Bestselling Authors Collection 2012

by Trish Morey; Day Leclaire; Natalie Anderson; Brenda Jackson; Ann Voss Peterson

And Angie felt herself fall deeper and deeper in love, dreading the day this child would be born. On the kitchen wall the calendar mocked her, every page turned bringing her closer to the inevitable—closer to the birth, closer to her departure until there was only one month to go.

  Dominic said nothing about afterwards. He made love to her tenderly at night and he took her out for dinner on Rosa’s days off and walks along rugged coastal paths on perfect autumn days, and her heart ached and grew heavy like the baby inside her.

  She loved him. She loved him as she had loved no other and she loved this child because it was part of him. It would break her heart to leave them both. But what choice did she have? She would not beg to stay on, especially after all the trouble he’d gone to to secure her house. She would not plead. She would walk out with her head, if not her heart, held high. She could not bear it if he rejected her.

  It would kill her.

  It was finished. Dominic held it up in his hands, in awe of the power of his grandfather’s tools, in awe of the beauty they had created.

  He didn’t know if she’d like it or even want it, but it was done and he would give it to her as a gift when the baby was born. Something shifted in his chest and he looked at his watch. So soon.

  He didn’t want her to go. He wanted to tear up their agreement and keep her here. She belonged here, even if she’d never wanted this baby. And a question he’d wanted to put to her months ago—a possibility—surged back.

  It had to be worth a try.

  ‘Stay,’ he said, as they lay together in the sweet afterglow of tender loving that night. ‘Don’t leave.’

  Her heart bumped against a chest getting rapidly more crowded by the day, hope blossoming large but still too afraid to breathe.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He raised himself on one elbow, looking down at her. ‘There’s no reason for you to go. Not really.’

  But what reason is there for me to stay? She licked her lips. ‘We have an agreement. I promised I wouldn’t change my mind. I wouldn’t cause any problems for you after the birth.’

  ‘You wouldn’t cause any problems! You’d be great. Rosa would love you to stay.’

  And Dominic? What would Dominic love? Who did he love?

  ‘And I know you never wanted this baby, but you’d be good with it, I know. You could help Rosa, don’t you see, it would be perfect.’

  Perfect.

  ‘You want me to stay and help with the baby after it’s born.’

  He traced the fingers of one hand down the side of her face, his now familiar touch still causing her eyelashes to flutter and her breathing to hitch. ‘I know how hard it would be for you, how much you were looking forward to being free, but it wouldn’t be all bad, surely.’

  His eyes shone with wicked intent, his hand now skimming her breast, but there was hope mixed in there too, she saw.

  And he was so wrong. He was offering her some kind of miracle—the opportunity to hold this tiny infant, to feel its new baby breath on her cheek—he had no idea the world he was offering her!

  But he wasn’t asking her to stay because he loved her. She would have him in his bed but she would not have him. Women like her could not expect to have men like him.

  ‘How long?’ she ventured. ‘How long would you expect me to stay?’ Before you throw me out.

  And immediately his hand stilled on her thigh. ‘Would it be such a chore? Was I wrong to ask you? Would you rather leave and go back to that house?’

  And she shook her head, for even without love, even without certainty or any degree of permanence, what he was offering her was one thousand times better than the alternative—returning to her little house, even if it was hers, alone with nothing but her thoughts and a shattered heart for company.

  Who needed love when that was the alternate future you faced?

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she said softly, ‘I’ll stay.’

  She was in the kitchen making salad when she felt it—the sharp stabbing pain that stole her breath and doubled her over. She clutched at the bench, wincing as another pain sliced through her. ‘What is it?’ shrieked Rosa, running from the other end of the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she gasped, knowing only that it was a thousand times worse than the Braxton-Hicks contractions she was getting used to, fear curling down her spine. ‘It’s way too early.’

  Rosa got her a chair, helped her to sit. ‘Hold on, I’ll call Dominic.’

  Another shooting pain ripped through her, making her cry out with the intensity and with the sensation that something inside her was tearing free, the trickling flow that ran down her leg and spilled red against the tiled floor confirming it.

