Playing the Dutiful WifeExpecting His Love-Child

by Carol Marinelli

  They hadn’t shared their good news about Meg’s pregnancy on that visit—it had seemed all too new and too soon to give them another thing to deal with, and there had also been a funeral to prepare for.

  She had thought Niklas would do that on his own, except he hadn’t.

  Only a few other people had been invited. Meg had met Carla for the first time, and she was, of course, stunning, and there had been Rosa and her colleagues, and Rosa’s husband Silvio too. And, even if they hadn’t wanted to attend at first, her parents had come too, because they loved Meg and Niklas, and Niklas had told them how much it was appreciated. There had been flowers sent from Fernando—a fellow paulistano who knew only too well how tough it was on the streets, who knew that sometimes it was just about surviving.

  Meg had been a bit teary, saying goodbye to her parents that morning, but they’d reassured her that they’d be returning in a month’s time, so that they could be there for the birth of their grandchild.

  If she lasted another month, Meg thought as she felt a tightening again and picked up her baby guidebook.

  No, it wasn’t painful, and they were ages apart. So she read about Braxton Hicks for a while. But then another one came, and this time she noted the time on her phone, because though it didn’t quite hurt she found herself holding her breath till it passed. Maybe she should ring someone to check—or just wait because Niklas would be home soon? It probably was just Braxton Hicks…

  Her pregnancy book said so…

  Meg loved being pregnant. She loved her ripening belly, and so too did Niklas. And she loved him more than she had thought she was capable of.

  No, she’d never fully know him. But she had the rest of her life to try and work out the most complicated man in the world.

  The nightmares had stopped for both of them and life had moved on, and more and more she realised how much he loved her.

  There was plenty of happiness—they had friends over often, and many evenings she got to do what she adored: trying out new recipes.

  Meg looked at her phone. It had been ages since the last pain, so she should be getting started with dinner really. They had Rosa and her husband and a few other guests coming over tonight, to cheer Meg up after saying goodbye to her parents.

  They had such good friends. She could even laugh at things now, and she and Rosa had become firm

  allies. Rosa would sometimes tease Meg about the earlier conversations they had shared—not to mention the outrageous knickers.

  God, she’d been such an uptight thing then.

  She lay blushing in her bikini at the thought of the lovely things they did, and then she felt another tightening. She looked at her phone again, noting the time. They were still ages apart, but as she heard the hum of the helicopter bringing Niklas home she was suddenly glad he was here. She walked across the lush grounds to meet him and picked a few ripe avocados from the tree to make a guacamole. As she did so she felt something gush.

  It would seem the book was wrong. These weren’t practice contractions, because there was real pain gripping her now—a tightening that had her blowing her breath out and feeling the strangest pressure.

  Niklas saw her double over as he walked towards her. He could hear the chopper lifting into the sky and was torn between whether to ring and have the pilot return or just to get to her. He walked quickly, cursing himself because they had been going to move to his city apartment at the weekend, so that they could be closer to the hospital.

  ‘It’s fine…’ He was very calm and practical when he found her kneeling on the grass. ‘I’ll get the chopper sent back and we will fly you to the hospital. Let’s get you into the house…’ He tried to help her stand but she kept moaning. ‘Okay…’ he said. ‘I will carry you inside…’

  ‘No…’ She was kneeling down and desperate to push—though part of her told her not to, told her it couldn’t be happening, that she still had ages, must keep the baby in. And yet another part of her told her that if she pushed hard enough, if she just gave in and went with it, the pain would be gone.

  ‘It’s coming!’

  She was vaguely aware of him ringing someone, and frowned when she heard who it was.

  ‘Carla?’

  She wasn’t thinking straight, the pain was far too much, but why the hell was he calling Carla?

  ‘Done,’ he said.

  ‘Done?’

  ‘Help is on the way…’

  She could see him sweating, which Niklas never did, but his voice was very calm and he was very reassuring.

  ‘She will be ringing for the helicopter to come back and for an ambulance…’

  He saw her start to cry because she knew they would be too late—that the baby was almost here.

  ‘It’s fine…’ He took off his jacket and she watched him take out his cufflinks and very neatly start to fold up his sleeves. ‘Everything will be okay.’

  ‘You’ve delivered a lot of babies, have you?’ She was shouting and she didn’t mean to.

  ‘No,’ he said, and then he looked up and straight into her eyes, and he turned her pain and fear off, because that was what he did best. ‘But I did do a life-skills course in prison…’

  And that he made her smile, even if she was petrified, and then she started shouting again when he had the gall to answer his ringing phone.

  ‘It’s the obstetrician.’

  She must remember to thank Carla, Meg thought as he pulled down her bikini bottoms. From what she could make out with her limited Portuguese he was telling the doctor on speakerphone that, yes, he could see the head.

  She could have told the doctor that!

  But she was sort of glad not to know what was being said—sort of glad just to push and then be told to stop and then to push some more. She was very annoyed when he said something that made the obstetrician laugh, and she was about to tell him so when suddenly their baby was out.

  ‘Sim,’ he told the doctor. ‘Ela é rosa e respiração.’

