by Annie O'Neil
“Pasta would be nice,” Matthew said, before quickly adding, “As long as I’m not intruding.”
Amanda gave him a sidelong glance. One that spoke volumes. Of course he was intruding. She would have told him about her pregnancy two years and nine months ago if she’d wanted him involved in their lives.
Their intentions had seemed so clear back then. Two people interested in one night of disappearing into each other. And disappear they had. He didn’t know what pain or dark thoughts she’d been trying to escape that night, and he certainly hadn’t pulled out the My Brother Killed Himself on My Watch card.
But that was then, and single mother Amanda was a very different type of Cinderella now.
She had hardly been able to disguise her horror when he’d appeared outside the doctors’ lounge. It must have taken an enormous leap of faith to hand over her son to him. For that was who he was. Her son. He would offer to help support Tristan. Of course. It was the least he could do. Especially with Amanda blithely mentioning chilblains.
He made a note to make a few calls about installing central heating into the house. He wouldn’t have his son and the mother of his child suffering from the cold.
“And just across the square here.”
“I’ve been in the square before, Amanda.”
We kissed the daylights out of each other. Remember?
“Mmm...” Amanda pushed the gate open without so much as a sideways look at the large Douglas Fir wrapped in a swirl of fairy lights. It was even kitted out with enormous weatherproof “presents” he hadn’t noticed the other day.
Presents. If only he hadn’t pleaded with his parents for that special gaming device. They’d had to queue for hours.
Would’ve. Should’ve. Could’ve.
These were things the world was built on.
Done. Over. Move on.
That was reality.
“Are you coming?”
Amanda held the gate open and waited until he was well past her before circling back round and shutting the gate. Still no eye contact. No mention of the obvious physical attraction they had for one another. Or the son he was carrying in his arms.
“You won’t catch anything contagious, you know.” Matthew tried to give her a good-natured elbow in the ribs, but missed as she briskly walked past him.
“Sorry?” She reeled on him. “What’s that meant to mean?”
“If you look at me. I haven’t changed from the last time you saw me. I just—”
He stopped, slipping his arm protectively up his son’s small back, acutely aware of the toddler’s hand splayed out on his chest, warming the spot directly above his heart. Five perfect little boy fingers.
“This is a lot to process. I should’ve come with you to X-Ray, but—”
“You’re not the only one processing,” she fired back at him in a shout-whisper, hackles raised, emotions freed, as if being a few hundred meters from the hospital had finally unlocked a cupboard full of simmering emotion.
Matt reached out to touch her arm and she batted it away.
“Don’t. Please. I just—”
Amanda stopped, her fingers covering her mouth as she muttered a few words he couldn’t quite catch. Something close to “the last thing in the universe” she’d been hoping for, if his bat-like hearing was fine-tuned enough.
She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed out a sigh. “Let’s just...let’s just go in and get this over with. I’ll withdraw my candidacy for the job in the morning and then you won’t have to worry about seeing us ever again.”
“Hey! Hang on a minute. A few hours ago I didn’t know I had a two-year-old son. Now that I do...”
My whole life has taken a turn I’d never imagined.
“Just give me some time to get used to the idea. We don’t know what direction this is going to take—”
“We?” Amanda cut him off with a disbelieving shout, then regrouped into a low growl when Tristan stirred. “We are not a ‘we.’ Tristan and I—that’s a we. Tristan and you...? Not so much.”
Something deeply instinctive roiled in Matthew’s chest. Or was it a new part of his heart awakening to the inexplicable pride and love that came from being a parent? He didn’t know.
He was the last person his parents had been interested in after his brother had died. His father had found comfort in work and whiskey. His mother had not even bothered to disguise the fact that she was having affairs, finally moving halfway across the world to erase the past she no longer wanted to acknowledge. He hadn’t heard from her in years. For all he knew she was still on the go. Still seeking peace.
Amanda’s barely contained frustration was threatening to bleed across to him.
The lyrics of the song the hospital choir had been singing popped into his head—“Let there be peace on earth...”
He finished it in a whisper. “And let it begin with me.”
He gestured for Amanda to carry on walking, resisting the urge to ruffle the snowflakes from her hair, “C’mon. This is new terrain for both of us. We may as well get in the warm and get Tristan to sleep. Agreed?”
Amanda glared at him, hands on hips. She was looking fit to snatch her son right out of his arms, and in truth he didn’t blame her. He was still reeling. For the first time in his life he was genuinely up in the air about having a family of his own.
For the last fifteen years the answer had always been a solid no.
And now, with a woman he was centimeters away from being in love with, feeling the weight of his little boy in his arms, with his little hands and his toddler scent and eyes that felt like looking into a mirror, everything had changed.
There was, of course, the vital task of trying to establish a relationship with the woman who looked prepared to scratch his eyes out if so much as a single hair on her son’s head was hurt. Not a single thing about the situation screamed easy. But he knew in his heart he damn well wasn’t going to let Amanda call all the shots. Half the reason this little boy existed was because of him. And the other half was because Amanda had found him every bit as desirable as he’d found her.
