‘I accept that my past behaviour might make you doubt my word,’ he said quietly. ‘I can only hope that one day I will earn your trust again. Clearly I must try harder to prove that I have changed and will never take you for granted like I once did.’
He walked out of the room without giving Marnie time to respond, and a few minutes later she heard his car engine roaring to life as he drove off. Swallowing down her tears, she lay back against the pillows, telling herself she would get up in five minutes and have a shower...
She woke feeling disorientated, and a glance at the clock revealed she had slept for a couple of hours. Leandro must be almost in London by now, she thought as she swung her legs off the bed and heaved herself to her feet.
The pain that gripped her stomach sent her thoughts scattering, and she put her hand on the bedside cabinet to steady herself when another agonising spasm ripped through her. The niggling ache in her lower back that had begun last night was now a savage pain that was becoming increasingly unbearable and it made her gasp for breath.
Her labour could not have started, she tried to reassure herself. It was too early. The spasms must be more of the Braxton Hicks contractions that she had experienced a few times before. Only the contractions were stronger—a lot stronger.
Another spasm made her cry out, and at the same time she felt a sensation of wet warmth between her legs. Instinct took over from panic and she snatched up her phone. Leandro had insisted on her putting the number of the community midwife on speed dial, and Marnie gasped with a mixture of relief and pain when her call was answered on the second ring.
‘If you think your waters have broken I’ll call for an ambulance and I will be with you in ten minutes,’ the midwife said, in a crisp but calm voice. ‘Is your partner with you? You had better phone him and warn him that the baby could be on its way.’
* * *
Speeding along the motorway, Leandro cursed when he drove straight past the junction where he’d been supposed to turn off. It was fair to say that his mind was not on the road, he acknowledged grimly. Nor was he sparing a thought for the business meeting in London, which was the reason he had left Marnie alone at the beach house in Norfolk.
The negotiations for Vialli Entertainment to purchase an iconic theatre on Shaftsbury Avenue were at a crucial stage, but he did not give a damn about adding another theatre to his already extensive property portfolio. Nothing was more important than Marnie—so why the hell had he left her on her own at this most crucial time, when she was mere weeks away from giving birth?
With a sudden lightning-bolt revelation Leandro realised that his concern was not so much for the baby but for Marnie. When he had at last found her at the beach house, after three months of frantically searching for her, he had promised to take care of her. So what was he doing, leaving her alone for the day? He had broken another promise to her and he could not blame her for refusing to trust him.
He turned off the motorway at the next exit and parked in the service area before phoning one of his senior executives at Vialli Entertainment and instructing him to take over the negotiations for the new theatre deal. After making the call he drove on to join the motorway heading back towards Norfolk.
An hour into the journey, his phone rang. Marnie’s name flashed up on the hands-free screen. She did not waste time greeting him.
‘My waters have broken.’ She sounded as though she was struggling to breathe and it was clearly an effort for her to speak calmly. ‘The midwife has just arrived and she says the baby is on its way. There’s no time for me to get to the hospital.’ Her voice shook. ‘Leandro... I’m scared.’
Santa Madre! The panic in Marnie’s voice ripped the last scales from his eyes and revealed what he had been too blind, too stubborn to see clearly until now.
‘Tesoro,’ he said thickly, ‘I promise everything will be all right. I’m already on my way back to you now.’
Leandro felt a searing pain in his chest, as if he had been stabbed through his heart. He would not break another promise to Marnie—but how could he make everything all right, as he had promised her? She was about to give birth at a remote cottage, without pain relief and all the medical facilities of a hospital.
No wonder she was scared. Dio—he was scared. He hated feeling so helpless, and guilt clawed in his gut. He should not have left her alone. She was so precious. He was a bloody fool to have discovered what she meant to him so late.
Now the baby was about to be born and there was no time to convince Marnie that she was more important to him than anything—even his child.
* * *
Everything was happening so fast. Too fast. Through a blur of pain and confusion Marnie was struggling to concentrate on the instructions the midwife was giving her.
‘I’m having another contraction,’ she managed to say, before pain tore through her with the force of a tidal wave and she could not think or speak—only feel the agonising spasms that seemed as if they would rip her body apart.
‘You’re doing wonderfully, Marnie. It won’t be long before the baby is here,’ the midwife told her.
But Marnie barely heard her. Overwhelmed by the force of the contraction, she gave a desperate cry. Almost as soon as the pain faded another contraction started and she struggled to take a breath. She felt as if she was drowning.
Consumed by pain and fear she cried out again—a harsh, animal noise that surely had not come from her? Her brain recognised a noise from outside the window. A car engine. Oh, God, was Leandro here? She prayed he was. She needed him.
Tears streamed down Marnie’s face as she remembered how she had snapped at Leandro as he was about to leave for London. She had wanted to hurt him as he had hurt her. But she had hurt herself, because despite everything that had happened she still loved him. It had taken until now, when her body was being torn apart by pain, for her to acknowledge that she had never stopped loving him.
