The Venetian One-Night Baby

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  He covered her hand with his and attempted a smile. ‘You’re a sweet girl, Sabrina. But I have a habit of letting people down in the end. That’s why I keep my relationships simple. But nothing about us is simple now, is it? We’ve made a baby.’

  Sabrina hadn’t realised until now how deeply sensitive Max was. He was aware of the pain his mother had suffered and was doing all he could to protect Sabrina during the early days of her pregnancy. But marrying him was a big step. Sleeping with him six weeks ago had changed her life in more ways than she had thought possible. ‘Max...this offer of yours to marry me...’

  His hands came up to cradle her face, his eyes moving back and forth from her gaze to her mouth. His breathing had altered, so too had hers. Their breaths mingled in the small space between their mouths, weaving an intoxicating spell on her senses. ‘Maybe I need to work a little harder to convince you, hmm?’

  His mouth came down and covered hers, his lips moving in soft massaging movements that made every bone in her body feel like it had been dissolved. She swayed against him, dizzy with need, her body on fire with every spine-tingling stroke and glide of his tongue. The dance of their mouths was like sophisticated choreography, no one else could have kissed her with such exquisite expertise. No one else could have made her mouth feel so alive, so vibrantly, feverishly alive. Her heart picked up its pace, sending blood in a fiery rush to all the erogenous zones of her body, making her acutely aware of pleasure spots that ached to be touched, longed to be caressed. Longed to be filled with his intimate invasion.

  Max lifted his mouth off hers, his eyes still gleaming with arousal. ‘That one night was never going to be enough. We both know that.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you contact me afterwards?’

  His mouth shifted in a rueful manner. ‘We agreed to stay clear of each other but there wasn’t a day that went past that I didn’t regret agreeing to that rule.’

  Sabrina hadn’t been too enamoured with that rule either. Every day of those six weeks she’d ached to see him. Ached to touch him. Ached to give herself to him. But that was how she’d got in to this mess in the first place. Max and she had made a child together from their one night of passion.

  Passion but not love.

  Max didn’t love her and was only offering to marry her because of their child. Her dreams of a romantic happily ever after with a man who adored her were fast disappearing.

  ‘Do you regret this?’ Sabrina couldn’t hold back the question. ‘Taking our relationship to this level?’

  His frown deepened and his hand stilled on her hair. ‘No.’ He released a jagged sigh and added, ‘But I don’t want you to get hurt. I’m offering you marriage. Not quite the sort you’re after but it’s all I can offer.’

  Sabrina aimed her gaze at his Adam’s apple. ‘I know what you’re offering, Max... I’m just not sure I can accept it...’

  He brought her chin up with his finger and did that back and forth thing again with his eyes, searching hers for any trace of ambiguity. ‘We’re good together, Sabrina. You know that. We can make a go of this. We’ve both come from stable backgrounds so we know it’ll be the best thing for our child to have both its parents together.’

  She felt torn because there was nothing she wanted more than to give her baby a stable upbringing like the ones she and Max had experienced. Didn’t every mother want that for her baby? But would marrying a man who didn’t love her be enough in the long run? He might come to love their child, but would he ever come to love her as well? And why was she even asking such a question? She wasn’t in love with Max. Was she? She had to keep her feelings out of it. If she fell for him it would make her even more vulnerable than she already was.

  But she couldn’t ignore the chemistry between them when her body was still tingling from head to foot from his lovemaking. Neither could she ignore the dread that if she refused to marry him, he would be free to go back to his playboy life. Sure, he would be an involved father but not permanently on site like hers had been. Sabrina released a sigh and rested her hand against his thudding heart.

  ‘Okay, I will marry you, but we can’t tell anyone until after the twelve-week mark. We’ll have to keep our relationship secret from our families until then, because no way am I going to be subject to pressure and well-meaning but unsolicited advice from our families.’

