum. I told you...it’s just like Dad with you...”

  “Your father didn’t move this fast. Six days...it was six months before he proposed. He courted me. He did things properly. And I loved him...”

  His chest went tight. So Peta didn’t love him. They’d settled on an arrangement. It would work. They wanted each other. It was enough. He dragged in a deep breath and released it on a sigh of determined finality.

  “I have to go. I’ll be late for the christening if I don’t leave now. I’m sorry you’re upset, Mum, but I assure you, there’s no reason to be. Peta is not—absolutely not—marrying me for my money. Now please...” He tried an appealing smile. “...Just wish me well and let me go.”

  “Why do you have to rush into it?”

  Because nothing was going to change and celibacy didn’t suit him. Not where Peta Kelly was concerned. Unfortunately, he didn’t think his mother would appreciate that point.

  “Mum...I’m going. You’ve got six weeks to the wedding if you want to start dieting. I would like the mother of the groom to turn up.”

  He regathered his keys and headed for the front door.

  “I can’t approve of this, Matt,” she called after him.

  He paused at the door to look back at her. “It’s my life, Mum,” he said quietly. “My choice...my life.”

  He left her on that note, thinking she would change her tune by this time next year. Once she had a grandchild to dote over, she would forgive and forget everything that had worried her.

  A baby... Matt smiled to himself as he settled into his car for the trip back to Sydney. It would be great having a baby with Peta. It would bond them together as nothing else could.

  As for love...

  It would come.

  It had to.

  The feelings he had wouldn’t make sense otherwise.

  The build-up of tension eased the moment Peta saw Matt’s forest green Jaguar turn into the church grounds. Her nerves stopped screaming. She could relax. He’d come. He wasn’t even late. Her family had arrived early, eager for a get-together before the christening ceremony began, and their curiosity about the new man in her life had forced her to field a lot of awkward questions.

  “There’s Matt now,” she said, hoping the words sounded more like delight than relief.

  “He drives a Jag?” Her brother, John, was clearly impressed.

  “What did you say he does for a living?” Paul inquired, the classy car having put his mind in sharper focus.

  “Matt owns and runs a merchandising company. It’s called Limelight Promotions,” Peta answered with exaggerated patience.

  “Guess he’s used to getting what he wants when he wants it,” John reasoned.

  Peta glared at him. “I am not marrying Matt for his money.”

  Though she was glad he had it. As his mother said, it was much easier establishing a home and bringing up a family if there were no financial worries. Peta wanted the best for her children.

  The Jaguar came to a halt in a parking slot. The driver’s door opened and Matt stepped out, looking even more impressive than his car, his splendid physique enhanced by a perfectly tailored navy blue suit and everything about him shouting top executive class.

  “Oh! What a handsome man!” her mother exclaimed, surprised and pleased.

  “Definitely loaded with sex appeal,” Megan muttered.

  Yes, he was. He really was, Peta thought, a little thrill of anticipation tingling through her. “Excuse me,” she said, and moved to meet him.

  It would be all right...this marriage, she told herself fiercely. Any woman would be proud to have Matt Davis as her husband. And the sex would be good. No doubt about that. Best of all, he would give her the family she wanted because he wanted it, too.

  A smile grew, lighting up her face and warming her soul as she walked towards the man who would be the father of her children.

  Matt waited by the car, watching her come to him, too entranced to move forward himself. His chest felt as though it was fit to burst. She glowed. She outshone the rest of the world. Her smile sent tingles all the way to his toes. She was exotic and beautiful and everything he wanted in a woman. And she was his. Or soon would be.

  The royal blue suit she wore moulded her curves with a sexy emphasis that had Matt fighting to control himself. The short skirt had temptation roaring through his head. Her long, lovely legs, shimmering in sheer black stockings, filled his mind with wildly erotic images. He wanted her so badly, it was all he could do to remind himself her family was watching and he didn’t have Peta to himself. Yet.

  “Hi!” she said, her eyes warmly welcoming him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, nodding to her family, trying desperately to focus on what was important today.

  Her smile turned wry. “I hope you’re up to an inquisition.”

  He grinned. “Man of steel.”

  It made her laugh. She had a lovely laugh, an infectious bubbly sound that seemed to dance through his heart. Matt looked forward to listening to it all his life.

  “Maybe this will help,” he said, drawing the small velvet box from his trouser pocket.

  She stared down at it as he handed it to her. Her fingers fumbled over opening it. The diamond ring seemed to mesmerise her. She didn’t exclaim over it. She didn’t move to put it on. She stood utterly still, and to Matt’s sharply scanning eyes, the colour drained out of her vivid face, leaving it oddly lifeless.

  Alarm bells clamoured in his mind. Was the reality of their decision striking home to her? Would she back off, faced with this symbol of commitment? His whole being screamed to hold on to her. He acted, plucking the ring from its satin bed, taking her left hand in his.

  “Allow me,” he said gruffly, determined on sealing their agreement.

