by Unknown
There was something wrong with her eyes. Drat, they seemed to be watering all over the place. It must be the drips or the drugs or something because she never cried.
She’d never cried until she’d met Ben. Now tears were slipping down her cheeks unchecked and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it.
‘I can’t...I can’t live in that mausoleum of an apartment with a nanny between us.’ She had to say it. She had to get it out there, even if it almost killed her to say it.
‘I’m not asking you to. Mary, it took me four hours to drive down here. In four hours I’ve reorganised our lives.’
‘Wow.’ She was still so weak she could hardly take this in but she was trying. Oh, how she was trying.
‘Mary, we can’t talk about this now,’ he said. ‘You should be asleep. The doctors are wanting to do an ultrasound, though, just to make sure there’s nothing wrong with our baby. Can you do that?’
‘As long as I don’t have to stand up.’ Shock and weakness were leaving her more than wobbly. If a faint breeze wafted through the window right now she might fly away.
‘There’s just one thing...’
‘Mmm...?’ He was still holding her hand. He was smiling at her as if she was the most precious thing in the world. The most precious woman... If this was a dream, she never wanted to wake up, she decided. She was staying in this place forever.
‘I need to know...whether you can love me back.’ And the fear was back in his voice. ‘I know you said you loved me. I need to know...did you mean it? Because if you do, and if I love you, then the way I see it, everything else will follow. It’s a huge step for both of us but, combined, our courage can face anything. You and me, Heinz and our baby, the four of us, forever. Do you love me, Mary?’
And there was only one thing a girl could say to that. This was important enough to wake up for. This might, just might, mean the dream could stay with her forever.
She put a hand up and traced the strong contours of his face. She touched his lips and it was as if she’d kissed him.
She loved this man with all her heart, and it was time to tell him.
‘I do,’ she said, and then she was being kissed and she couldn’t speak for quite a while, not until the orderlies came to wheel her away for an ultrasound, not until the world broke in, not until dreams turned to reality. ‘I do.’
* * *
He sat with her as the radiologist smeared gel over her tummy—a tummy that showed just the slightest suggestion of swelling.
For some reason his heart was in his mouth. When Mary had told him he was to be a father his first reaction had been of dismay. And fear. He wasn’t meant to be a father. Ben Logan didn’t do family.
Now Ben Logan was sitting by the woman he loved more than life itself—how did that feeling just keep growing stronger?—and he was praying their baby was safe.
He shouldn’t have left her. For her to get so dangerously dehydrated this early in pregnancy... If her baby had died...
If his baby had died...
Their baby. His hold on her hand tightened. The radiologist noticed the grip and smiled.
‘Scary, huh? You’re about to meet your baby for the first time. I’ll take photos—you can start boring the world from now on with pictures of your child.’
He thought, suddenly, of his parents. Two people totally caught up in their worlds. The thought of his parents ever showing friends pictures of their children was unimaginable.
They were selfish and self-contained. They’d done their best to destroy their children’s childhood.
His mother’s suicide had ended his childhood forever.
This baby would have a happy childhood, he vowed, and he’d be a proud dad. He would keep photographs in his wallet.
If things were okay...
‘Here we go.’ The radiologist was passing her wand back and forth over Mary’s slippery belly and fuzzy images were appearing on the screen. A bean-shaped image. An image with tiny buds, hands and feet?
A face...definite symmetry. The beginning of features...
He was going blind staring at the fuzzy image. Mary’s fingers were digging into his and her eyes were locked to the screen as well.
‘Heartbeat’s great,’ the radiologist said, but her voice was strange.
Ben’s gaze flew to hers. He was good at picking up nuances. There was something...
Back to the image... Her wand was moving back and forward. The image was shifting.
The baby had changed position?
Or not.
The image moved out. The bean-shaped image turned into...two beans.
Two heartbeats. Four tiny buds of arms. Four tiny legs.
Two heads, two hearts, two bodies.
Twins!
‘Two,’ Mary breathed, and it was half a sob. ‘Are we...? Is that...?’
‘Definitely twins.’ The radiologist was smiling, the tension gone. ‘Two lovely healthy babies with two healthy normal heartbeats. No wonder you’ve been so sick. Multiple pregnancies can be the pits for morning sickness. Is there a history of twins in your family?’
‘No,’ Mary said.
‘Yes,’ Ben said, overriding her. ‘There’s a very strong history of twins in our family.’
Our family.
Twins.
Mary.
If he got any more proud he might burst.
He had done some amazing things in his lifetime. He’d taken extraordinary risks. He’d had a fraught childhood full of stupidity. He’d fought in Afghanistan. He’d controlled the Logan financial empire with an iron fist and he’d made it grow exponentially since his father’s death.
But he’d never been more proud of anything than he was right now, holding Mary’s hand, looking at the images of his babies on the screen before him.
‘Can we get two pictures?’ he asked, and if his voice sounded choked he didn’t care. ‘One of each baby? I want one in each side of my wallet.’
