by Annie O'Neil
* * *
Lia held her father’s hands in her own. Their reunion had been trickier, but no less fruitful. ‘And you’re absolutely positive you’re happy to tell Grandmama and Grandpapa?’
Behind her father, Oliver gave her a double thumbs-up.
She’d done it. She’d told him she didn’t want to have the wedding at the palace and that, more than anything, she and Oliver wanted a simple beach wedding, with no press. But, if he was happy to come, she would love him to walk her down the aisle.
‘I will tell them tonight.’
Lia winced. ‘We’re going to be on a plane tonight.’
‘I know.’
Her father gave her a wicked grin she hadn’t seen for decades—one that spoke of the little boy he’d once been. The one who’d used to learn magic tricks and do puppet shows in the nursery for the palace staff.
‘I thought you might like to be a few thousand miles away in case your grandmother screams in protest.’
Lia laughed. ‘Should we get you some ear plugs before we go?’
‘I think I can handle it,’ her father said, his smile fading a bit as their eyes met again. ‘Watching this palace empty of young people has taught me something.’
‘What’s that?’
‘That we need to change. I need to change. A royal family that no one wants to be in isn’t much of an example to the nation, is it?’
The knot of emotion in Lia’s chest softened. ‘Dad...’ she began, her voice less tentative than it had been when she’d told him she didn’t want to be married in Karolinska. ‘Do you think...do you think Mum could be persuaded to come?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, love. But if there’s anything I can do to help you get her on a plane, I will.’
Lia looked at him and saw that age-old flame he’d held for her mother was still burning bright. She gave him a hug, love pouring through her when she felt his hands close around her back to return the embrace. She would reach out to her mother. If she came, great. If not...perhaps she’d come when the baby was born.
In the car on the way back to the airport she leant back and breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Happy?’ Oliver asked.
‘Mostly,’ she said, leaning in to snuggle close to him, her cheek on his shoulder, their hands intertwined.
The reunion hadn’t been as horrible as she’d thought it might be. Nor had it been quite as celebratory as Oliver’s had. But that was okay, because she knew now, no matter what, that she would have the man she loved by her side from here on out. He was here for her, for her child, and for the family they would become. And that was what mattered most.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ÉLODIE ACCEPTED THE vibrant crown of tropical flowers as a queen might accept a tiara weighted with a nation’s finest jewels.
‘What do you think?’ Lia asked as she turned the little girl around so that she faced the mirror.
Élodie grinned at herself, then up at Lia, who had opted for a solitary white blossom tucked behind her ear. ‘I think that you look like a mermaid, and that I look like a princess, and that I’m pretty sure I want to live in a treehouse when I grow up!’
Lia laughed, and then, realising Élodie was speaking of so much more than a roof over her head, pulled her in for a hug, tight enough so that she wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. She felt for the girl and, even though she knew she had their own child growing in her belly, she wondered if Oliver would agree to one last pre-wedding request.
After sending Élodie out to find ‘Granny Bainbridge’, as Oliver’s mother had come to be known, she went to the guest room, where Oliver was getting ready. ‘Knock-knock!’
Oliver jumped behind the door so she couldn’t see him. ‘I thought it was bad luck to see one another before the ceremony.’
Lia laughed, stupidly pleased that Oliver was such a lovely mix of tradition and quirky uniqueness. She was a lucky woman.
She pressed her hands to the door, imagining his face as she asked her question. ‘Oli...?’
‘Yes, my love?’
‘How would you feel about expanding our family by one more?’
His head popped out from the other side of the door. ‘What? You’re already pregnant! You can’t—Are you—?’ Lines fanned out from his beautiful blue eyes as the wheels of his mind whirred to try and make sense of what she’d just asked. ‘What’s going on? Help a man on his wedding day, my darling bride.’
She grinned at him, unable to resist ruffling his tidy blond hair with her hand. ‘What medical school did you go to? It’s rare, but you can actually be pregnant with two babies at one time. It’s called superfetation.’
His eyes widened. ‘It’s only been a few weeks. You know already?’
Lia laughed. Their sex life was definitely active enough to have produced another child—but, no. As she’d said, superfetation was an extremely rare occurrence, and that wasn’t what she had in mind.
She patted her tummy. ‘Just the one baby for now. I was actually thinking of...’ She bit down on her lip, her eyes drifting out to the beach, where Élodie was trying to coax Oliver’s mother to dip her bare toes into the surf, squealing as the water hit her feet and splashed her shins.
Oliver’s eyes snapped back to hers as he finally connected the dots. ‘You want to adopt Élodie?’
She raised her eyebrows, sank her teeth deeper into her lip. Until she’d asked it, she hadn’t realised just how much she wanted Élodie to be a part of their everyday lives.
Oliver’s face broke into a broad smile. Before she could talk to him about speaking with Élodie’s aunt and uncle, and of course the adoption authorities, or say anything practical at all, Oliver had her in his arms and was swinging her round and round, whooping as if she’d just agreed to marry him all over again.
