by Annie O'Neil
It hurt...but not as much as falling back on his age-old insecurity of not being good enough. Why did he feel so powerless to combat that one excruciating fear? He was a soldier. A doctor. A Knight of the British Empire! It was foolish to let himself be hobbled by something that should have been diluted by the passing of time. And yet he was still a teenager in his heart, bearing his pain into adulthood. And from the looks of things Amanda had her own share of troubles that she’d been dragging around.
He slid the spoon back into the sauce and leant against the counter. “How about a deal?”
Amanda tensed and he held up a “wait for it” hand.
“Let’s say that for tonight—” He shook his head and corrected himself. “That until Christmas you and I cut each other some slack. I’m not saying we’re going to be able to sort everything out, but we have to be able to speak about Tristan. Otherwise things at the hospital could get tricky. And if there is one thing I do know about you it’s that you like to give your best at work.”
“You want to talk about him so that we’re good at work? Unbelievable.”
He narrowed his gaze for a moment. Did she want more? Her taut expression and defensive body stance was hardly the language of love, but perhaps she was as much of a stranger to genuine courtship as he was.
Time to behave as if you’re wearing your long trousers now, son.
“I’m trying to say that you don’t have to do this alone anymore. How we sort it will take more than one bowl of pasta’s worth of discussion, and in the meantime that A&E over there needs our help. I don’t think you want to let them down any more than I do.” He dipped his head and peered at her, trying to weasel out some form of a smile. “Is it a deal?”
Amanda’s shoulders dropped. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just...”
“Just a lot to digest,” he finished for her with a soft smile.
He was feeling it, too. Especially as she’d turned up in the kitchen spitting fire and... Oh, no. Why had she gone and dropped that blanket on the chair? It was a move designed to fight fire with a whole different variety of fire.
Gone were the work clothes. In their place was a form-fitting onesie that shouldn’t be sexy, but on Amanda...mmm... And that bosom-to-belly-button zipper was just calling out to be toyed with. Crikey. He didn’t stand a chance.
“Should we shake on it?” Amanda held out her hand and padded across the kitchen tiles, hand extended.
“Are those unicorn slippers?”
“Yes,” Amanda replied, as smoothly as if he’d asked if they were the latest designer’s elite creation. She pointed one of her toes, ballerina-style. “You like?”
“Mmm. Lovely.” He gripped the spoon and gave his pasta sauce a stir, knowing he’d far rather be unzipping her outfit and showing her just how much he liked everything about her.
“I thought we were going to shake on it?” Amanda extended her hand, her body giving a little shimmy beneath that shouldn’t-be-sexy-but-was ensemble of hers.
“I’m good with a verbal agreement.”
Matthew developed a fastidious interest in micromanaging the stirring of the sauce, vividly aware of Amanda dropping her hand, crossing her arms and studying him as if he were her latest science experiment. If said experiment could end up with the pair of them naked, he’d be all for it. But something bigger was at stake. His part in their son’s future. For that talk he needed his brain in full working order.
No longer able to bear being the object of her scrutiny, he abruptly started opening and closing cupboards. “You know, the one thing I couldn’t find was actual pasta. Where do you keep it hidden in this labyrinth of a kitchen of yours?”
“Ah...” She tapped the side of her nose and lifted a near invisible hatch on to a geriatric dumb waiter. “This is my secret pantry.” She swung her hands into a Ta-da! pose, then quirked her head to the side. “Oh.”
“Secret pantry empty tonight?” Matthew asked drily.
Amanda pushed her lips out into a pouty little moue, then nodded. “It appears so.”
“Are there any shops open in this neck of the woods? I can nip out and grab some, if you like.”
And ice the urge to rip your clothes off while I’m at it.
Amanda slumped onto a kitchen chair and made a show of slow-motion banging her head on the wooden table. “Why, why, why can’t one thing go right today?”
Unable to stop himself, he skirted round behind Amanda, pulled her discarded blanket up and round her shoulders. “C’mon. Up you get.”
“What? No,” she said grumpily into the fold of her arms. “I’m not moving.”
“Yes, you are. You’re going to sit in this chair, over by the range, and watch the sauce while I nip out and find some pasta.”
“I don’t want to eat anymore. Not hungry,” she pouted, though there was a touch of playfulness about her voice now. And the sound of her tummy audibly disagreeing.
“C’mon, little unicorn. Up you get.”
He pulled Amanda’s chair away from the table with her still in it, then went round to the front of her and lifted her up to stand, tucking his finger under chin and forcing her to look at him.
“I am not having the mother of my child pass out from hunger. Or get chilblains while she waits for her man to bring back provisions.”
Her man?
Where had that come from?
Amanda peered up at him, her lower lip protruding like a forlorn child’s, before pouting. “If there’s garlic bread out there could you get some of that, too?”
If they had been a couple this would have been the moment he would have dropped a delicate kiss on to her lips, followed by another, and another, until his fingers finally took purchase of that zip of hers and he was sliding his hands along her bare—
Amanda’s tummy gurgled again. She put up pretty-please hands.
