Inherited: Baby

by Nicola Marsh

Before he could react, she jumped up and scuttled out on to the Promenade, almost tripping in her haste.

  Maya walked quickly, striding past people strolling along the banks of the Yarra in the gorgeous summer sunshine.

  Riley caught up within a few paces and she forced herself to slow down, knowing she needed to finish what she’d come to say but feeling increasingly out of her depth with every second.

  She’d hoped to divulge her true feelings and see if he could find it in his kind heart to grow to love her like he loved Chas.

  She’d psyched herself up for it, dressing to impress, even wearing make up to boost her lousy self esteem. But the minute she’d walked into the trendy bar-cum-café where they’d met for pre-dinner drinks the night of the Ball, had seen his unsteady hand as he’d spilt his drink and smelt the awful pungent Scotch, her resolve had wavered.

  Common sense told her Riley wasn’t a drunk but once planted, the seed of doubt in her mind took root. Joe had been obsessed with alcohol, using it as a crutch. What if Riley was the same? He looked like hell. Maybe her turning down his offer to provide a home for Chas had sent him into a spiral and he’d reached for a drink to help him cope?

  Stupid, irrational doubts but, once there, they’d been enough to stifle her big tell-all session. Probably for the best, considering he probably thought she was a fruit-cake for her erratic behaviour.

  ‘Maya?’

  Riley laid a hand on her shoulder as they reached the footbridge and she stopped, knowing it was time to finish this one way or another.

  ‘This is complicated,’she said, trying to shrug off his hand, which felt way too good resting possessively on her shoulder.

  ‘Fine. I can do complicated. And, by the way, stop trying to wriggle away. I’m not letting go of you ever again,’ he said, hanging on to her arm and gently dragging her to a wrought iron bench on the river’s edge while she secretly wished he meant that literally. ‘Now, sit and tell me exactly what ‘this’ is all about.’

  He didn’t sound angry and his face wore its usual patient expression though confusion lit his eyes, a dazzling blue reflection of the clear Melbourne sky overhead.

  ‘This is this!’ She pointed to his hand resting possessively on hers and their close proximity, thigh to thigh, shoulder to shoulder. She’d attributed her pounding heart to the speed she’d been walking though the minute he’d sat next to her, her pulse rate had sped up rather than slowing. ‘You. Me. The time we spend together. The friendship.’

  She bit her lip, wanting to say more, terrified to do so.

  Thankfully, he read her mind like he always did. ‘There’s more to ‘this’, isn’t there?’

  ‘Yes! No! Oh, heck.’

  He slid his arm around her shoulder and she sagged against him before she realised what she was doing. When she tried to sit up, he held her tighter and she relinquished the last of her reticence and snuggled into him, savouring the solid warmth of his body next to hers and wishing he could hold her like this for ever.

  ‘You are one of the most confusing women I have ever known. One minute you’re freezing me out, the next you’re soft and vulnerable and I want to hold you like this for ever.’

  Maya’s pulse spiked as he echoed her own silent wish of a second ago before realising what he meant. He thought she was vulnerable, just like he always had and in true Riley Bourke fashion he had to save her.

  Riley the crusader for the downtrodden, pulling on his superhero cape and rescuing her at the slightest hint of trouble.

  Well, she was through with being rescued. She needed more and, if he couldn’t give it to her, she’d give him a painful wedgy with that superhero underwear he wore on the outside of his jeans.

  ‘Well, you can’t.’ She struggled to an upright position and shrugged out of his embrace. ‘Forever is a long time and I only want to be held that way by a guy who means it.’

  To her annoyance he chuckled—a deep, rich sound which made her want to laugh too.

  ‘A guy who means it? By ‘it’ I’m assuming you mean ‘this’?’

  He gently cupped her face and turned her towards him, his blue eyes blazing with desire, a startling passion which took her breath away. She waited as he framed her face with his hands and leaned forwards, his lips inching towards her with maddening slowness.

