‘You should have told me.’
‘I tried to.’
She closed her eyes in regret—because he had.
‘We were fighting for the same thing from different corners,’ Elijah said softly. ‘You could only see good, whereas I …’
‘It would have been nice to meet in the middle.’
‘I am going to speak with Ms Anderson.’ He swallowed hard. ‘I have to do what is best for Guido and she is right—my lifestyle is not suited to a small child, not suited to any child …’
And she couldn’t bear it—couldn’t bear the thought of little Guido being a number in the system. Surely whatever love Elijah could offer was better than that? And then she halted. Because it wasn’t—wasn’t good enough for Guido the same way it wasn’t good enough for her.
‘You have to do what you think is right.’ Her voice was strained. ‘You will see him, though?’ Ainslie checked. ‘You will ring and keep in touch …?’
‘I’ll see him every day!’ Elijah frowned. ‘Are you feeling all right? Is your head hurting?’ And then he got it. ‘He’s mine,’ Elijah said simply. ‘I don’t have to prove that to Ms Anderson and I don’t have to prove it to myself—now I know it in my heart. I am going to move here. I don’t want to unsettle him again. He needs to have the people and the things he loves around him for a while. Enid is good for him, and Tony is looking to retire, so maybe he would work for me too—as a driver this time …’
‘What about your work?’ Ainslie asked. ‘What about the travel and the parties and the women …?’
‘Everything in moderation,’ Elijah answered. ‘Especially the women.’ His eyes held hers. ‘I’m hoping to scale them right back, actually—down to one!’
‘It’s not that straightforward.’
‘I don’t want to be without you,’ Elijah interrupted. ‘Never, ever again.’
‘Because of Guido?’
‘Because of you.’
Which was the right answer. But still she pulled her hands away—because even if it was extreme, the hate that had led them to this point was an extension of themselves. He was so mistrusting, so unsure. She remembered again the hell he’d put her through—remembered again every hurt.
‘I never slept with Angus.’
‘I know that.’
‘But you didn’t know that,’ Ainslie countered. ‘Which means that you don’t know me.’
‘I do now.’
‘Which is too late.’ It was the hardest thing to do, to turn her back on a future she so badly wanted—but as much as she loved him, she loved herself more. ‘Now I’ve passed all the tests suddenly you decide that I’m good enough? Well, guess what? I always was.’
‘What was I supposed to think?’
‘You didn’t think; you just assumed—saw a photo …’
‘I’m not talking about the photos!’ Irritated, annoyed, the old Elijah was back, his bedside manner fading as he stood up and paced the room. ‘I walk out of that hospital and on to the underground, holding my nephew, and I pray to God, to the universe, to anyone listening, for help—for something to happen, to show me the way. And I open my eyes and there you are.’ He jabbed a finger accusingly.
‘Everything okay?’ A nurse popped her head in and frowned.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Elijah snapped, and Ainslie nodded.
But the second they were alone, she rounded on him, furious, furious, that he thought he could talk to her like that—furious that she was lying in a hospital bed and being told off. She told him so!
‘I was nearly stabbed this afternoon!’
‘I was stabbed this afternoon!’ Elijah countered.
‘I’ve been mugged, attacked …’
‘Scoffing down afternoon tea?’ Elijah hurled just in case she was expecting sympathy. ‘Booking massages and personal shoppers?’
‘You can’t talk to me like that.’
‘So I’m supposed to just walk out?’ He glared. ‘Let you turn your back on the best thing that will ever happen to you? Because I’m telling you now—’ his voice rose as she opened her mouth to argue ‘—no one will ever love you as much as I do.’
And he meant it.
Because only Elijah could shout it the first time he said it.
‘I loved you even when I thought the worst—hell, Ainslie, I spent this morning wondering if I was mad because I was ready to forgive you for sleeping with a married man. I told myself that despite everything I believe in, every standard I’d set for the woman who would be my wife, that if it really was just one last time it would be better to forgive you than to lose you.’
It had never entered her head that his love might be greater than hers—that Elijah might forgive something she never, ever could.
‘It was so much easier to doubt you than to believe in you.’
‘Why?’ She just didn’t get it—honestly couldn’t fathom why he had chosen, at every turn, to think the worst.
Till he told her.
Walking over, he sat on the bed and word for word he said it again—only softly this time, holding her hands instead of jabbing a finger. ‘I walk out of that hospital and on to the underground, holding my nephew, and I pray to God, to the universe, to anyone listening, for help—for something to happen, to show me the way. And I open my eyes and there you are. You!’ he added. ‘The only person who didn’t walk on, the only person who stopped. Who came back with me to a house I was dreading entering, who took care of my nephew. And who fell in love with me.’
She nodded—not embarrassed, not blushing—just nodded at the simple truth. Tears streamed down her cheeks as he struggled to explain what had taken place in that beautiful head of his.