They worked together and played together as if they had been made for one another. Now they were going to have to find a way to build on that. Parent together.
“Well, get a move on, if you’re coming,” Amanda snapped. “It’s the one over there with the wreath.”
Matt looked across the square, following the line her finger hand drawn to the black and white bricked doorway arches where he’d seen... Ah, it must have been Auntie Florence and Tristan in the window. And...yes. There she was again. Anxiously peering out into the darkness, waiting for them to come home.
“Right. then. Let’s get you both home.”
* * *
“Do you want to see him being tucked into bed?”
Amanda was unwrapping her scarf, barely resisting the urge to flick it at Matthew who, to his credit, was simply standing in the entryway, patiently holding her son—their son—and waiting for her to regain some semblance of maturity.
Matthew shook his head in the negative.
“Oh? Too close for comfort? Too much like parenting?”
Matthew’s expression hardened, his eyes crackling with barely suppressed anger. “You don’t know a thing about me, so watch what you say.”
“As if any woman could get to know a thing about you, with all your smooth lines and back-off-I-don’t-do-intimacy vibes. Well, don’t think you need to stick around on my account. Go on, then. You know where the door is.”
She flicked her hands at him as if shooing an enormous chicken out of her entryway.
“Off you go.”
She yanked off her coat so aggressively the sleeves turned inside out, then practically threw it at the wooden coat-stand in the entryway. Matthew reached o
ut to steady it as her heavy coat set the antique stand swaying but she was on a roll.
“I suppose you’re too busy lining up the girls for your next conquest to stick around long enough for a bedtime story for your son.”
“Is that what you think you were?” Matthew ground out, covering his son’s head with a protective hand. “A conquest?” The disdain in his eyes was almost palpable.
“It doesn’t matter what I think—it matters what you think, and I don’t remember my phone ringing off the hook.”
“I don’t remember a certain Cinderella sticking around long enough for me to ask for her number, let alone her name.” He arced a brow at her, daring her to contest him.
Amanda reached out to take Tristan from Matthew, her head spinning with too many thoughts. Even the softness of her son’s body in her arms wasn’t enough to stop her thoughts twisting and turning. Why were they fighting? Matthew was obviously trying to do the right thing. The mature thing. And all she wanted to do was battle this intense surge of longing she felt for them to be a family in the only way she knew...by pushing him away.
“Well, a girl has her—”
She stopped herself. She had been about to say “standards,” but Matthew ticked every box in her head, heart, and—she had to face it—her erogenous zones. He was perfect, and she didn’t deserve perfect. And she certainly wasn’t going to corner him into doing something he didn’t want to do.
“A girl has her what?” Matthew pressed. “Pride? Dignity? Secrets?”
She nestled her face into her son’s curls, trying to collect her thoughts and stop the threatening sting of tears.
Matthew had hit the nail on the head with all three of his questions. After her ridiculous Las Vegas marriage had ended so cruelly she’d kept everyone at arm’s length. Further if possible. And the only reason she was fighting Matthew right now was because she knew she didn’t deserve his help.
But the fire she saw in his eyes meant only one thing. He cared. He wanted to be involved. And just the idea of living up to anyone’s expectations besides Tristan’s scared the living daylights out of her. She’d let her parents down so much. And John. She’d been a girl on a quest for something solid only to discover what she thought had been real had been built on a fiction. And she was terrified to open her heart only to have it thrown back in her face.
“Darling?”
Amanda looked up to the stairwell to see her aunt leaning over the wooden rail, a lace handkerchief pressed to her lips.
“Is everything all right, my love?”
“Yes.” Amanda nodded, suddenly feeling exhausted. “Just... Matthew’s come along to help.”
“He’s here?” Florence drew away from the banister and out of sight.
“Yes, he’s...” Amanda shot a quick apologetic glance at Matthew. “I’ll go up and check she’s all right and put Tristan to bed. The kitchen’s just through that door there, at the end. Pour yourself a glass of wine, if you can find some, and I’ll be down in a minute to fix some supper.”
“How about I make supper?” Matthew looked toward the kitchen door before shifting his gaze up toward Florence. “That is, if you and your aunt trust me not to poison you and you’re happy for me to make myself at home.”
Home.
If only...
Amanda gave him a tight smile of thanks and nodded. “If you don’t mind, that would be really helpful. And the kitchen’s the warmest room in the house, so it’s probably best you stay in there. I think there’s pasta in...”
Matthew reached out and gave her shoulder a soft squeeze. Another tenderness she didn’t deserve. She strained against the growing sting of tears as he spoke.
“I’ll be fine. If you like simple bachelor’s fare you’re in luck. It’s my specialty.”
Unable to speak as the swell of gratitude grew in her chest, Amanda nodded and swiftly turned away, so he wouldn’t see the sheen of tears glazing her eyes form into drops and skid down her cheeks.