  Probably giving her an out, knowing him, and she closed the remaining distance between them in record time, desperate for his kiss.

  Fireworks exploded in her head as his lips moved on hers, teasing, commanding, giving, taking.

  A long, hot, open-mouthed kiss which had her wanting to dive into the river to cool off before she did something crazy like strip off and jump him.

  The type of kiss she’d dreamed of since she’d acknowledged her forbidden feelings for him, the type of kiss which would seal her fate once and for all.

  After a mind-blowing, toe-curling eternity, he broke the kiss, his thumbs tracing her lips, which felt as if they’d swelled to double their size. Could be a reaction to the new lip gloss she’d tried for the first time? Nah…

  ‘I’m hoping ‘it’ was to your satisfaction.’

  She whacked him on the arm, trying to look serious and failing miserably. It was difficult to remain aloof when she’d just been thoroughly kissed by the man of her dreams.

  ‘This was never meant to happen,’ she said, turning her head slightly to plant a soft kiss in the palm of his hand before taking both his hands in hers.

  He nodded, his face falling. ‘Because of your love for Joe.’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘Of course. What other reason could there be?’

  Maya shook her head and glanced around, watching a canoe float by, business people scurrying along and the odd couple holding hands while taking a leisurely stroll along the river.

  She wanted to be one of those romantic couples. She yearned for it. And there was only one way she would get it. By telling the truth. All of it.

  ‘I don’t love Joe. I’m not sure if I ever loved Joe.’

  Riley frowned, an adorable indentation between his brows, and she resisted the urge to lean over and smooth it away with a reassuring kiss. ‘But I thought—’

  ‘Wrong. Joe swept me off my feet and made me forget my problems. He made me fall in love with him out of sheer persistence and I fell quickly. I’d never been with a guy before; I’d been looking after my mum full time while juggling a job at the stables and I didn’t have a social life let alone a suave guy like Joe to look twice at me. It went to my head.’

  Riley didn’t interrupt. He merely squeezed her hands as if urging her to continue.

  ‘And addled my brains. I was so besotted with the idea of being in love rather than the guy I was supposed to be in love with that I went along for the ride. Then I moved in with him, I got pregnant, he proposed and things went downhill from there.’

  ‘You looked so happy that first night, like the perfect couple.’

  ‘Joe wanted it to look that way. He had a habit of charming me one minute, treating me like a dog the next. I stuck around for the sake of our unborn baby and I tried to make it work, hoping that after the birth things would improve. They didn’t and when he started drinking and playing around, any residual feelings I had died.’

  ‘I wish I’d known,’Riley said, his mouth turned down in sadness, the frown deepening.

  ‘It wouldn’t have changed anything. I tried hard to make it work to provide Chas with a stable home environment. I guess I hoped that marriage would change Joe.’

  She took a deep breath, knowing her next words were mortifying but knowing she had to tell Riley everything if he were to understand. ‘The more I pushed, the angrier he grew till we had a huge argument the night he died. After he came back from being out with you. The night he told me the real reason why he’d courted me in the first place.’

  Riley placed a finger against her lips. ‘Shh. You don’t have to tell me. I know.’

  ‘You know?’

&
nbsp; He nodded, anger tightening his handsome features. ‘Joe had this stupid hang-up his entire life, always trying to compete with me, trying to beat me at everything. He never did and I guess it just drove him to do crazy things. He craved everything I wanted and when he saw the way I looked at you at the Ball, he went for it. It was just a stupid game to him, a way to make me sweat, taking away a woman I was interested in.’

  Maya’s heart flip-flopped. Riley had been interested in her that first night? But, if that were true, everything that had happened in the last few months between them took on a new light.

  Maybe the time he had spent with them hadn’t just been about Chas? And maybe, just maybe, he felt the connection between them and, dared she say it, the love that filled her heart?

  She leaned forward and placed a soft lingering kiss on his lips, emboldened by the knowledge that a man like him could’ve wanted a girl like her.

  ‘You were interested in me? Really?’