Bursting through the front door of the cottage, Leandro halted in the hallway when he heard Marnie give a guttural cry that chilled his blood.
‘Cara!’
He hurried into the bedroom and saw her on the bed, leaning against the pillows, her head thrown back as she let out another heart-rending cry.
‘Dio!’ His eyes flicked to the midwife, standing at the end of the bed. ‘She is in agony. Can’t you do something? Give her something to help with the pain?’
‘I’m afraid it’s too late for pain relief,’ the midwife said calmly. ‘Marnie is coping incredibly well, and you have arrived just in time to see your baby being born.’
Marnie groaned. ‘I’m having another contraction. Oh! I can’t bear it. Leandro, make it stop.’
Leandro would willingly have given everything he owned to swap places with Marnie and bear the rigours of childbirth for her.
For a few seconds he felt utterly helpless, but then he took hold of her hand and pressed his lips to her fingers. ‘Squeeze my hand every time you feel a contraction. I’m here with you, cara, and I promise I will help you as much as I can.’
The pain did not abate, but Marnie’s fear lessened now that Leandro was with her. She gripped his hand when the next contraction came and was glad of the cool flannel he held to her sweat-damp brow.
She felt an overwhelming urge to push. ‘Don’t you want to see your baby being born?’ she gasped.
He shook his head and looked intently into her eyes. ‘I promised I would stay with you.’
He watched her expression change, and the knife blade in his heart twisted deeper when she gave a loud moan as she began to push their child into the world.
A lifetime later—or so it seemed to Leandro—Marnie took a deep breath and, with a primal groan he knew he would never forget, delivered their baby.
‘Congratulations—you have a little girl,’ the midwife announced as she lifted up the
infant.
Even then, Leandro’s gaze remained focused on Marnie, and he watched the weariness disappear from her face to be replaced with a look of utter joy when the baby gave a shrill cry.
‘A girl! Oh, Leandro, we have a daughter.’
Trembling from exhaustion and emotion, Marnie held out her arms and the midwife placed the little bundle wrapped in a white shawl to her breast. A tiny face peeped out from beneath a mass of fair hair.
‘Oh...’ Marnie forgot the pain of her labour as she fell instantly and irrevocably in love with her daughter. ‘She’s so beautiful.’
Leandro looked then, and his heart turned over. He swallowed convulsively and through a mist of tears he studied his daughter and knew that miracles truly did happen.
‘Isn’t she the loveliest thing you’ve ever seen?’ Marnie whispered, entranced by the infant. ‘She’s perfect.’
‘Yes,’ Leandro agreed gruffly, but his gaze was on Marnie and his heart felt as though it would burst. ‘Absolutely perfect.’
He wanted to take Marnie in his arms and kiss her, tell her how amazing she was, but he held back because he felt he did not have the right to intrude on these first moments when mother and child bonded. He felt excluded—but he only had himself to blame, he acknowledged heavily.
There had been an odd note in Leandro’s voice that drew Marnie’s attention, and she bit her lip as she watched him walk over to the window and stare out over the empty beach.
‘Are you disappointed that we didn’t have a boy?’
‘Of course not.’
He swung round and smiled, but Marnie noticed that his smile did not reach his eyes.
‘How could I be disappointed with our beautiful daughter? Have you thought of a name for her?’
‘I’d like to call her Stella.’
Marnie told herself it was ridiculous to feel shy. Leandro had seen her at her most unglamorous, panting and groaning in the throes of childbirth, but she was conscious that the distance between them was wider than the room. She wished he would come over and kiss her. But why would he? He had his child, which was all he had wanted. He had never wanted her.
The baby stirred and she quickly blinked away her tears. She was a mother now, and whatever happened with her and Leandro in the future she was determined to do what was best for her daughter.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THEY TOOK STELLA to London when she was a few days old. Although Marnie loved the Norfolk cottage, its remote location and a series of wild winter storms that had lashed the coast had made her decide that it was safer for the baby to be at Leandro’s house in Eaton Square.
It was good to be back. Betty, the housekeeper, fussed over the baby, and Leandro fussed over Marnie, showing her as much care and solicitousness as he had in the last weeks of her pregnancy. The strange awkwardness that had sprung up between them just after Stella’s birth had disappeared, and sometimes Marnie wondered if she had imagined it.
Over the next six weeks the truce they had established in Norfolk developed into a deeper friendship—which she told herself was a good thing, because they could not skirt around the issue of custody arrangements for their daughter for ever.
The future could not be ignored, and nor could she ignore her feelings for Leandro, Marnie brooded on a sunny day in early March.
They had pushed Stella in her pram around Hyde Park, and seeing the bright yellow daffodils in bloom had made Marnie acknowledge that time was moving forward. Soon it would be time for her to move on with her life.
Walking back to Eaton Square, she glanced at Leandro as he strolled beside her. He was wearing black jeans and a matching shirt, topped with a tan leather jacket, and he looked relaxed and utterly gorgeous with his dark hair ruffled by the breeze.