  And panic flared inside her as another wrenching pain gripped her like a vice and Rosa’s face at the phone turned white.

  No! she thought in her last seconds before the pain took her away. She could not lose this child! She wanted this child. She wanted her baby.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WHAT the hell was going on? Dominic paced back and forth in the waiting room, a cold sweat blanketing him, waiting for news he felt as if he’d already been waiting on for hours.

  What the hell were they doing in there?

  Rosa’s panicked call—’Angelina…the baby’—had told him everything he’d needed to know. He’d swept out of the office like a cyclone, not knowing what was wrong, desperate to be there, learning along the way they’d taken her straight to Emergency.

  And he still didn’t understand what was happening, not beyond what Rosa had told him. She’d collapsed in the kitchen and there’d been blood. A haemorrhage, the paramedics had apparently radioed ahead. A haemorrhage could not be good. A haemorrhage sounded bad.

  He stopped pacing, clawed his fingers through his hair and saw Rosa huddled on a chair with her eyes closed in an ashen face, her fingers interwoven, her lips moving silently.

  Praying for Angelina.

  Praying for the unborn baby.

  And a tsunami of terror washed over him, drenching him in a fear like no other. Rosa had been there. Rosa had seen it happen. Rosa had seen the blood.

  Surely it wouldn’t come to that?

  Surely he couldn’t lose them?

  Not now.

  He sat alongside Rosa, her face now still, and pulled her against him. She went willingly, as if she needed his support, and he wished he’d thought to hold her earlier, to share her pain. But how could you think when something like this happened? How could you survive?

  A woman appeared, still wearing scrubs, fresh from Theatre, and they both jumped to their feet, still holding on. ‘Mr Pirelli? You have a beautiful baby daughter. She’s going to be fine. We’ll let you see her soon.’

  He closed his eyes. Uttered up his own small prayer of thanks. It was something. Some measure of relief. Good news. But it wasn’t anywhere near enough.

  ‘And Angelina? What about Angelina?’

  ‘The surgeons are still with her. She’s had a rough time.’ She gave an apologetic smile. ‘We’ll let you know the moment we know anything more.’

  He sat back down, Rosa following, still clinging to his hand. ‘A baby girl,’ she sniffed with tear-filled eyes. ‘That’s wonderful,’ before her tears became a torrent and he pulled her against him.

  ‘She’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘Angelina will be all right. She’s a fighter. She’s strong. Nothing can happen to her.’ And he willed himself to believe it, to be strong himself, to not think about losing the woman he loved.

  He raised his eyes to the ceiling. Oh, my God. She was the light at the end of a long day. She was his every night time fantasy. She was the woman who had found him and grounded him and brought him back to life. She was the woman who had risked her very life to bear his child. Why had it taken something like this to make him see?

  Of course he loved her.

  And he could not lose her now.

  The minutes ticked away—minutes where regret loomed large. She would come home, he told him
self, and he would take care of her. He would love her and cherish her. And maybe, one day, she might love him and the baby too. Maybe.

  But he would do whatever he could to make it happen.

  A door opened. The nurse appeared again, this time pushing a nursery trolley. ‘Here is your baby, Mr Pirelli, if you’d like to say hello and get acquainted.’

  He looked down at the tiny infant, red-faced and squirming, with a shock of black hair and a mouth testing the air.

  ‘Would you like to hold your daughter?’

  He wasn’t sure. She was so tiny, so very fragile. And right now, with the tangle of emotions inside him, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to. Angelina was still in Theatre, fighting for her life because of this tiny scrap. But before he could place his big hands under her tiny body and lift her to his chest, a doctor arrived, his brow sheened with sweat, his mask pulled below his chin and a smile on his lips.

  ‘Mrs Cameron is going to be all right. She’s in Recovery now.’

  His head sagged in relief, tension drained from his bones, and the baby chose that moment to open her eyes and look up at him, frowning, as night sky met night sky.

  Mine, he thought with a surge of pride. The baby and Angelina. Both mine.