  Yes, her baby was pink and breathing. They were the best words in the world and, given he had said ela, it would seem they had a baby girl.

  The doctor didn’t need to ask if the baby was crying for it sang across the mountains—and Meg cried too.

  Not Niklas—he never cried. Just on the day he’d found out she was safe she had seen a glimpse, and then the next day she had guessed he might have been, but he was in midwife mode now!

  He did what the doctor said and kept them both warm. He took his shirt off and wrapped his daughter in it, and there was his jacket around Meg, and then he got a rug from beside the pool and covered them both with it. He thanked the doctor and said he could hear help arriving, and then he turned off his phone.

  ‘She needs to feed,’ he told her, and he must have seen her wide eyes. He was an expert in breastfeeding now, was he? ‘The doctor said it will help with the next bit…’

  ‘Oh…’

  ‘Well done,’ he said.

  ‘Well done to you too.’ She smiled at her lovely midwife. ‘Were you scared?’

  ‘Of course not.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a natural process. Normally quick deliveries are easy ones…’

  He said a few other things that had her guessing he’d been reading her book—the bit about babies that come quickly and early.

  ‘She’s early…’ Meg sighed, because she had really been hoping that this would be a very late baby, that somehow they could fudge the dates a little and she would never know she’d been made in prison.

  ‘It will be fine,’ he said. ‘She was made with love. That’s all she needs to know.’

  They had a name for a boy and one for a girl, and he nodded when she checked that he still wanted it. She tasted his kiss. Then she saw him look down to his daughter and thought maybe she glimpsed a tear, but she did not go there—she just loved that moment alone, the three of them, just a few minutes before the helicopter arrived—alone on their mountain with their new baby, Emilia Dos Santos.

  The Portuguese
meaning, though.

  From the saints.

  * * * * *

  Expecting His Love-Child

  To

  Anne Marie, Helen, Leanne, Raelene and Tracy

  For always being available for lunch x

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT

  CHAPTER ONE

  THEY HAD TO be breaking up, Millie decided.

  Or rather he was breaking up with her.

  To keep her brain from freezing over as she served patrons long into the night at the terribly exclusive Melbourne restaurant, Millie Andrews invented a background for each of the tables she waited on.

  And now, as the clock edged past midnight, there were just three tables left.

  One was a rather boozy celebratory business dinner, which thankfully, now that the bar was closed, was starting to wind up. The second consisted of a rather strained couple. The lady had duly eaten her way through fish and salad, minus dressing, and was clearly uncomfortable in her very tight black velvet dress. Millie decided she had probably just had a baby and was feeling horribly self-conscious at being out with her very good-looking but extremely passive-aggressive husband— ‘You don’t really want dessert, do you, darling?’

  And then there was the beautiful pair.

  Blonde, svelte and jangling with nerves, a stunning woman was imploring her dining partner to ‘just, please, listen’—reaching for his hand, her throaty voice urgent as her… Millie couldn’t quite make this one out—husband, fiancé…? No, neither fitted. Boyfriend? Or just lover, perhaps…? As he sat and listened impassively, utterly unmoved by her desperate pleas.

  ‘Please, if you would just listen to me—really listen…’

  They were too rich to notice or care that a waitress was clearing away their barely touched plates, and Millie’s ears were on elastic as the blonde beauty begged for her chance, her bright, blue eyes glittering with tears as she choked the words out and reached for his hand again. ‘Before you say it cannot happen, just hear what I have to say first…please.’

  ‘Perhaps you should try listening…’ he growled. His voice was accented, deep, low and just divine, but since till then the only words he’d growled in Millie’s direction had been ‘Rare steak, fresh tomato salad,’ so far she hadn’t been able to place it. ‘All night I have told you no, yet still you persist.’

  ‘Why do you think I persist, Levander?’

  Russian, Millie finally recognised, lingering rather too long over clearing the table. His salad had barely been touched; his steak was only half eaten. If she’d followed protocol, she should have asked then if everything had been to his satisfaction—if, by chance, there was a problem with his meal—but the intense conversation and his mood certainly didn’t encourage interruption, and, given that it was her last night in Melbourne, protocol went where it belonged.

  Straight out of the window.

  ‘You persist because you hope I change my mind. How many times do you have to hear me say it to understand that I never will?’

  Even as she backed away, and even though the kitchen had long ago closed, Millie was tempted to offer them the dessert menu. Prepared even to whisk up dessert herself if it meant she could listen on.

  They fascinated her.

  Fascinated her.

  From the second they had walked in she had been entranced.

  By him.

  As he’d walked through the door, standing tall, brooding and vaguely familiar in a charcoal suit, loosening his tie as his eyes scowled over the room, a low murmur had gone around and every head had turned—especially Millie’s, as she’d tried and failed to place him. Ross, the manager, had raced over and steered them to the most private table at the back of the restaurant, then delivered Millie a quick warning before he dispatched her to take their orders.

  ‘Nothing’s too much trouble, okay?’

  His date was beautiful, yes—on any other night she’d be a fascinating subject—but the glamorous woman faded into insignificance beside her date, because he was…

  …exquisite.