  The frown relaxed slightly on his forehead but it seemed to lurk in the grey shadows of his eyes. He brushed back her hair from her face and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. ‘They won’t hear about it from me.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  TWO WEEKS PASSED and Sabrina’s noisy and cramped flat became a distant memory. All of her things had now been moved and were either in storage or at Max’s house. She was touched by his attention to detail, the way he made sure everything was perfectly set up for her. Nothing seemed too much trouble for him, but she couldn’t help wondering if he was finding the rapid change in his neat and ordered life a little confronting.

  But for her, living with him showed her how seriously she had misjudged him in the past. It made it harder and harder to remember exactly why she had hated him so much. Or had that been a defence mechanism on her part? Somehow her heart had recognised that he was the one man who could make her fall for him and fall hard.

  Each time Holly came in for a fitting, Sabrina had to quell her own feelings of disappointment that her wedding wasn’t going to be as she had dreamed and planned for most of her life.

  But Holly wasn’t Sabrina’s best friend for nothing and it didn’t take her long to pick up on Sabrina’s mood at her fitting that afternoon. ‘You don’t seem yourself today, Sabrina. Is something wrong?’

  Sabrina placed another pin in the skirt of Holly’s gown to mark where she needed to take it in. ‘Other than my husband-to-be is only marrying me out of duty because I’m pregnant with his baby?’

  ‘Oh, honey,’ Holly sighed. ‘Do you really think Max doesn’t care about you? Personally, I think he’s been in love with you for months.’

  Sabrina sat back on her heels and looked up at her friend. ‘What makes you think that?’

  Holly lifted one shoulder. ‘It’s just a vibe I got when I saw him at that party a few months ago. He was acting all dog-in-the-manger when you were dancing with that other guy.’

  ‘So? He was probably just annoyed with me for drawing attention to myself.’ Sabrina picked up another pin. ‘Turn a little to the left. That’s it.’ She inserted the pin at Holly’s waistline. ‘Have you been dieting? This is the third time I’ve had to take this dress in.’

  Holly laughed. ‘Wedding nerves. Or excitement more like.’

  There was a silence broken only by the rustle of fabric as Sabrina fiddled with the alterations on the dress.

  ‘Have you and Max set a date for the wedding?’ Holly asked.

  Sabrina scrambled to her feet and stabbed the pins back in her pincushion. ‘Not yet...’ she sighed. ‘I can’t see him wanting a big one. He’s never been one for large gatherings. He missed out on the Firbank party animal gene.’

  Holly’s look was as probing as a spotlight. ‘Have you decided what you feel about him?’

  Sabrina made a business of tidying up her dressmaking tools. She had been deliberately avoiding thinking about her feelings for Max. They were confusing and bewildering, to say the least. He was the last person she had thought she would fall in love with, but how could she not lose her heart to such a wonderful man? He was everything she wanted in a life partner. He was stable and strong and dependable. He had good family values, he was hard working and supportive.

  Yes, he was nervous about becoming a father, which was understandable given what had happened to his baby brother. But she wished he would open up more to her about his concerns. To let her in to his innermost doubts and fears. She had hated him for so long, loathed and resented him, and yet these days she only had to think of him
and her heart would flutter and a warm feeling spread through her body. ‘It’s complicated...’ She glanced at her friend. ‘I used to think I hated him but now I wonder if I ever did. Was it like that for you with Zack?’

  Holly’s toffee-brown eyes melted at the sound of her fiancé’s name. ‘It was exactly like that. I hated him when I first met him but as soon as he kissed me...’ she gave a dreamy smile ‘...I think that’s when I fell completely and hopelessly in love.’

  Sabrina knew from earlier conversations with Holly that handsome playboy Zack Knight had fallen in love with Holly the moment he’d met her. With Zack’s reputation as a celebrity divorce lawyer and Holly a twice-jilted wedding florist, their romance had been the talk of London. And while Sabrina was thrilled Holly and Zack were so in love and looking forward to their wedding in a few weeks’ time, it made her situation all the more heart-wrenching. She longed for Max to love her the way she had come to love him. Her feelings for him—now that she’d acknowledged them—were intense and irreversible.