  ‘Really,’ he murmured against her lips, grazing them repeatedly with his own. ‘I remember we did the whole eye contact thing and I smiled at you and then Joe stepped into the picture.’

  She flushed with joy, pulling away reluctantly, needing to finish her story. ‘And I picked Joe over you. No accounting for taste, is there?’

  Her laugh sounded forced, brittle, and he traced a slow sensuous trail down her cheek with his lips.

  She closed her eyes, savouring his caress, wishing it could go on for ever. But she had to tell him the whole truth if they were to have any chance. Opening her eyes, she pulled away gently and placed a finger on his lips to hush him. ‘There’s more. The reason Joe gave you wasn’t the only one and, until now, I had no idea about his competing with you.’

  ‘You didn’t?’

  Confusion clouded Riley’s startling blue eyes and she almost wished she didn’t have to tell him the rest, which she hoped wouldn’t turn the confusion to disbelief.

  ‘No, that wasn’t the reason Joe gave me. In a way, I wish it was.’

  She glanced away, lost in the memory of that fateful night when Joe had battered her minuscule self-esteem to an all-time low and how she’d reacted. By insulting his manhood, by saying she’d never loved him and if he was half the man his brother was, she might feel something other than loathing for him. She hadn’t known Riley then but his convenient appearance that night and Joe’s nonsensical accusation that she liked him had made her compare Joe to his brother. She’d wanted to hurt him as much as he’d hurt her.

  The result? He’d stormed out and wrapped himself around a pole, leaving her with a gnawing guilt that she’d carried upon her shoulders, preventing her from moving on, from being happy.

  Thankfully, the time had come to shrug off the weight and take a chance on the love she’d been searching for her entire life.

  Taking a deep breath, she looked Riley straight in the eye.

  ‘Joe told me the only reason he’d looked twice at a scruffy tomboy like me was because he wanted inside information from the track for his gambling. ‘Straight from the horse’s mouth’, were his exact words. As you probably know, courtesy of his bankrupt status, he had major debts and desperately needed cash. He couldn’t stop gambling and thought the only way to break his losing streak and become a winner was to hook up with me. I worked on the inside and he wanted to know it all. I gave him nothing, which is why he took his plan to the next level, convincing me to move in with him. However, he hadn’t planned on the pregnancy, which threw a major spanner in his scheme. He wanted enough tips to earn the cash to clear his debts, then I was out of there. The pregnancy forced his hand and, though he proposed to make it look good for everyone else, particularly the media he adored, the minute I fell pregnant was the minute he started really hating me.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Riley murmured, gripping her hands tightly in his, shock streaked across his face. ‘I can’t believe Joe put you through that.’

  ‘Believe it,’ she said softly, feeling the first fluttering of relief at unburdening herself and wanting to go the whole way. ‘He tried to make me have a termination and I knew then that the man I’d fallen for wasn’t the prince I’d first thought. However, he was the first guy in my life to give me what I thought was love, to pay some attention to me. I never knew my father and wanted a family of my own more than anything so I decided to make the best of it. However, my best wasn’t good enough and when Chas was born, our relationship continued to spiral downhill with Joe’s increased drinking and absences. You know the rest.’

  Anger blazed from his eyes, swiftly replaced by tenderness as tears pricked her eyelids. ‘You know what I know? That my brother was a fool. An absolute total ass, a selfish little boy inside a grown man’s body who had no thought for anyone but himself. He didn’t deserve a woman like you and, if he were here today, I’d beat the living daylights out of him for what he put you through.’

  ‘My hero to the end,’ she said, smiling through her tears, eternally grateful that he hadn’t clammed up or run a mile after hearing her pathetic story. She’d never intended on playing the victim but hearing her story out loud painted her in that light and she didn’t like it. She never had, which was why she needed to take control of her life, starting this very minute.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’

  He nodded, his compassionate expression encouraging her to continue down the path of no return. ‘Anything.’

  She looked up at him from beneath lowered lashes, an unconscious flirty action which made her feel the teensiest bit naughty. ‘You said you were interested in me earlier. Interested as in past tense?’