“Take your time,” she heard Matthew call behind her. “I promise I won’t turn into a pumpkin.”
And I promise I’ll try my best not to run away.
CHAPTER TEN
MATTHEW LIFTED THE wooden spoon to his lips and tasted the simple sauce he’d made from the handful of ingredients Amanda had on hand in her larder. A tin of tomatoes. A few slices of bacon. An onion that looked as if it had seen its peak a couple of days earlier.
The army had taught him to improvise, so he was pleased. There was a smattering of other food, suitable for a toddler, but this largesse didn’t seem to stretch to providing for the adults in the house.
He looked up at the ceiling when he heard a long scraping noise. Wood against wood. His gut reaction was to go and help, but something told him Amanda needed time alone with her son. If she needed him she would let him know.
He almost laughed at the thought. If the last two years were anything to go by, waiting for Amanda to ask him for help would be like waiting for pigs to fly.
He pulled the freezer door open, hoping to find just a little something extra to add to the sauce. It was completely empty save the remains of a bag of peas. This was ridiculous! Thank goodness he knew Tristan had eaten at the hospital, otherwise—
Otherwise nothing.
He gave himself a sharp mental slap. Amanda was working full-time. Her aunt was elderly and seemed to be the only one looking after the child—Tristan—all day. It obviously didn’t leave much time for shopping, and it was hardly as if the boy looked malnourished. This was obviously just an off-day in the groceries department.
Even so, he began adding to the list of things he wanted to put right—including a regular home delivery of staples.
He might not be offering her his heart, but he could certainly fill up her bare cupboards.
He turned at the sound of the swinging door behind him that must have been the servants’ entrance in the house’s glory days. Amanda slipped into the kitchen, a tartan blanket wrapped round her shoulders, all the while rubbing her hands together and blowing on them.
“Everything all right upstairs?” Matthew asked.
“Yes. Tristan’s gone straight to sleep, as expected, and Auntie Florence has insisted on staying with him for a while. The ‘first watch’ she called it. She made me drag one of her chaise longues in beside his bed.”
“One of them?”
“Yes.” Amanda gave a wry smile. “It’s her thing. We’ve got about five littered about the place.”
“No supper for her?”
Amanda shook her head. “She seems pretty upset about Tristan. I’ve been meaning to get a nanny for a while now. I was just waiting on—” She stopped and gave her feet a little stomp, as if knocking snow off them.
“Waiting on getting a full-time job?” Matthew guessed.
That wasn’t good. He didn’t want to take money away from Amanda if she needed it. Sure, he wanted the job, but at the expense of their welfare? No. That didn’t sit right.
None of it sat right. Her family was one of the wealthiest in London, if the newspapers’ “Rich List” was anything to go by. Weren’t her parents helping her at all?
Trying to connect the dots, he watched Amanda make the decision not to respond, deflecting his question by making a show of walking into the kitchen and tugging the blanket more snugly round her shoulders.
“Brr! You can see your breath upstairs—” She glanced up at him, then quickly continued, her voice defensive. “Tristan’s room has got a space heater in it. He’s fine.”
Matthew raised his hands, still holding the spoon. “I’m not here to judge—just to...stir the pot.”
“Yeah, you’ve stirred things up, all right.” Amanda glowered.
Something in Matthew snapped. He’d been trying his best to be grown up about this,
but if she wasn’t going to play along... No dice.
“If I’m not mistaken, I believe I’m the one who just found out he has a toddler. You’ve had just a bit longer to get used to the idea. And more than enough time to decide I wasn’t worth telling.”
“That’s not fair. That’s not why I didn’t tell you!” Amanda protested.
“Oh, no? Well, what was it, then? It certainly wasn’t lack of opportunity. It’s not like we haven’t been working twelve-hour days together, is it? Or that the flames of desire have been tamped. I felt the heat in your kisses the other night, so don’t you dare tell me keeping my son a secret wasn’t a calculated move.”
He took in a deep breath in an attempt to slow the rush of emotion charging through his chest—his heart—but he couldn’t. This was his son, too! Didn’t he have a right to know?
“I had to wait for a freak accident to find out I have a child? Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? Knowing I am that low in your estimation?”
Amanda angrily pulled her hair into a ponytail that swung from shoulder to shoulder as she glared at him and then at the ceiling and back again. “It wasn’t that. It wasn’t any of those things. So you can keep your healthy ego intact.”
“This isn’t about my ego, Amanda. It’s about my son. It’s about us.”
He hated the cruel note his voice kept striking, but was incapable of stopping it as a new revelation hit.
“Or is this actually all about your ego? Keeping up appearances, is it? I’m not your type? Not blue-blooded enough? Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t approve?”
“Stop!” Tears welled in Amanda’s eyes. “I’ve already said. It wasn’t any of those things.”
As quickly as the rage had flared in Matthew it died away. There was something in Amanda’s voice—her entire body language, in fact—that was all but screaming one simple thing. She wanted his help but felt she shouldn’t ask for it. Couldn’t ask for it for reasons only she knew.