  But would she be happy knowing, deep down, he was only marrying her out of a sense of duty?

  * * *

  Max was still privately congratulating himself on keeping his relationship with Sabrina a secret from his family. There was something deeply intimate about keeping their involvement quiet. The bubble of secrecy made every moment with her intensely special, as if they were the only two people left on the planet. He had never felt that close to anyone else before and it was both terrifying and tempting. Tempting to think it could grow and develop into something he had told himself never to aspire to because he didn’t deserve it.

  Worried he would somehow jinx it, destroy it.

  It was still too early for Sabrina to be showing her pregnancy, but just knowing his baby was nestled inside her womb made him feel things he had never expected to feel. Not just fear, although that was there big-time, but flickers of excitement, anticipation, wonder. He caught himself wondering what their child would look like, who it would take after, what traits or quirks of personality it would inherit. He had even stopped avoiding people with prams and now took covert glances at the babies inside.

  And he had gone to London’s most famous toyshop and bought two handmade teddy bears—one with a blue ribbon and one wearing a pink tutu, because, for some reason, he couldn’t get the idea of a tiny little girl just like Sabrina out of his mind. He was keeping the bears for when he and Sabrina came home from their first ultrasound appointment.

  The day of the appointment, Max cleared his diary for the whole day because he was in no fit state to work even though it would only take up half an hour or so. He was barely able to speak on the way to the radiography centre as he was so lost in his tangled thoughts. His stomach pitched and pinched, his heart raced and his pulse rioted. What if there was something wrong with the baby?

  He hadn’t realised until now how much he cared about that little bunch of cells. The feelings ambushed him, making him wonder if other fathers felt like this. Men were mostly at arm’s length from a pregnancy, distant from what was going on in their partner’s body as it nurtured and sustained new life. But he felt an overwhelming sense of love for the child that was growing in Sabrina’s womb. What was ahead for their child? What sort of person would they become? How could he as its father make sure it had everything it needed for a long and fulfilling and healthy life?

  Max sat beside Sabrina in the waiting room, took her hand and rested it on his thigh. ‘Nervous?’

  She gave a wobbly smile. ‘A little. Are you? You’ve been awfully quiet.’

  He squeezed her hand. ‘Sorry. I’m still getting my head around everything.’

  A flicker of worry passed through her blue gaze and she looked down at their joined hands. ‘I’m sorry about all of this... I can’t help feeling it’s my fault we’re in this situation.’

  ‘Sabrina.’ He tipped up her chin and locked his eyes with hers. ‘It’s not your fault. If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine.’

  Max was relieved Sabrina had finally agreed to marry him. He wanted nothing more than to provide a stable and loving home for their child. And it would be a loving relationship, though perhaps not in the most romantic sense. He genuinely cared about Sabrina, she had been a part of his life for so long, and yet it had only been recently that he had found out the more complex layers to her personality.

  He had been deeply touched when she’d revealed to him what had happened to her as a teenager. He wished she had told him that night in Venice but she hadn’t and he had to accept it. Would he have still made love to her? He couldn’t answer that question. The need between them was so strong and seemed to be getting stronger.

  Sabrina’s name was called and they were led into the examination room. Max continued to hold her hand as the sonographer moved the probe over Sabrina’s still flat abdomen. How could a baby—his baby—be growing inside her? It didn’t seem real until he saw the image of the foetus come up on the screen. He could barely register what the sonographer was saying. All he could think was that was his child floating around in the amniotic sac that would feed and nurture it until it was born in seven months’ time.

  His chest suddenly felt tight with emotion, his heart thumping with a combination of dread and wonder. What sort of father would he be? How could he trust that he would always do the right thing by his child? He had never thought this day would occur and yet here he was sitting with his wife-to-be and staring at a 3D image of their baby.

  His wife-to-be. Sabrina, his fiancée. The mother of his child.

  Sabrina’s hand grasped his tighter. ‘Isn’t it incredible?’ Her eyes shone with the same wonder he was feeling. ‘That’s our baby.’