One in each side of his heart, with Mary in the middle.
‘You don’t mind?’ Mary said, but she was smiling and smiling.
‘Mind? Why should I mind? We’re having two babies. We need to get married right away,’ he told her. ‘Damn, I should have brought diamonds. How long before she’s well enough to shop for diamonds?’ he demanded of the radiologist, and she was smiling almost as much as he was.
‘Now you’re being treated things will be better,’ she told Mary. ‘And right now is peak for illness. By sixteen weeks the nausea should fade.’
‘And looking like an elephant will set in,’ Mary retorted, but her smile didn’t fade.
‘There is that,’ the radiologist agreed. ‘But if I were you I wouldn’t let a bump, no matter how big, get in the way of a man buying you diamonds. That’s just unasked-for advice from your elder, dear, so you can take it or leave it.’
‘I think I’ll take it,’ Mary said, and suddenly Ben was gathering her into his arms, gel or not, wand or not, radiologist or not. ‘I think I’ll take it, if you don’t mind. I don’t seem to have a choice.’
* * *
Hideaway Island. A perfect Sunday afternoon.
They were sitting in front of their cave, looking out over the storm-ravaged island to the turquoise bay beyond.
‘I’ll buy it,’ Ben said, and Mary blinked.
‘Pardon?’ It had been two weeks since the ultrasound. Ben had stayed on, working from Mary’s tiny cottage, sitting on the back porch late at night, with Heinz at his feet, controlling the Logan empire online.
He’d have to return. They both knew it but neither of them talked of it. This had been time out for both of them, time for Mary to recover, time for Ben to take stock of his future, time for them to fall more deeply in love.
Mary had
cut back on work but she still worked. Ben still worked online, but at night they lay in each other’s arms and the world disappeared.
It couldn’t disappear forever. This morning Ben had suggested they hire a boat and come out to the island, and she knew he wanted to talk. About the future.
About his sterile apartment with the nanny in between?
‘I need to go back to Manhattan,’ he said now, and her heart sank. Here it came...
‘But I want to buy Hideaway first. If Barbara and Henry will agree.’
‘I think they might,’ she said cautiously. ‘But...there’s lots of upkeep. Are you thinking of visiting it, what, for a couple of weeks a year?’
‘That depends on you,’ he said, and her heart missed another beat.
‘Ben...’
‘Mary, listen.’ He turned and took her hands in his. The sun was warm on their faces. Heinz was down on the beach, chasing gulls, turning crazy circles on the sand, as happy as a dog could possibly be. ‘I’ve been thinking.’
‘Dangerous,’ she murmured, and he grinned.
‘I know. It’s scaring me, too. But I have a corporation to run and I can’t ignore it.’
‘I wouldn’t want you to.’ But was that the truth? Yes, she conceded. Ben was who he was. She wouldn’t want to change a single part of him.
‘The way I figure it, you have a community here but you don’t have family,’ he told her. ‘In New York, I don’t have either, but I do have my job. So I started thinking...could we build a community in New York? If we had family...we’d have everything.’
‘A nanny’s not a community, Ben,’ she said bleakly, but it had to be said.
‘Forget the nanny,’ he told her. ‘Dumb idea. There’s two of us. If we can’t cope with two of them, we’re not the powerhouses I know we both are.’
‘I’m not exactly feeling like a powerhouse,’ she admitted, and he grinned.’
‘Okay, nanny if necessary, just for when we need her. But you...you love your nursing?’
‘I... Yes.’
‘And your writing?’
‘It’s fun.’ She didn’t need the fantasy any more, she conceded, but she still loved it.
‘And your roller derby?’
‘It’s awesome.’
‘All those things are in Manhattan,’ he said. ‘We can find them. In fact, I already have.’ He hauled a sheaf of paper from his jacket pocket and handed it over. ‘The Manhattan Manglers practise four blocks from my...from our apartment and they’re always open to new members. They seem to be mostly composed of young mums so team members come and go at need. You could, too.’
‘Ben—’
‘And district nursing,’ he told her. ‘There’s such a need. New Zealand qualifications are recognised worldwide. You can do as much or little as you want. Manhattan will love you.’
‘Ben—’
‘And writing,’ he said, trying to get it all out before she could object. ‘I could take the kids out at weekends, giving you breaks while we bond. You could write all you want. And we can fix our apartment to turn it into a family home, or sell it and buy another if you want. And Heinz is okay to come—I’ve checked.
‘And if we buy Hideaway we could come here for three months a year, maybe even more. I can work online. I can set things up so I train a decent second in command. I’ll learn to delegate. I’ll do whatever it takes, my love, for us to be a family.’
‘You’d really want that?’ she said wonderingly, and he tugged her close and kissed her, and then held her for a very long time.