  As an artist Millie was often asked where her inspiration came from—and here was a fragment of the answer.

  Inspiration came in the most unexpected places and at the most unexpected times. Twelve hours before she left Australia—twelve hours before she headed home for London—her head should be buzzing with “to do” lists. She should be adding up her tips and working out if she could afford the night in Singapore she’d booked en route. Instead she was consumed with this fascinating man—his beauty was, quite literally, inspiring.

  His bone structure was impeccable, and his features had Millie’s fingers aching to pull out a sketchpad and capture them: in perfect symmetry, as with all true beauties, his high cheekbones razored through his face, a strong jawline was dark and unshaven against his pale skin. His thick, longish hair was charcoal, not quite black, but too dark to be called brown, and whatever palette his creator had used, the brush had been dipped twice in the same well—his eyes held the same bewitching hue, only deeper and glossier.

  His date was gorgeous—possibly one of the most beautiful women Millie had seen—yet she dimmed beside him. The whole restaurant dimmed a touch, and she wanted to capture that, make him the sole focus—like endless Russian dolls, Millie mused, seeing the germ of the picture she would create in her mind’s eye: him—the biggest, most stunning, most exquisitely featured—and the rest—his date, the other clients, the staff, the street outside—ever diminishing objects, growing smaller and smaller till there was nothing left.

  ‘You are a cold bastard.’ His date hissed the words out, almost spat them across the table. But he didn’t flinch and neither, Millie noted, did he attempt to dispute the fact.

  ‘It must be hereditary.’

  ‘So that’s it? After all I’ve told you—you can just sit there?’ Still he didn’t answer—utterly bored, he had the audacity to yawn as she promptly burst into tears. ‘You’re not even going to think about it?’

  Again he didn’t answer, and even though Millie still hadn’t managed to pin a label on her as, sobbing yet somehow elegant, the blonde stumbled out of the restaurant, it was clear that whatever her title had been a few minutes ago it had just been superseded. As of this moment she was an ex.

  ‘She waits now for me to run after her…’ Those charcoal eyes stared up at her, his lashes so thick, his gaze so intense, that for a second Millie’s world stopped.

  I’d wait, Millie thought, stunned that he was talking to her, that he didn’t seem remotely embarrassed that she’d witnessed this intensely personal moment.

  ‘I will sit here for a while longer—hopefully she will get the message and go home.’

  ‘Or she might ring you on your mobile,’ Millie said, blushing furiously as she did so, because even if it seemed to be idle conversation, as a lowly waitress it was inappropriate to comment. Management’s orders were very clear: she should merely smile politely and move on.

  Only she didn’t.

  Instead she hovered on the giddy line of propriety. His eyes pinned her, and the impact of him close up, of actually conversing with him, was utterly, fabulously devastating—and he surely knew it. Knew it because instead of looking away, instead of dismissing her, he responded with a question.

  ‘Would you wait?’

  ‘Perhaps…’ Her voice when it came was breathy, her shirt suddenly impossibly tight as she struggled to drag air into her lungs, her skin on fire—and not because Ross, her manager, was looking on and frowning at the exchange. ‘Once I’d calmed down, once I’d…’ She didn’t get to finish as, almost on cue, his phone rang. And
at that point she crossed the line. Instead of turning and discreetly walking away, instead of heading back to the bar to let him take his call, she stood there, watching transfixed as he picked up his phone with long, pale, slender fingers that had Millie wondering if he was also an artist—wondering if that might be the reason she was so drawn to him.

  ‘Thank you for the warning,’ he said, turning off the phone.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Millie croaked, her cheeks flaming as attraction fully hit, and she was, for the first time, privy to that unscrupulous face breaking into a smile.

  ‘Another.’ He gestured to his glass, and Millie was about to say no, that the bar had closed about ten minutes ago. But glancing over to her boss, and seeing him frantically nodding, Millie gave a smile and, slipping away, headed over to the bar.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Ross asked the second she was within earshot.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Come on, Millie, don’t play games with me. What was that cosy little exchange you were having with Levander?’

  ‘He was just talking.’ Millie flushed, and not just at being caught flirting—even his name was sexy. ‘You were the one who said that nothing should be too much trouble. It would have been rude to walk away.’

  ‘You know how to handle things.’ Ross shot her a warning look. ‘Do you want me to take his drink over for you?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Millie shook her head, quickly changing the subject as Ross poured a generous dash of vodka into a glass. ‘Should we get the port those businessmen wanted? They might get upset if they see us still serving him.’

  ‘The bar’s closed,’ Ross said, placing the drink down for Millie to take over. ‘At least to anyone who isn’t a Kolovsky.’

  ‘Kolovsky?’ Mille frowned, trying to place the familiar name and hoping he’d elaborate, but Ross just grinned.

  ‘It’s Russian for money!’

  Placing his drink in front of him, Millie was curiously disappointed when he didn’t look up, when he didn’t even give a distracted thanks. Instead he stared across the room and out onto the street, drumming his fingers restlessly. Never had it taken so long to place a drink on a table, to clear away a few stray glasses and wait—wait for him to bring her into his delicious focus, to once again, even for a moment, be the woman who held his attention.