  The corners of his delicious mouth twitched and she itched to lean over and give him a good reason to smile, like another scorching kiss.

  ‘I’m interested all right. I want you, Maya Edison. Want, as in present tense, as in the last few months with you have been the happiest of my life. Want, as in I’m in love with you and haven’t got the foggiest idea what to do about it as everything I try ends in disaster. Want, as in I want us to be a family—you, me and that delightful little man of yours. Want, as in I want it all. With you.’

  His lips never had the chance to make it into a full-blown smile as she launched herself at him, straddling his lap, wrapping her arms tightly around him and kissing him with every ounce of love she had pent up for this amazing guy.

  Riley loved her.

  He loved her!

  She should’ve known. Even without saying the words, he’d demonstrated his feelings in so many ways so many times.

  Her hero in every way.

  Chuckling softly as they came up for air, he said, ‘So what do you want? Apart from my body, that is.’

  She laughed, a loud joyous sound which came straight from the heart and she didn’t care when people turned to stare.

  Let them. She was through with gossip and innuendo and lies. The truth that Riley loved her and she loved him was all that mattered.

  Their love would protect Chas from any potential scandal because by the time he was old enough to understand they would be a happily married couple celebrating their umpteenth anniversary.

  ‘You really want to know what I want?’

  Her heart pounded with the desire simmering in his eyes, a desire she could feel with her legs wrapped around his waist. A desire which thrilled her, aroused her and empowered her like nothing else ever had. A man like Riley Bourke wanted her, loved her, giving her self esteem the boost it needed.

  ‘Yeah, I really want to know.’ He shifted against her, his smile turning wicked in an instant.

  ‘I want a family of my own. You, me and Chas. For ever. I want to have your babies. I want us to grow old together. I want you.’

  She wriggled closer—if that were even possible—and poured every ounce of what she was feeling into her words. ‘I love you, Riley. I love everything about you, from your kind heart to your generosity and compassion for others. But, most of all, I love how you love me. And how you love Chas. You’re one
in a million’

  His hands caressed her back, sending heat shimmering through her body. ‘Wow. That’s some testimonial. You sure? Most times we were together I didn’t even think you liked me all that much.’

  She grinned and tweaked his nose. ‘Didn’t you ever have a girl in primary school tease you, ignore you and break all your pencils?’

  ‘Can’t remember back that far,’ he said with a grimace. ‘I’m ten years older than you.’

  Maya rolled her eyes. ‘I bet you did and that meant the girl liked you. Guess I was doing the same thing unconsciously. You know, being horrible when I liked you all along.’

  ‘Loved me, you mean,’ he growled, burying his face in her neck and snuggling till she giggled.

  ‘Speaking of love, you know we’re getting married, right?’

  His head snapped up at that and, by the stunned, ecstatic expression spreading across his face, she had her answer before he opened his mouth.

  ‘Right,’ he said, tipping her chin up to gaze into her eyes. ‘Now, how about we make up for lost time with more of that kissing you’re so good at?’

  ‘I like the way you think.’

  Maya liked the way he kissed even more.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘GO, GIRL, GO!’

  Maya shifted from side to side, leaning as far forward on the rails as she could with her eight-month pregnant belly, trying to get a glimpse of the horses as they rounded the final turn.

  ‘She’s hit the front,’ Riley said, clasping her hand tightly while trying to constrain an exuberant Chas with the other. ‘She’s going to win.’

  ‘I can’t take any more excitement.’

  Maya closed her eyes, letting the sound of people cheering and horses pounding up the straight wash over her. She missed this: being part of the action, the thrill of winning, surrounded by friends and colleagues who cared.

  Those same friends and colleagues who had attended her small, intimate wedding to Riley nine months earlier at this very same venue, though Flemington had been a lot quieter that day, unless she counted Chas’s whining to go for a horsie ride all through the reception brunch and her sobbing when it came time to exchange the final vows.