  Max squeezed her hand and smiled. ‘It sure is.’

  ‘You have a few more weeks to decide if you want to know the sex,’ the sonographer said. ‘It’s usually pretty clear from about eighteen to twenty weeks.’

  ‘Do you want to know the sex of the baby?’ Sabrina asked Max after the scan was completed.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I asked you first.’

  ‘I’m not a great one for surprises, as you probably know,’ Max said. ‘But I’ll go with what you decide. It’s your call.’

  Her teeth did that lip-chewing thing that never failed to make him want to kiss away the teeth marks on her pillow-soft lips. ‘I kind of want to know but I kind of don’t. Does that make sense?’

  He smiled and brought her hand up to his lips, kissing her bent knuckles. ‘It makes perfect sense. At least you’ve got a bit of time to make up your mind.’

  She nodded and gave a fleeting smile. ‘It’s a little scary now that I’ve seen the baby... I mean, it makes it so...so real, doesn’t it?’

  Max kept her hand in his. ‘You don’t have to be afraid, sweetie. I’ll be with you every step of the way.’

  She looked at the printed photo of their baby that the sonographer had given them. ‘I wonder who it will take after? You or me? Or maybe a bit of both of us.’

  ‘As long as it’s healthy, that’s all that matters,’ Max said. And even then things could happen. Bad things. Tragic things. His gut churned at the thought and his heart started tripping and hammering again. Boom. Trip. Boom. Trip. Boom. Trip. Boom.

  Sabrina must have sensed his disquiet and placed her other hand over their joined ones. ‘You’ll be a wonderful father, Max. I know you will.’

  He tried to smile but it didn’t quite work. ‘Come on. Let’s get you home so you can rest.’

  * * *

  Sabrina wasn’t tired when they got home but she was concerned about Max. He had seemed preoccupied at the appointment and he’d kept looking at the photo of the baby since then with a frown pulling at his brow. Was he thinking of all the things that could go wrong even after a healthy baby was born? There were no words to settle his fears because no one could guarantee that nothing would
happen to their baby. Even after gestation and infancy, there was still the treacherous landscape of childhood and adolescence. But worrying about it wouldn’t change what fate had decided—or so she kept telling herself.

  Max came into the bedroom where she was resting a short time later, carrying two shopping bags. He sat on the edge of the bed and passed them to her. ‘For the baby, whatever sex it is.’

  Sabrina opened the first bag to find a handmade teddy bear wearing a blue ribbon. ‘So you think it’s a boy?’

  He gave a one-shoulder shrug. ‘I’m hedging my bets. Open the other bag.’

  She opened the bag and pulled out another teddy bear but this one was wearing a pink tutu. It touched her that Max had already gone shopping for their baby. It made her wonder if his growing feelings for the baby would somehow, one day, include her. ‘They’re so cute, Max. That was so thoughtful of you.’

  He picked up the blue-ribboned teddy bear and balanced it on his knee, his finger absently flicking the ribbon around its neck. ‘Both Daniel and I had one of these. Our grandparents gave them to us.’ Something drifted over his features like a shadow across the sky. ‘Daniel’s was buried with him; it sat on the top of his coffin during the service. I’m not sure if Mum kept mine or not. I think she found it hard to look at it once Daniel had died.’

  Her heart ached at what Max must have felt at his baby brother’s funeral. And she felt deeply moved that he had shared with her a little more about his childhood and the sadness he still carried. Sabrina took the bear out of Max’s hands and set it beside the pink-tutu-dressed one by her side. She took his hand in hers and stroked the strong tendons running over the back of his hand. ‘I have a feeling this baby is going to bring a lot of joy to both our families, but especially to yours. You’ll be a fabulous dad. I just know it.’

  He gave a ghost of a smile and lifted her hand up to his mouth, pressing a soft kiss to the backs of her knuckles. ‘I wish I had your confidence.’ He lowered her hand to his lap and circled one of her knuckles with his thumb, a frown settling between his eyebrows. ‘I’ll do my best to protect you and the baby. But what if I fail?’