‘What’s going on up there?’ Lia’s father called from the beach, where he’d been walking with Oliver’s father. ‘It sounds as if you’re being attacked by a tribe of wild monkeys!’
‘Not quite,’ Lia called from the balcony. ‘We’ll be down in a minute. Is everyone ready for the wedding?’
A collective cheer went up from the beach where, in the end, quite a few more friends and family than they’d originally planned to invite had gathered for their small, informal wedding.
Guests had been asked to leave their mobile phones and cameras at home—not out of a strict ‘no photos’ rule, but out of a desire for them to be present in the moment as Lia and Oliver exchanged their vows. Marriage wasn’t just about the two of them. It was about everyone they cared for and everyone who cared for them.
Ten minutes later, her arm tucked into the crook of her father’s, Lia was walking down the ‘aisle’—a petal path that Élodie was making as she skipped ahead of Lia, fistfuls of flowers floating in her wake. She saw Oliver’s parents. Her own parents exchanging surprisingly flirtatious glances. Her cousin. Friends from the clinic. Grace...
The King and Queen of Karolinska had opted out of the wedding, saying something about the tropical heat not suiting their constitutions, but they had invited Oliver and Lia to join them at their summer retreat at the end of the month, for a less formal chance to get to know one another.
Lia’s eyes eventually met and locked with Oliver’s. This was the man whose smile she knew she would look forward to seeing every day of her life. Today it held an additional secret, of course. The knowledge that they would, once they’d spoken to the appropriate people, invite Élodie to join their small, growing family.
Lia glanced back at the treehouse, easily imagining it filled with the sound of children’s laughter, and her heart felt fit to burst.
When their celebrant finished his introductory remarks and began the ceremony, Lia’s heart launched into her throat as Oliver’s voice grew thick with emotion as he began to recite his vows.
‘I seek to kno
w you.’ Oliver’s eyes briefly met Lia’s, his voice catching in his throat as he continued. ‘For all the years to come I will take joy in you. I will endeavour to see you as you are and love you for all that is familiar and for all of your mysteries.’
As he spoke, his words so pure in intention, she could hardly believe everything that was happening was real. It was the world’s largest pinch me moment.
‘Amelia? Do you accept Oliver’s vows to you?’ the celebrant prompted, and their friends and family gave an appreciative laugh. They knew a nervous woman when they saw one.
Lia started. She had been so busy staring into Oliver’s eyes, gazing at his mouth, enjoying the sound of his voice, she’d not even noticed he’d stopped speaking.
‘Yes!’ she cried, and then more gently, as Oliver took her hands in his and her hammering heart calmed itself, ‘Yes. I do accept them.’ She shifted her dress, the billows of diaphanous blue and green dip-dyed fabric catching in the breeze. ‘And with all my heart I will honour them as I hope he will honour mine.’
Oliver said, ‘I will!’
Lia laughed along with the crowd. ‘You haven’t even heard them yet.’
Oliver’s face tightened with emotion for the briefest of moments before clearing. His expression told her everything she’d ever wanted to know about him. He loved her and would do anything for her. There might be ups and downs, and he might not get it right the first time, but he’d keep on trying. No matter what, he’d keep on trying until he got it right.
Wiping away a few happy tears, she began, ‘Oliver Bainbridge, from the moment I met you I knew in my heart I’d met a kindred spirit. Someone whose word is his passion. Whose passions make his life and the lives of those around him richer, kinder, better. I will respect and honour our friendship, our romantic love, and the path we choose as parents. I will also respect and honour the path you choose as the man who has asked me to walk hand in hand with him throughout this amazing, crazy life we’re about to live. It’s only just begun, and already I can’t wait to grow old with you and love you more with each passing day. I love you. I respect you. And I am truly the proudest woman in the world that you are about to be my husband and the father to our children.’
Before the celebrant could ask Oliver if he would honour and respect Lia’s vows to him Oliver was kissing her. It was a fiery, possessive, hungry, happy kiss, and Lia felt every molecule of her body become supercharged when, through it all, she heard the celebrant announce them as husband and wife.
‘I would now like to introduce to you Their Royal Highnesses the Doctors Bainbridge!’
As they walked past their friends and family, everyone’s faces beaming with shared joy, Oliver and Lia exchanged a secret smile. They knew everyone would be expecting them to head up to the massive buffet, spread out beneath the canopy of tropical trees, but there was just one more thing they wanted to do before they were well and truly married.
Oliver gave Lia’s hand a squeeze. ‘You sure you’re all right with getting your beautiful dress wet?’
‘More than.’
And with that they ran into the sea, hand in hand, emerging wet, glistening in the sun and beaming at one another, more certain than they’d ever been that the future would be a much better place because they were together.
* * *
Welcome to The Island Clinic quartet!