  The magnificent solitaire diamond winked mockingly at her. It felt as though a vice had clamped around her heart, squeezing it unmercifully. It should have been Giorgio giving her this. She’d dreamed of it so many times... Giorgio, taking her hand, sliding on his ring...

  It was wrong...letting Matt Davis do it.

  I can’t go through with this. I can’t...

  But if I don’t...

  Diamonds are forever...like children...solid, lasting dreams that could come true...

  The ring settled into place.

  Peta took a deep breath and looked up at the man who’d put it there, the man whose promises weren’t empty, the man who wanted to stand by her, support her, whose strength she could lean on in the years ahead when they had their family.

  “I’ll be a good wife to you, Matt,” she whispered.

  Tears filming her eyes. Did a ring mean so much? Matt didn’t understand. But he felt her giving herself to him and he forgot they were being watched by her family. Only she existed for him. He lifted her hands to his shoulders, wrapped his arms around her waist, and did what he needed to do.<
br />
  He kissed her.

  The apprehension that had seized him was swept away by an intoxicating rush of passion, flowing as fiercely from Peta as it did from him, and Matt exulted in it, loving the way her mouth responded to his, loving the feel of her body sinking against him, her wonderful soft breasts, her stomach, her thighs...his woman.

  “Matt...” A feathering gasp against his lips, intensely sensual.

  “Mmh...” Excitement pulsing through him.

  “My family...”

  A jolt of recollection. Matt struggled out of his absorption in the sensations Peta aroused in him, opening his eyes to the embarrassed appeal in hers. Her cheeks bloomed with colour. She was vibrantly alive now and his heart soared with the pleasure of it.

  “You’ve got lipstick on your mouth,” she said dazedly.

  He let her slide away from him and plucked the handkerchief from his breast pocket. “Better clean me up then,” he invited.

  She took the cloth and quickly erased the mark of their kiss. He didn’t care. He could still feel it.

  “Is mine smudged?” she asked anxiously.

  “No.” He grinned with pure happiness. “You look perfect.”

  She gave a self-conscious laugh and tucked his handkerchief back in his pocket. “They’re waiting to meet you.”

  “And I’m all primed to meet them.”

  Another delightful bubble of laughter.

  Matt caught her hand—the left one, wearing his ring—linking himself to her as they moved as one to begin facing the future together.

  Megan watched their approach, ignoring the buzz of comment from the family as she keenly observed the man who had persuaded her sister to recklessly throw her lot in with him. She wanted to find fault. She wanted some cause to show Peta how wrong she was in entering a loveless marriage. Instead she found herself helplessly torn by what she saw.

  He adored her.

  That obvious truth kept echoing through Megan’s mind, while festering behind it was the knowledge that Peta didn’t love him. What would that do to him in the long run when his love wasn’t answered by love, when the cup of hope was drained and disillusionment set in, emptying his heart of all the feelings beaming from him today?

  It was wrong...wrong...

  Yet what could she do?

  She loved her sister and wanted the best for her.

  Maybe Matt Davis was best for her.

  Except...was it fair to him?

  CHAPTER TEN

  MATT glanced at his watch again. Only a minute had gone by since he’d last checked. It felt like a million years and there were still another four minutes to go.

  His best man leaned over and dryly remarked, “If you’re counting on punctuality, Matt, forget it. Brides are always late.”

  He managed a rueful smile at his old friend. A bank of good memories lay between him and Tony Beaman, a long sharing, yet he couldn’t confide the uncertainties racking him during this wait. “That’s true,” he acknowledged.

  True of the weddings he’d attended over recent years. He shouldn’t be counting on Peta turning up at exactly eleven o’clock, but if she didn’t, this unshakable anxiety was going to get a hell of a lot worse.

  She’d been so quiet, withdrawn inside herself at the rehearsal on Thursday night and he hadn’t seen her since. Though she had sounded all right on the telephone when he’d called, calm and full of organisational details for the wedding. He didn’t really believe she’d get cold feet at this late hour. He just...needed her here with him.

  A tap on his shoulder. He swung around to his mother who sat in the pew directly behind him, looking positively resplendent in a flowing peach outfit, her hair glowingly dyed a similar shade and lightened with artful blond streaks.

  “I must say they’ve done a wonderful job with the flowers,” she whispered. “The church looks lovely.”

  Flowers? Matt hadn’t even noticed them. He did, however, hear the concession in his mother’s voice and it wasn’t a grudging one. Had she finally resigned herself to the inevitable?

  “You look lovely, Mum. I’m very proud of you,” he said with genuine warmth. She’d trimmed down considerably over the past month and with her hair restyled, she looked ten years younger.

  She flushed with pleasure, though his compliment didn’t quite erase the touch of anxiety in her eyes. “I just hope you’ll be happy, Matt,” she said softly, caringly.

  He nodded, momentarily too choked up to speak. He loved his mother. He wanted her to be happy for him. It was probably the idea of him suddenly belonging to someone else that had upset her. Once the marriage was fact...