He laughed. “I will do my best to hunt and gather some garlic bread.”
“Focaccia, if they have it. Not to be fussy or anything.” Amanda’s lips quirked into a lopsided smile.
Unable to stop himself, he stroked a few errant locks of blond hair back behind her ears, his fingertips grazing the soft down of her cheek as he did.
It would be so easy to fall in love with you.
He cleared his throat and stepped around her. If he wanted to protect and care for her and their so he was going to have to keep his distance. Hopefully the garlic bread would be strong enough to do the trick.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“YUM.” AMANDA PUSHED back her plate and patted her belly with both her hands. “That was delicious. Did your mother teach you to cook like that?”
“No.” Matthew screeched his chair back against the tiled floor, swiftly picking up their empty plates and taking them to the sink.
Okaaaay... “Touchy subject?”
“Something like that.” Matthew’s shoulders tightened as he turned the taps on full and started scrubbing at the dishes.
“Fair enough.” She tried to bring back the more relaxed atmosphere the pair of them had enjoyed over supper. Telling work stories mostly.
“My mother is hardly the top of my conversational favorites playlist.”
“You have a playlist, do you?”
His shoulders hunched. His actions intensified.
Scrub, scrub, scrub. Stack. Clank. Scrub. Clank. Screech of the tap.
“This water is bloody freezing, Amanda. Is your boiler working?”
A sigh gushed out of Amanda’s chest. “It’s on the list.”
“What list?” Matthew whirled round,
There had been a bit more bite in his voice than she thought he’d intended. Still more curious than accusatory. But even so... Pfft. He didn’t look as if he’d leave until he had an answer, so she’d better ’fess up.
“The I’m-always-breaking-so-I-need-to-be-replaced list.” She held up a hand and started ticking off on her fingers. “Heating, plumbing, double-glazing. There’s more, too. Cooking, shopping...” She threw both of her hands up in despair. “It’s never-ending.”
The crease between Matthew’s eyes deepened. They were glinting a darker blue than she’d ever seen them. A shiver of unease juddered down her spine. He wasn’t going to try to sue her for custody, was he? Deem her an unfit mother?
“Is this about money? Is it money you need?”
A baby dragon she hadn’t realized had been living in her heart roared to life.
Amanda jumped up from her chair and pointed to the door. “If that’s why you think I let you carry my son home you can just take your coat and leave. Now.”
Matthew tipped his chin to the side, his jaw tightening and his eyes narrowing as he coolly considered her. She watched his Adam’s apple as he appeared literally to swallow what she was saying.
“I think,” he said, after a taut moment of silence, “you meant our son. And I wasn’t suggesting you were luring me in here with your feminine wiles to get your hands on my wallet. I was asking if the reason your house hasn’t been brought into the twenty-first century is because of a cash flow problem.”
Amanda felt her indignation deflate like a popped balloon. “Oh. Right. Um...” She scrunched her mouth into a wince. “Sorry.”
“Well?” Matthew persisted. “Is it?”
“Is it what? About money? Yes. It’s about money. But not yours. I work hard for everything I have, and I learned long ago that other people’s money comes with conditions. And, no. Before you say it, I can’t ask my parents. I can see it in your eyes. Why isn’t Daddy helping? I’m afraid it’s a big, fat boo-hoo for the poor little rich girl. Daddy found out she wasn’t the pure, innocent little thing he wanted her to be so he yanked her trust fund away. Rightfully so, in case you’re wondering. And, yes—it was a long time ago. Well before I met you.”
“But I thought—”
“What? That because we were all at that benefit together we were a happy little family?”
Matthew nodded.
“Wrong again. That was for show. They were putting me through my paces—seeing if I could be crammed back into one of their precious little society roles. A trial run for the chastened daughter, I suppose. And guess what?” She rounded her hands in front of her belly as if she were pregnant again. “I failed.”
“You had Tristan to make your parents angry?” Matthew looked genuinely confused.
Feeling more of an idiot than a triumphant speech-giver, Amanda gave an exasperated toss of her hair and “deflated” her stomach. Frankly, she was a bit shocked at herself. Stunned, really. What was she doing, telling Matthew so much? Then it hit her. She wanted to tell him.
She’d been carrying around the weight of wondering whether or not to tell Matthew about his son for nearly three years and finally—explosively—she had a chance to unload it. All of it. She’d braced herself all this time for stormy rage and rejection, but...astonishingly...he was just standing there listening, nodding, taking what she said on board. Digesting.
He wasn’t looking thrilled, exactly, but... In for a penny, in for a pound. He wanted to know who the mother of his child was? He was going to hear the whole blinking story in all its gory details.
“C’mon.” She pulled the blanket from the back of the chair and headed toward the central corridor. “Let’s go into the sitting room. You’ll need to get comfortable for this.”
She walked into the high-ceilinged room and pulled the heavy drapes tight—then abruptly changed her mind when she saw how beautiful the falling snow was and pushed them open again.
“Shall I build a fire?” Matthew asked from the doorway.
“I should’ve bought a Christmas tree.”
