by Sue MacKay
CHAPTER TEN
THE NEXT MORNING Noah parked outside the Wainwright house and drew a deep breath. Then he climbed out of his four-wheel drive and headed up the path to the front door to knock loudly.
When the door swung open, it took all his willpower not to pull Stacey into his arms and never let go. To beg her for another chance. She looked sad, and dark shadows under her eyes suggested she’d had as little sleep as he had. He’d done that to her. ‘I’m really sorry.’
She blinked. Then nodded. ‘Okay.’
When she made to shut the door, he stepped forward. ‘Wait. I need to talk to you.’
The door stopped moving. ‘I think you said it all yesterday, Noah. Quite bluntly, in fact.’
‘I haven’t come here to make demands.’
‘I’m sure you haven’t. But you will anyway.’ Again the door was being pushed closed.
‘Stacey, give me five minutes and if, after that, you tell me to go, I will.’ Five hours wouldn’t be anywhere long enough to say what was in his head. In his heart. But how else could he get her to listen to him? Going down on bended knee might work, but Stacey would more likely laugh at him.
‘Why, Noah? We are so different it’d be funny if not for Holly.’
‘No, we’re not. We laugh at the same things. We have the same values. And, yes, we have Holly.’
‘Holly can’t be used to get me back on side.’
Stacey was strong and self-contained. She fought for what she believed in. He’d found the woman he’d been searching for most of his life. She was absolutely nothing like Christine in any way, shape or form. Now he had to convince her to give him a chance. The way she was looking at him with impatience in her expression said it wasn’t going to be easy.
‘You’re right. And I had no intention of using her to get you to listen to me.’ He waited, aware that anything else he said might close the door firmly in his face.
Finally Stacey stepped back and held the door wide.
He stepped inside before she could change her mind.
When the latch on the door snapped shut the air around them felt a little warmer, and the tension in his body eased a little. He was nowhere near reaching what he’d set out for when he’d driven off from home, but Stacey was prepared to hear him out. All in five minutes.
With Toby present. His stomach clenched when he saw Stacey’s brother seated at the table with Holly on his knee as they ate breakfast. No sign of her parents. Then he recalled Stacey saying something about them being away for the weekend. Of course he’d known the chances of being alone with Stacey were still remote, but he’d hoped for a miracle, and it hadn’t been forthcoming.
‘Morning, Toby. Hello, Holly.’ Noah brushed a hand over her sweet head and felt his heart lurch. She was gorgeous. She was his and Stacey’s. More Stacey’s than his. So far she’d done all the parenting. Done it well, and with love.
‘Hi, Noah. You’re out early. I hope you’ve come to put a smile on Sis’s face. She’s been in a grump for ever.’
‘Shut up, Toby,’ Stacey snapped as she filled the kettle.
Her brother merely shrugged. ‘See what I mean?’
‘Haven’t you got somewhere to be?’ Stacey glared at him.
Toby grinned. ‘Yep. Holly and I are going to the park to play football, aren’t we, Hols?’
‘Yes, football!’
Stacey looked flustered. ‘No, leave Holly here.’
Did she need to have her girl by her side while he was here? Noah wondered.
‘I want football,’ Holly demanded.
Getting more like her mother every day. ‘I won’t be long,’ Noah said. Though he hoped that wasn’t the case. ‘I’m sure Holly will love getting outside.’
‘Yeah, sis, we’ll be back soon. We need to make the most of the fine day.’
Stacey’s shoulders slumped. ‘Go on, then. I’ll join you shortly.’ Then she looked directly at Noah. ‘This had better be good.’
Noah waited while Toby got Holly into a thick jacket and slipped her tiny feet into pink shoes and tied the laces firmly, all the while watching his daughter and loving her, and trying not to glance at Stacey for fear of seeing anguish in those beautiful eyes. For she’d think he was here to lay down the rules on how they raised Holly. Little did she know what he really wanted to tell her.
Finally they were gone and silence fell, broken only by the sound of coffee being poured from the plunger into mismatched mugs.
Stacey placed them on the table and sat down, then waited.
Five minutes. Would she really hold him to that? Then again, this was Stacey and he couldn’t rely on her to be kind to him. Slowly he sank onto a chair opposite her. Where to start? During the long night he’d worked out how to approach her, and now it had all gone out the door with Holly and Toby. He hadn’t a clue where to start. There was a lot to explain. But only one thing was really important. He gulped.
Sipped the steaming coffee. Looked at Stacey. His Anastasia. Her hands were gripping her mug, her gaze fixed on the table. Could he do this? He had to or lose out for ever. His heart thumped, his belly was in a knot. ‘Stacey...’ He paused, waiting for her to lift her head. When she didn’t, he said, ‘Please look at me.’
Slowly she obliged, wariness in her expression.
‘Stacey, I love you.’
Her eyes widened, but the wariness remained.
Noah reached for her shaking hands and removed the mug before enfolding her fingers in his. ‘I love you, everything about you. Your bravery, laughter, sense of worth and consideration for others, even the way you stand up to me. Your love for our daughter.’