‘It was easier to think of you as a mistress, a gold-digger …’
‘Easier?’ Ainslie frowned. ‘How could that be easier?’
‘Prayers don’t just get answered. You don’t give out your wishes and expect an instant response. You don’t just open your eyes and the woman you’ve always wanted is there. Miracles don’t just happen.’
‘But they do,’ Ainslie countered.
Love—the miracle that occurred over the globe, thousands upon thousands of times every day. Random people the world over were looking up to find their soul mate looking back at them—the person, whether they realised it or not, who was the very one they were meant to be with.
‘Especially at Christmas!’ Ainslie said, as if it were obvious. ‘Everyone knows that.’
Lifting up her hand and capturing his proud cheek, she looked back with love at the man who had rescued her too that night, who had rescued her again today, and who would, she knew beyond a doubt, rescue her any time she needed it.
‘And I guess someone decided that we both deserved a miracle.’
EPILOGUE
HE LOOKED divine.
If she lived to be a hundred then the next seventy-two years, Ainslie realised, clutching her flowers, were going to be spent catching her breath.
Catching her breath at a man who really did stand a head above the rest.
Resplendent in a suit, and somehow holding onto the hand of a very spoilt and thoroughly over-excited Guido, who insisted on being the centre of attention, Elijah was the centre of hers. Even when Guido pulled out his corsage and stamped on it as heads turned to the arriving bride. Even when Guido spat in frustration when the best uncle in the world took the arm of the bride and walked up the aisle.
Ainslie followed behind.
‘Do you really think it appropriate that she’s wearing white?’ he whispered into her ear later, the giver-away of the bride dancing with the bridesmaid.
‘Absolutely.’ Ainslie nodded dreamily, lifting her head from the haven of his chest to see Enid smiling shyly at Tony.
‘What was that?’ In a room of couples dancing, he stopped.
‘A kick.’
‘He kicked!’ His hand moved to her velvet-clad belly—held the swell of their baby in his hot palm. He grinned. ‘He kicked again! He’ll pla
y for Italia!’
‘So might she!’ Ainslie said pointedly.
‘Good.’ Elijah shrugged. ‘Ms Anderson can coach her.’
And even on a thimble of champagne to toast the bride, and a gallon of sparkling water and orange juice, he made her drunk with laughter. Reprobate, irrepressible, yet somehow incredibly tender—Elijah: the miracle that just kept giving.
‘Guido is going to be so jealous when the baby comes …’ Elijah sighed into her hair.
‘He’s already jealous.’ Ainslie grinned, watching as he pummelled the floor with his fists as Ainslie’s mother, who was over for Christmas, tried to soothe him. ‘Fancy us two having the nerve to dance and forget to ask him!’
‘He’s getting better, though?’ Elijah checked, and she nodded.
It had been hard, because despite his tender age Guido had missed his parents—still missed them, Ainslie was sure—but they were doing their best to fill that gap.
‘He’s getting there.’
And so were they.
Their decision to stay in London had been hard, but the right one. His home was the one constant they could offer Guido when everything else in his little world had shifted. All their worlds had shifted—as the adoption had gone through, as Elijah had scaled back his work, as new relatives had visited from Australia. As Ijah slowly became Dad and, one recent day, Ainslie for the first time became Mum.
Yet they helped him remember—the digital photo frame Ainslie had so lovingly purchased often a source of comfort for the little boy who did actually miss his parents. Slowly Guido’s house had become their home—and never more so than now. The tree was back in the lounge, a wreath was on the door just as it had been last year, parcels were hidden in the wardrobe, and the house was filled with all the laughter and tears that came with any family at Christmas—especially when the mother-in-law comes to stay!
‘I love you!’ Ainslie said, just in case he needed reminding.
‘How could you not?’
It was Elijah who couldn’t accept the compliment—Elijah who made a brave joke and a stab at humour. Elijah who woke her at night sometimes just to check that she was there, that this woman who had dashed into his life wasn’t going to disappear in a puff of smoke, just as everyone he had ever loved before her had. ‘You know I love you …’
He stared into her heart and beyond it, took her with that look to places they would one day visit, to two lifetimes that were now one and would share together each day.
‘I do know,’ Ainslie answered, because she did. ‘But tell me again why?’
‘Because,’ Elijah said, struggling for a moment before succinctly delivering her the perfect answer. ‘Just because …’
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
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Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
CELEBRATION © Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. 2011
Italian Boss, Ruthless Revenge © Carol Marinelli 2008
One Magical Christmas © Carol Marinelli 2008
Hired: The Italian’s Convenient Mistress © Carole Marinelli 2008
ISBN: 978-1-408-95748-6
Celebration: Italian Boss, Ruthless RevengeOne Magical ChristmasHired: The Italian’s Convenient Mistress Page 43