How to Win the Surgeon’s Heart
by Tina Beckett
Caribbean Paradise, Miracle Family
by Julie Danvers
The Princess and the Pediatrician
by Annie O’Neil
Reunited with His Long-Lost Nurse
by Charlotte Hawkes
All available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from Reunited with His Long-Lost Nurse by Charlotte Hawkes.
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Reunited with His Long-Lost Nurse
by Charlotte Hawkes
CHAPTER ONE
LIAM MILLER HAD earned his nickname, The Heart Whisperer, because his extraordinary surgical skill could coax even the most damaged patients’ hearts back to a perfect, normal sinus rhythm.
It was therefore ironic, he considered, that he’d been battling his own abnormally erratic heartbeat ever since arriving on the stunning island of St Victoria a few hours earlier. Or, more accurately, ever since his seaplane had flown over the stunning three-hundred-square-mile volcanic Caribbean island.
The views were practically spellbinding, from the emerald green of its rainforest canopy to its breath-taking turquoise waters where the light seemed to burst joyously off the coral reefs and sand.
But he would not allow himself to be bewitched.
Even on the short taxi drive from the port to the renowned Island Clinic, Liam had been captivated by the sheer colour and jubilation that pulsed around the island. It was so exuberant, so vibrant.
And it was so her.
He tried to push the thought from his head—the way he’d kept memories of her at bay for almost three years—but suddenly, now, he couldn’t seem to hold them back. Whether it was the jet-lag, or the fact that he was actually here on her homeland, Liam couldn’t be sure; all he knew was that this entire island was everything she’d once described to him. And it epitomised her flawlessly.
Talia.
The woman who had burst into his life a little over three years ago like a spectacular rainbow striking through the dark clouds that he hadn’t realised, until that point, had been so very cheerless. She hadn’t simply brought colour into his cold life but rather she had pitched it resplendently all over every single wall and surface in his hitherto bleak, grey world.
She had been the very essence of fun and laughter, and she’d breathed life into his very soul. He hadn’t realised it immediately, but that black, heavy, icy thing that had squatted so heavily on his chest his whole life had begun, bit by bit, to thaw.
She was the woman who had made him think, against everything his cruel and hateful father had drilled into him his entire life, that far from being to blame, he might actually be as much a victim of his mother’s death as his grief-stricken father had been. She was the woman who’d let him believe that perhaps he wasn’t as damaged and broken and destructive as he’d always thought. That he might just be worthy of being loved for who he was.
And then, just as abruptly as she’d surged into his life, she’d left. And with her departure every bit of that colour and joy had drained from his life. Only this time it had been even worse because he’d known what he was missing.
With a snort of irritation Liam jerked his head from the huge picture window that made up one wall of the chief of staff’s office at The Island Clinic, offering magnificent views. Instead he dropped his gaze to his electronic tablet and the patient file that stared at him from the screen as he waited for Nate Edwards to return.
It galled him that he hadn’t yet managed to banish thoughts of Talia Johnson from his head, even all these years later. But, he reminded himself irritably, he wasn’t on St Victoria to allow memories he’d tried to bury long ago to be stirred up.
He was simply here for the patients. In particular, Lucy Wells, the fifteen-year-old girl with a congenital heart problem who needed a full aortic arch reconstruction. And he didn’t really have to read the notes on his tablet again, if he was honest. He’d been living and breathing this challenging case ever since the phone call the previous week from the clinic’s chief of staff, Nate Edwards.
The way he did with every one of his cases—because they all mattered. They would be lying on his OR table, and the very least they deserved was that he knew their case inside out, upside down, and every
way in between. Because every one of them could be someone’s child, someone’s husband, someone’s mother—just like his own mother had once been.
The last place she’d ever been and the first place he’d ever been.
The start of his life but the end of hers. The cruellest twist of fate for which his distraught father had never forgiven him.
Never.
Which was why he had spent his entire surgical career doggedly determined that he would save every life he possibly could.
As if saving his patients’ lives could somehow make up for his birth having been the reason for his mother losing hers.
As though there was a magic number that—when he achieved it—would suddenly, magically, absolve him. Maybe it would free him of the torment, and instantly lift all that icy numbness. The way he’d once naively imagined Talia had been starting to do.
Enough!
He would only be here for a few weeks, a month at the most, filling in for The Island Clinic’s permanent cardiothoracic surgeon following a minor boating accident—not just for the Lucy Wells case, or the several other patients awaiting surgery, but for any emergencies—but then he would be gone.
It might not be a huge island, but it was big enough. He wasn’t going to see Talia here. He didn’t even know for sure that she’d returned to St Victoria after she’d disappeared, without a word, from his own life. But even if she had, he wasn’t about to bump into her.
He could still recall the passion in her voice as she’d described to him her job at the local hospital, across the island towards the more populated area near the capital, Williamtown, but The Island Clinic was isolated. The perfect safe haven for A-listers needing medical treatment in an environment where their privacy could be absolutely assured.
No, he wasn’t going to bump into Talia here.
Which was, he assured himself firmly, exactly the way he wanted it.