Her fingers tightened under his, loosened. ‘Is that what this is about? Holly?’
Her question didn’t surprise him, and yet it still hurt. ‘Not at all. I’m not making this up. I’ve probably loved you from the night we first met, only I tried to deny it, especially when we met up again a couple of weeks back. You gave me hope that I’d actually find someone I could be happy with, and love and be loved.’
Her hands turned over and she gripped him. ‘Noah, are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you. Neither do I want to find that you’ve changed your mind, and think you’ve got it all wrong.’ She was looking at him with such longing the lump of fear that she might reject him out of self-preservation melted. ‘I don’t wish to be hurt by you either.’
Standing up, he rounded the table and pulled her up into his arms. ‘I am more certain of my love for you than I am about anything else. I would never willingly hurt you. Will you marry me? As in a real marriage filled with love?’
* * *
Noah was asking her to marry him again. Twice in two days. Should she believe him? Or was this another way to get her to compromise on her own needs? Stacey’s heart stopped as she gazed into his eyes. This time there was love in his gaze, his face, in the hands holding her. No hesitation at all. He’d said he loved her before anything else.
She wanted to believe him with everything she had.
‘Stacey, I made a mistake when I married last time. I thought I could change love, make it fit to suit. This time I know I’ve found love, and I don’t want to alter anything. It’s you who’s stolen my heart. You’re all I’ve been hoping for. I love you, Anastasia Stacey Wainwright.’
Relief and love bubbled up as her heart kick-started and sent warmth racing through her chilled body. She clasped his hands. ‘I’ve always loved you, Noah. Right from the moment you took my hand to lead me further onto the dance floor. Don’t ask me how it happened so quickly, or so truly. I have no idea, except it’s right. I love you, too.’ Locking her eyes on his, she drew a breath and said in as firm a voice as the love bubbling through her allowed, ‘Yes, I will marry you.’
Then she was being spun around in his arms as he yelled, ‘I’m getting married.’
‘So am I
.’ Stacey laughed, leaning closer to kiss him. It was a kiss that went on for ever and left her breathless—and so happy she had to pinch herself.
The coffee was cold when they finally sat down, this time side by side, her hand in Noah’s.
‘Who needs coffee anyway?’ Noah grinned. ‘I’ve got you.’
He loved her. He really did. It had been so easy to tell him she loved him. After a night of tears and anger and frustration over his blunt proposal yesterday, she’d accepted his love and offered hers in return. No questions, no doubts. She stared at this man who’d changed her life in so many ways. This would never have happened if he hadn’t returned from Auckland.
‘Stop overthinking it, Stacey. We will work through everything—together.’ He paused and looked away, then back at her. ‘I’ve spent my life looking for the kind of love my parents shared. I was always a part of that and to lose them meant I lost love as well. Then I met you. We danced and made love, then I went away. That night I felt a tingle of anticipation I’d not known before. Throughout those years I dreamt that you were with me, making love or dancing as we’d done that night.
‘When we met again those feelings returned, stronger than ever. Yet I hesitated, wary of being hurt again, of being used for what I had and not who I am. Yesterday when I asked you to marry me I meant it, but I admit my doubts were exposing themselves, causing me to voice things I’d never intended to. I’m so sorry.’
Squeezing his hand, Stacey leaned in to brush a kiss over his mouth. ‘It’s all right. We got there in the end.’ She took her time with what she had to say. ‘About your wealth. It isn’t something I’m after. If anything, it frightens me a little. But I’m sure I’ll manage.’ She smiled. ‘Seriously, it’s more important that we’re happy, and that Holly’s happy and grows up knowing she’s loved by her parents. And that we love each other.’
‘We do. She will.’ His look was fierce, and protective.
Stacey sighed with happiness. All was good, very good, and she’d found her man was on the same page as her. ‘I love you, Noah Kennedy.’ And she kissed him like they had all the time in the world. Which they did because they had found each other and would be together for ever.
* * *
If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Sue MacKay
Reclaiming Her Army Doc Husband
A Fling to Steal Her Heart
The Nurse’s Twin Surprise
Taking a Chance on the Single Dad
All available now!
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Enticed by Her Island Billioaire
by Becky Wicks
CHAPTER ONE
MILA RICCI SWIPED at her thrashing hair as the waves jumped and frothed around the speeding boat. The exclusive transfer by Dr Becker’s private yacht from Bali to the island of Gili Indah wouldn’t have been quite as bumpy as this, she mused, as a tourist shrieked behind her, but she’d missed it. She’d been advised by an elderly lady with a twinkle in her eyes to sit on the roof of the tourist boat for the next best thing.
The tree-dotted hills in the far distance were pale swathes of varying greens, shrouded by a thin veil of fog in the morning light. The island looked like a painting—just as Annabel had once described it.
Gathering up her red dress, Mila copied the backpackers next to her and dangled her legs over the edge of the roof, resting her arms on the railings. It didn’t seem entirely safe by the standards she was used to at home in Britain, but she wasn’t worried.