  The next morning he stood at the door to her room. They hadn’t let him visit last night, no more than a glance he’d got on his way out and then she’d been hooked up to so many machines he wasn’t sure he could have stayed. This morning there were fewer machines and he could cope. Besides, he had something important to tell her.

  Her eyes were closed and at first he thought she was asleep, but as he neared the bed her eyelids fluttered open.

  ‘Dominic.’ Her voice was hoarse and weak, but his name on her lips was suddenly one of his favourite sounds. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Why should you be sorry?’ he asked, putting the parcel down before pressing his lips to her brow, scared to bump her and cause her more pain.

  ‘I thought I was going to lose the baby. I thought I was going to lose…’ She didn’t finish on a hiccup, just squeezed her eyes shut.

  ‘Shh,’ he said, taking her hand gently in his, careful not to knock the cannula anchoring her drip. ‘The baby’s fine. Have you seen her?’

  She shook her head against the pillow. ‘Not yet.’ He wondered if it was because she wasn’t interested or because she couldn’t bear to. He wouldn’t blame her. But he’d told them last night she wouldn’t be feeding the child. He wouldn’t subject her to that when she’d never wanted this child, so maybe the nurses were looking after her.

  ‘I’m sorry for what you had to go through to have her,’ he admitted. ‘If I’d had any idea, I would never have let you take that risk.’

  She shrugged. ‘It was a fluke, the doctors said. One in a million chance. Sheer dumb luck it happened to me.’

  But it had happened to her. And it had made him realise…

  ‘So have you decided on a name?’

  ‘I have. And Rosa agrees with me. I decided she should have her mothers’ names.’

  Angie nodded tightly. For the last six months she’d lived under the shadow of that name, but it was the right thing to do. ‘It’s a pretty name.’

  ‘I thought so. And it suits her. Angela Carla Pirelli. I was hoping you’d like it.’

  She looked up at him, aghast. ‘Angela? But you said—’

  He kissed her fingertips. ‘I said her mothers’ names. Plural. You and Carla.’

  Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘But I have no right—’

  And he smiled, or it looked almost like a smile—a smile that tugged at the fragile shreds of her heart that remained intact. ‘You have more right than anyone to claim this child for your own. What a laboratory created with part of Carla and me was a mere possibility, nothing more than the chance of a child. But it was you who turned that dream into a reality, you who turned that chance into a flesh and blood baby. You made this child’s life possible.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Don’t you understand? She is your child, Angelina, your baby. You have more rights to this child than anyone. You are her mother.’

  Angie pressed her lips together, trying to quell the tears, though there was no way she could stem them all.

  ‘You’re crying,’ he said. ‘Did I say something wrong?’

  ‘No. You said everything right.’ She sniffed. ‘In that case, do you think I could see my baby?’

  And he smiled and pressed the call button. ‘I’d like that.’

  Within moments she arrived, swaddled in a fresh pink blanket. From where she lay, Angie could just see the black hair and one tiny hand sticking out under the chin. ‘I’ve brought you a bottle too, Mr Pirelli,’ the midwife said, ‘in case you’d like to feed her.’

  From the bed came a small mewling cry. They looked around.

  ‘Do you think…?’ Angelina asked. ‘Is it possible…Is there any chance I might be able to feed her?’

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

  ‘Are you up to it?’ the midwife asked, and Angie sniffed and nodded.

  ‘I’d really like to try.’

  Minutes later they had her raised and pillowed for protection. It seemed a mammoth effort for such a tiny creature but, when the midwife placed her on her pillowed lap, it was all worth it. She looked down at this infant, this baby she’d harboured inside her body for nearly nine months, this miracle child, and fell instantly and irrevocably in love. ‘Hello, Angela Carla Pirelli,’ she said as a tiny hand wrapped around her finger and her heartstrings at the same time. ‘You’re one very lucky little girl. You’ve got two mothers—the one who made you so very beautiful, and me.’

  The midwife sniffled and swiped at her eyes, becoming brusque and businesslike. ‘Let’s get you organised then, shall we?’ She showed Angie how to get the baby to latch on. Angie was a quick learner. The baby was even quicker and soon she was contentedly suckling.