Amanda sighed as she turned around and saw the room for what it was. A sitting room yet to acknowledge the holidays.
“Fire?” Matthew asked again, pointedly ignoring her Christmas tree comment.
What was it with him and Christmas anyway? She loved it. Just hadn’t gotten round to decorating. Or gift shopping.
“Amanda? Fire?”
“Yes, please.” She pointed to the wood stove her aunt had installed when she’d moved in over thirty years earlier. It still chugged along like a steam engine, but was no match for modern-day heating.
“Matches?”
“On the shelf there—with the photos on it.”
Matthew scanned the shelf and instead of picking up the matches picked up the photo in a small silver frame her aunt had insisted upon putting in the sitting room. Protesting, as she’d learned shortly after moving in, was pointless.
“Is this you with...?”
“Yup.” She nodded, a flush of heat pinking up her cheeks. “That’s me at... I think I was eight months pregnant.”
She didn’t know why she’d pretended to sound unsure. She knew exactly when it was. The day she’d moved in with her aunt after the head of the A&E department she’d been running had insisted she start taking her maternity leave straight away. In the highly strung state she’d been in she’d told them to take their job and stuff it. And they had.
More fodder for her belief that the whole world was out to prove she wasn’t mature enough to handle responsibility. Now she had a bit more perspective. She saw that they’d been looking after her interests as much as their own. But that didn’t mean the wound still didn’t have a bit of sting left in it.
“You look beautiful,” Matthew whispered, then met her gaze with a soft smile. “I wish I’d...”
He let the sentence trail off and pressed his lips into a tight line. They were both old enough to know that wishing didn’t make dreams come true.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she blurted.
“Why didn’t you? Really.”
He sat down on the far end of the sofa, one leg bent and the other hooked over it, a scarlet throw pillow peeking out from behind his back. Funny how at home he seemed in this old house. Some people didn’t quite know how to behave in it, with its eclectic collection of antiques and plain old well-loved furniture.
Museum or madhouse? A bit of both, really, if you included Florence and herself. Tristan was the only sane member of the family.
Tristan. The entire reason the two of them were here tonight.
She forced herself to meet Matthew’s blue-eyed gaze.
“I suppose...” She knew she owed Matthew the truth. “I suppose I wanted something all of my own. Someone I could love without conditions. Someone I could show on a daily basis that I was worth loving, too.”
She could have gone on, but the build-up of admitting even that much made her want to pull the blanket over her head and run upstairs to her room. But she had to do this. For Tristan. If his father wanted to be in his life, to show him the love he deserved, she needed to find a way to let Matthew in.
“What happened with your parents?” he asked. “It was them, wasn’t it? Who made you feel you weren’t worthy of love?”
“Sort of. Mostly. Or maybe it was me. But if you want me to pick one single incident when my parents made it clear I wasn’t up to snuff for being a ‘proper Wakehurst’ I don’t think I could.”
It was impossible to keep the strain of bitterness from her laugh, but just as quickly it slipped away. Holding on to that level of anger wasn’t going to help anyone—least of all her son, whom she hoped would get to meet his grandparents one day. How would they be able to resist those chubby little cheeks of his and those bright baby blues?
Perhaps it was time to turn the anger to sadness and then, if she could, let the sadness heal. Put out an olive branch. Swallow her pride and try again. At the end of the day she would never be at peace if she didn’t put
things right with her mother and father.
“Sometimes I think that no matter who a person is all their issues always boil down to dear ol’ Mum and Dad, don’t they?”
She’d said it more as a filler, but Matthew’s response—a slow, weighted nod—showed just how true it was.
“Okay.” She huffed out a sigh, then warned him, “The whole story might take a while.”
Matthew opened his palms toward her in an I’ve-got-all-the-time-in-the-world gesture.
“Right.” She put up her index finger. “Let me just say, right off the bat, that I know mine is hardly a tragic tale, but it does explain how Lady Amanda the trust fund princess became a doctor, then a single mum and has been trying to get her act together ever since.”
“I don’t see you like that.”
A soft warmth fluttered in her heart as Matthew’s confused expression turned almost defensive. As if he were protecting her from the pain her memories caused.
Swoon!
Regroup.
He’s not tilting his lance for you.
Yet.
Big breath in. “So...my childhood was your typical rich kid’s.”
“I didn’t have one of those. I’m afraid you’re going to have to spell it out for me.”
She widened her eyes in surprise. He seemed so at ease with his wealth. The charitable giving... His offers to help her with the wretched heating in this old house...
“But your father’s company—”
“Became successful after...” Matthew paused, his eyes growing as dark as a fathomless sea. “His company took off once I’d left home.”
Amanda was tempted to urge Matthew to tell his story, but his demeanor had shifted from I’ve-Got-All-Night to Just-Get-On-With-It.
“In my case it involved lots of nannies. They were always quitting, claiming I was a bit of a handful. And I guess I was.” She laughed thinking of the time she copied one of the tricks out of The Parent Trap involving honey and lots of string. It had seemed funny at the time.
“Usual naughty pranks?”