Travelling in potential peril had been standard practice during her time in the Army—especially out in Afghanistan. A few bumpy waves were nothing compared to the time she’d had to take a convoy in the middle of the night and go past the place where the insurgents had burned the bodies of the soldiers they’d shot dead on the bridge.
The direct route to the nearest air station had been just eight miles straight, but they’d gone over a hundred miles around it to escape. Two of the trucks had broken down in the first hour. She’d hitched a ride on another truck and they’d hidden in the sand dunes, listening to the mortar rounds being fired at the vehicle they’d just fled.
Mila rubbed her face. She was tired. She was thinking too much about the past. She couldn’t be further from a war zone now if she tried. This was a new start. There was nothing to fear on a paradise island...except maybe a tsunami.
She rolled her eyes at herself at the thought. Why did she always fear the worst?
You know why, she reminded herself. Because you can’t always prepare for the worst, even when you think you can.
On the deck, an Indonesian man was playing with a rescued baby monkey. Mark would’ve got a kick out of that, she thought now, acknowledging the stab of guilt that told her she hadn’t ended things with him too well.
She’d been so busy wrapping things up before she’d left the London hospital where she’d devoted herself to her work since leaving the Army. She’d barely had a moment even to think about him since she’d broken things off. He was a good man, but maybe a little too soft for her. He didn’t know how to handle her.
What was it Mark had said before he’d left her flat? ‘You don’t need a man right now anyway, Mila. You need to figure out who you are.’
He was probably right about that. She hadn’t come home from Afghanistan the same person. She’d learned quickly out there who she really was. She was part of a team and she couldn’t fail. She was eyes, ears, instincts. She was ready for the worst—always.
She could still hear the whirring rotors of the helicopters infiltrating the hot, sticky night air. When she least wanted to she could conjure up the smell of dust and the acrid stench of wet blood on inconceivably terrible wounds. The agonised moans of broken soldiers still made it into her dreams some nights.
It had been more than her twenty-four-year-old self had known how to handle at the time she’d been deployed, though she’d never admitted that to anyone. It had only been after her twin Annabel’s death, eight years later, that she’d truly fallen apart.
Mila watched two Australian lads making faces at the monkey, but she wasn’t really paying attention. She was dreading the anniversary of her sister’s death all over again. It was almost three years ago now since the accident.
She’d been home on leave for a few weeks when it had happened. Annabel had been trying to lift her spirits, keeping her one step ahead of depression after her latest posting to Afghanistan. But for all of Mila’s Army training, and everything she’d endured in combat, she’d still frozen on the spot when she’d come across her mother’s twisted, unrecognisable car, smashed just like the motorbike Annabel had hit before wrapping the car around a tree.
Those wasted seconds she’d spent, willing the steel of the car to unwind, willing the clock to go back, might have been the difference between her sister’s life or death. The worst thing had happened and she hadn’t been prepared. She’d failed to get Annabel out alive.
‘There they are!’
Mila blinked as a voice shrieked excitedly behind her. A backpacker in a red football shirt was pointing at the islands, coming ever closer to them. They were headed for the largest of those several small bumps in the ocean, which jutted like camel humps ahead of them.
Adrenaline spiked in her veins. She willed herself not to think about Afghanistan, or the accident. But she knew Annabel would be here too; she was everywhere.
Annabel had actually come to Gili Indah without her years ago. She and her twin had planned the trip together, but Mila had come down with an unfortunate case of laryngitis ju
st before the flight. She could still remember that crackly phone call from her twin.
‘You’ve got to see it one day, Mila! The most beautiful mountain views...the blue of the water...it’s unreal! And there are loads of hot men here. You’re missing out, I can tell you.’
Was it a coincidence that this opportunity to spend the next couple of months or so at the prestigious Medical Arts Centre there—or the MAC, as it was known—had appeared in her online searches, just last month?
The MAC hadn’t been there at the time of Annabel’s visit, six and a half years ago. It would have been a mere gleam in the eye of its founder, the billionaire Dr Sebastian Becker. He’d left his whole celebrity surgeon lifestyle behind in Chicago only three years ago, to set up this exclusive facility.
Mila watched the monkey peel its own banana, its tail wrapped around one of the Australian guys’ forearms.
What was he like? she mused. This man Dr Becker?
Her friend Anna back at the hospital in London had told her a little about him, but only what she’d garnered from watching him on TV.
The Becker Institute—Dr Becker’s revered plastic surgery practice in Chicago—was the base for a globally popular reality TV show focused on the lives of its patients and their various cosmetic surgery procedures.
Dr Becker had only starred in one season, with his brother Jared Becker, before leaving the show to concentrate on building the MAC. Anna had said he’d really left because the media circus had got too much for him. Something about an ex-girlfriend, threats, scandal...
Mila had stopped her there. She hated listening to gossip. And it had felt wrong to poison her mind about a man she’d never met—especially a man who was doing such remarkable work.
Dr Sebastian Becker had pioneered what was now the world’s leading method of scar tissue surgery, blending the newest innovative laser treatment with a simplified but highly effective surgical procedure. This was the first time he’d offered an opportunity for another experienced surgeon to come to the clinic for a short-term placement and observe his techniques.