Marnie felt a tug of desire in the pit of her stomach. A few days ago she’d had her six-week check-up following Stella’s birth, and the doctor had asked what she planned to do about contraception. She had decided to go back on the birth control pill—mainly to prevent a reoccurrence of the menstrual migraines she’d used to suffer from. But the truth was that her current state of celibacy was the most reliable form of contraception, she thought wryly.
Much as she ached for Leandro to make love to her, she had to accept that he never would. The situation between them was too complicated. He hadn’t mentioned marriage again and she told herself she was glad, because she could not accept a marriage of convenience. Nor did she want to be his mistress, which meant that she would have to suppress her longing for him to sweep her off to bed and make passionate love to her.
Her sigh was unknowingly wistful as she followed him into the house, and she was unaware that his brooding gaze lingered on her while she fed their daughter.
Leandro had thought that Marnie looked beautiful when she was pregnant, but he was astonished by how quickly she had regained her pre-pregnancy figure. She was wearing jeans and a soft pink cashmere jumper and she looked slim and sexy. Her long honey-blonde hair was caught up in a ponytail, with a few loose strands framing her lovely face.
The dull ache in his groin could be suppressed to some degree, with regular cold showers, but the ache in his heart was a permanent reminder of what a crass fool he had been, he thought with grim self-derision. He watched Marnie place their daughter in her crib. Everything he wanted was right here in the nursery, but Leandro had learned that he could not simply take what he wanted. The most important things in life had to be earned, and he was not at all sure that he had done enough to win Marnie’s forgiveness.
He followed her out of the nursery and closed the door behind them.
‘Can you come in here for a minute?’ he said, holding open the door of the master bedroom. ‘We need to talk.’
With those four words the sunny spring day turned cold and grey and Marnie’s heart plummeted down to her toes. Leandro had sounded so serious. And what they needed to discuss—how they could both play a role in their daughter’s life—was scarily serious. She realised that for the past six weeks she had been cocooned in a haze of post-pregnancy hormones, but reality was about to intrude and it threatened to destroy her happiness.
Since she had returned to the house she had not been in the bedroom she had once shared with Leandro, and her eyes were drawn to the big bed where they had spent long hours making love—a lifetime ago, it seemed. Twisting her fingers together anxiously, she watched him open a bedside drawer and take out a sheaf of papers. Marnie’s mind flew back to when he had presented her with the prenuptial agreement that he’d wanted her to sign before their wedding, and she guessed that these documents he held out to her now set out custody arrangements for Stella.
‘I thought you might find these interesting.’
She frowned when she saw that the papers were not legal documents, as she’d expected. ‘Why would I be interested in rental properties in California?’ She quickly skimmed through the pages: details of luxury apartments and photos of houses with pools in the garden, taken against a backdrop of a vivid blue sky.
‘You will need somewhere to live if you decide to join the graduate programme with NASA.’
Leandro strolled across the room towards her, but although he appeared relaxed Marnie noted that his jaw was tense.
‘I have spoken to the head of the internship programme in California and explained your situation, and they are willing to accept you as an intern starting in September this year. Stella will be eight months old by then, and I thought that you—’
He broke off when Marnie interrupted him.
‘You thought what? That I would leave my baby behind in England with you so that I could follow my career dreams? No wonder you went to so much effort to ensure I was offered a place on the graduate programme. When I was pregnant you tried to get me to sell our baby to you, and now you think you can bribe me to give you custody of Stella.
’
Marnie drew a shuddering breath and discovered that the pain of childbirth had been nothing compared to the agony of her heart shattering.
‘How could you, Leandro?’ she choked, unable to hold back the tears that slipped down her cheeks. ‘I thought that we had become friends, but all the while you have been plotting to take my baby from me.’
She needed to get away from him before she broke down completely, but she had only taken one step towards the door when he caught hold of her arm and swung her round to face him.
‘Friends?’ he said, in an odd, flat voice. ‘I believed we were friends too, but the fact that you think I would try to separate you from our child proves that I have failed to win back your trust.’
The bleakness in his eyes tugged on Marnie’s soft heart.
‘I can’t blame you after the way I behaved, but I had hoped...’ He gave a ragged sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his soul. ‘I did not mean that you would live in California on your own. My idea was that the three of us would go—you, Stella and me—and while you are at lectures or studying I will look after our daughter.’
‘But how can you take care of a baby while you are at work?’ Marnie’s confusion grew. ‘How can you run Vialli Entertainment if you move to California?’
‘I intend to step down from my position as chairman and appoint a new CEO to run the business in my place. Sure, I’ll be kept up to date on developments within the company, but if I am a full-time father to Stella it will allow you to continue your studies and pursue your dream of a career in astronomy.’
‘But Vialli Entertainment means everything to you.’
She wiped away her tears with trembling fingers. There was something about the way Leandro was looking at her—an intentness in his gaze that made her heart beat painfully hard. She imagined how devastated he must have been when he had discovered that Henry was not his son, and she thought she understood.
Trapped by Vialli's Vows Page 15