  The raised sound of commotion outside the church distracted both of them. “The cars must have arrived,” his mother murmured.

  Matt checked his watch. Eleven o’clock, on the dot. Relief poured into a quickly rising sense of elation. Everything was fine. Peta wanted this marriage as much as he did. She was right on time.

  The guests who had waited outside for the arrival of the bridal party started trickling into the church. First amongst them was Father O’Malley who’d been greeting those he knew at the church door. An old family friend, he’d married Peta’s parents and had officiated at all the Kelly christenings and marriages since then. Peta had insisted on having him conduct their wedding ceremony, though he was now in a retirement home and, in Matt’s private opinion, a bit on the vague and doddery side.

  He beamed benevolently at Matt, and fussily ushered him and Tony to their positions in front of the altar, ready for the entrance of the bride. “Big day, big day...got to get it right,” he babbled to himself, the excitement of the occasion causing him considerable nervous agitation.

  The strain on Matt’s nerves had eased. He felt quite calm, watching the guests settle themselves in the pews, nodding and smiling at friends, his secretary, other highly valued employees. Peta’s mother, accompanied by her eldest son, Paul, was the last to take her place. There was a happy hum of anticipation in the church. It started to tingle through Matt as the music began.

  His gaze flipped over the two flower girls leading the procession down the aisle—Paul’s daughters, decked out in cream and gold like little princesses. It fastened on Megan, Peta’s sister and matron of honour, a pretty blonde who had a subtle way of getting what she wanted. Peta’s bold spontaneity obviously pained her.

  She’d pasted a smile on her face that glittered as brightly as her golden dress, yet to Matt, it had a false brightness. He’d sensed a reserve in Megan from their very first meeting and it hadn’t gone away. Whatever her reasons, she was no more in favour of this marriage than his mother was.

  But it didn’t matter anymore.

  Peta was here.

  As Megan stepped up from the aisle, leaving his view of Peta and her father unimpeded, Matt’s breath caught in his throat. His bride... It was a moment of utter enchantment. She looked like some magical, medieval queen moving regally towards him; her high-necked, long-sleeved gown sheening her curves with deep cream satin, moulding her fantastic figure to her hipline where a band of pearls and gold braid held a skirt that fell in graceful folds, gradually flowing out into a long train. A similar pearl and gold band encircled her hair, supporting a veil that floated around her face, giving it an air of seductive mystery.

  His heart seemed to swell. Her stunning femininity called to everything male in him. He wanted to lay the world at her feet. He wanted to hold her safe from all hurt. Like the knights of old he’d do battle for this woman. She was a queen...his queen.

  Her father released her and she stepped up to stand beside him, offering her hand. It was trembling. Matt suddenly felt the gravity of what they were doing—pledging themselves to each other, entering an intimate togetherness that would span the rest of their lives. All that had gone before was ending now with the vows they were about to exchange, and he was acutely conscious of the responsibilities he was undertaking as he took his bride’s hand in his.

  Through the filmy veil misting
the vivid beauty of her face, he saw the deep blue sea of vulnerability in her eyes, and silently, fervently promised her it would be all right. He would take every care of her. Her lips moved into a quivery smile and he sensed her trying to hold fear at bay, to bravely commit herself to him, and Matt was so caught up in transmitting reassurance, he barely followed the words of the ceremony.

  There was some kind of general address about marriage from Father O‘Malley, readings from the Bible that he knew Peta had selected as meaningful to her—lead-ups to the serious business of sealing their promises to each other. Then the moment was upon him and he repeated each phrase intoned by Father O’Malley, his pulse thumping so hard it seemed to roar in his ears.

  “I, Matthew Jeremy Davis...take you, Peta Mary Kelly...”

  He completed his part and to his utter bewilderment, the gravity of Peta’s expression started to disintegrate, first with a twitching smile which she couldn’t suppress, then her eyes dancing with unholy amusement, finally a giggle which was so inappropriate it sparked panic in Matt. Was she struck with some form of hysteria? Did it mean she was about to back out?

  He had the ring in his hand, ready to slide it onto her finger but she was holding her palm up to stop him. The effort to control herself was obvious. A few titters ran around the congregation. Nervous reaction to imminent disaster, Matt wildly reasoned. He himself was paralysed by it.

  The priest hadn’t noticed anything amiss. Peta leaned over and grasped his arm, halting him in the midst of, “I, Peta Mary...”

  Halting him before he came to declaring them husband and wife!

  Matt’s heart dropped like a stone.

  “Father, I think you’d better do Matt’s vow again,” she gently advised him. “It got a bit muddled. You just guided him into promising to be my wife.”

  “Oh!” Father O’Malley looked mortified. “Oh, my goodness! I do beg your pardon, Matthew. My eyes must have skipped to the next vow. They’re not as sharp as they used to be. I was thinking Peta will make a wonderful wife...good stock, you know, the Kellys...”