‘I want you more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life,’ he told her. ‘I want my family. My last family was a disaster. I don’t know if I can resurrect anything of my relationship with Jake—I surely hope so but for now it can’t matter. All I know is that the woman I love with all my heart is in my arms. Mary, will you be my family? Will you be my community, my life, my heart? Mary, will you marry me and live happily with me for ever after, for as long as we both shall live?’
And what was a girl to say to that?
There was only one thing she could say.
‘Yes,’ she said, lovingly and firmly. Her answer rang out over the island where she’d rescued this man and he’d rescued her right back. ‘Yes, my love, I will.’
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from TAMING HER ITALIAN BOSS by Fiona Harper.
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CHAPTER ONE
‘YOU WANT ME to give you a job?’
The woman staring across the desk at Ruby didn’t look convinced. The London traffic rumbled outside the first-floor office as the woman looked her up and down. Her gaze swept down over Ruby’s patchwork corduroy jacket, miniskirt with brightly coloured leggings peeking out from underneath, and ended at the canvas shoes that were almost the right shade of purple to match the streaks in her short hair.
Ruby nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Humph,’ the woman said.
Ruby couldn’t help noticing her flawlessly cut black suit and equally flawlessly cut hair. She’d bet that the famous Thalia Benson of the Benson Agency hadn’t come about her latest style after she’d got fed up with the long stringy bits dangling in her breakfast cereal and convinced her flatmate to take scissors to it.
‘And Layla Babbington recommended you try here?’
Ruby nodded again. Layla had been one of her best friends at boarding school. When she’d heard that Ruby was looking for a job—and one that preferably took her out of the country ASAP—she’d suggested the top-class nannying agency. ‘Don’t let old Benson fool you for a moment,’ she’d told Ruby. ‘Thalia’s a pussycat underneath, and she likes someone with a bit of gumption. The two of you will get along famously.’
Now that she was sitting on the far side of Thalia Benson’s desk, under scrutiny as if she were a rogue germ on a high-chair tray, Ruby wasn’t so sure.
‘Such a pity she had to go and marry that baronet she was working for,’ Benson muttered. ‘Lost one of my best girls and a plum contract.’
She looked up quickly at Ruby, as if she’d realised she’d said that out loud. Ruby looked back at her, expression open and calm. She didn’t care what the nanny provider to the rich and famous thought about her clients. She just wanted a job that got her out of London. Fast.
‘So...’ Ms Benson said in one long drawn-out syllable while she shuffled a few papers on her desk. ‘What qualifications do you have?’
‘For nannying?’ Ruby asked, resisting the urge to fidget.
Benson didn’t answer, but her eyebrows lifted in a what-do-you-think? kind of gesture.
Ruby took a deep breath. ‘Well...I’ve always been very good with kids, and I’m practical and creative and hard-working—’
The other woman cut her off by holding up a hand. She was looking wearier by the second. ‘I mean professional qualifications. Diploma in Childcare and Education, BTEC...Montessori training?’
Ruby let the rest of that big breath out. She’d been preparing to keep talking for as long as possible, and she’d only used up a third of her lung capacity before Benson had interrupted her. Not a good start. She took another, sma
ller breath, giving herself a chance to compose a different reply.
‘Not exactly.’
No one had said it was going to be a great reply.
Thalia Benson gave her a frosty look. ‘Either one has qualifications or one hasn’t. It tends to be a black-or-white kind of thing.’
Ruby swallowed. ‘I know I haven’t got any traditional childcare qualifications, but I was hoping I could enlist with your new travelling nanny service. Short-term placements. What I lack in letters after my name I make up for in organisation, flexibility and common sense.’
Benson’s ears pricked up at the mention of common sense. She obviously liked those words. Ruby decided to press home her main advantage. ‘And I’ve travelled all over the world since I was a small child. There aren’t many places I haven’t been to. I also speak four languages—French, Spanish, Italian and a bit of Malagasy.’
Ms Benson tipped her head slightly. ‘You’ve spent time in Madagascar?’ The look of disbelief on her face suggested she thought Ruby had gone a bit too far in padding out her CV.
‘My parents and I lived there for three years when I was a child.’
Benson’s eyes narrowed. ‘Inona voavoa?’ she suddenly said, surprising Ruby.
The reply came back automatically. How was she? ‘Tsara be.’
Benson’s eyes widened, and for the first time since Ruby had walked through the office door and sat down she looked interested. She picked up the blank form sitting in front of her and started writing. ‘Ruby Long, wasn’t it?’
‘Lange,’ Ruby replied. ‘With an e.’
Benson looked up. ‘Like Patrick Lange?’
Ruby nodded. ‘Exactly like that.’ She didn’t normally like mentioning her connection to the globetrotting TV presenter whose nature documentaries were the jewel in the crown of British television, but she could see more than a glimmer of interest in Thalia Benson’s eyes, and she really, really wanted to be out of the country when good old Dad got back from The Cook Islands in two days’ time. ‘He’s my father,’ she added.