  Beautiful, Dominic thought as he watched mother and child together. Truly beautiful.

  ‘This is the woman,’ he whispered in awed reverence when the midwife had departed and the baby had fallen asleep, ‘who never wanted a child. Look at you. You’re a natural. What happened?’

  She shrugged, and smiled down at the baby in her arms, lifted her and drank in her magical new baby scent. ‘I didn’t want a baby. At least, not with Shayne. I know that now. I was happy when I found out it wasn’t his. And then I was afraid to get attached to this little one because I knew I would be leaving. I couldn’t afford to love it, even though, as it grew and as I felt it move inside, I couldn’t help but feel a connection.’ She sighed, a slow sad smile emerging. ‘I tried to fight it. I tried to keep my distance because I knew I’d end up hurt. But it was impossible.’

  ‘Marry me.’

  She blinked and looked up at his brusque demand. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Marry me, Angelina. Become my wife.’

  She shook her head. She was dreaming, the painkillers affecting her brain. ‘Don’t think you have to marry me. You don’t have to try to make up for what happened. It was an accident.’

  ‘I don’t want to marry you because I feel guilty for what happened.’

  A frisson of fear zipped down her spine. ‘But you can’t marry me. Look at where I come from. What would people think?’

  ‘I don’t care what people think. You know that.’

  ‘But people will still talk.’

  ‘And all they will discover is that we grew up three blocks and however many years apart. Yes, Angelina,’ he said in answer to her look of disbelief, ‘I spent the first fifteen years of my life in the very next suburb. I lived there with my nonna and poppa, and mother, until none of them were left, then I was determined to find their house by the sea for them. The home they never had.’

  He smiled. ‘So you see, there’s no reason why you should refuse me now, surely.’

  ‘But I still don’t understand why you want to.’

  He took one of her hands i
n his and gave her a crooked grin. ‘Why? Because I love you. I was too damned stupid to admit it or even recognise it before, but nearly losing you made me realise that I love you.’

  Even under the sensation-numbing drugs being pumped into her body, she could still feel the unmistakable trip of her heart, and the swell of emotion as hope sprouted and blossomed into something magnificent. Something real. Real. There was that word again—the word that seemed to surround this man from the moment she’d met him.

  Yet still she dared not believe it could be true. ‘But Carla. I thought you were still in love with Carla. This is her child. I thought that’s why you wanted it so much.’

  He smiled a sad smile, reaching over to brush his baby’s hair, skimming his thumb over her brow. ‘Carla will always have a place in my heart.’

  ‘She was so very beautiful.’

  He nodded. ‘She was, and yet so brittle at the same time.’ He turned his eyes from his sleeping child to the woman holding her. ‘She wasn’t like you, Angelina, so strong and resilient. Carla always wanted what she couldn’t have, thinking it would make her happy, thinking it would be enough. But nothing was ever enough for her. Money wasn’t enough. The house wasn’t enough. Still she wasn’t happy.

  ‘And then she decided a baby would make her happy. But by then she was already losing weight, already starving herself. There was no way she could conceive and no way she would listen to anyone.’

  He sighed. ‘When I first met you, you reminded me of how she looked. So gaunt and half-starved. I couldn’t understand why you had been able to grow this child, when she hadn’t.’

  ‘You said you hated me back then.’

  ‘I know.’ He blew out through his teeth. ‘I didn’t know you. I didn’t trust you. I was angry.’

  His hand dropped to hers again. ‘I was so wrong. It was like I’d built a stone wall around my heart. I hadn’t been able to save Carla with all the money in the world. All it took was one simple infection. Anyone else would have had the strength to fight it off. She had nothing to fight with.’

  Angie looked down at the baby in her arms, her heart squeezed tight.

  ‘I didn’t want to have to save anyone else,’ he continued. ‘When you turned up on the scene with my baby in your belly, it was like you had started shaking those walls at their very foundations. And I didn’t want them coming down. I fought it every step of the way.