Thankfully, Ellie woke up and gave Nick the excuse he clearly needed to call a halt for the day. Laura gathered up their fussing daughter apologetically and adjourned to the minivan to nurse and change her.
Nick came outside a few minutes later and stopped by the van to tell her to drive carefully. With troubled eyes, she watched him guide his sporty BMW out of the parking lot. A worrisome, brittle quality clung to him.
Ahh, well. She would make that all go away tonight. The nanny had instructions to entertain the kids for the evening, leaving her and Nick to enjoy a romantic dinner by themselves in the master suite. Smiling, she turned out of the parking lot and pointed the minivan south toward the rolling hills of Virginia’s horse country and home.
Nick drove like a man possessed. Heck, maybe he was possessed. What madness was this to subject himself to cross-examination under oath with as many secrets as he clearly had to hide?
If Laura ever found out he wasn’t who he said he was …
She couldn’t find out. Period. He had too good a thing going, they had too good a thing going, to let anyone mess it up. As appealing as revenge against the bastards who’d held him captive might be, it was a no-brainer that his family came first. He’d made that choice months ago, and he’d had no reason to regret it since.
Someone honked at him. He jerked his attention back to the highway and the traffic streaming along it. He could do this. He could hold himself and his life together. One day at time. One hour or one minute at a time if that’s what it took. The only honest and good things in his life were Laura and the kids. He wasn’t about to lose them.
As the city turned into suburbs and the suburbs into open countryside, his jumpiness increased. After all that time in a shipping container, he’d have thought he would love nothing more than big, blue skies and broad horizons stretching away into infinity. But it turned out the exact opposite was the case. He’d become so used to living in a tiny, mostly dark space that anything else seemed strange and scary.
The panic attack started with sweaty palms and clenching the steering wheel until his knuckles hurt. Then his forehead broke out in a sweat, and an urge to crawl under a blanket in the backseat nearly overcame him.
As Laura’s estate came into view, he stopped the car and parked by the side of the road. He had to pull himself together before he got home and scared her or the kids. He hyperventilated until he saw spots before he managed to slow his breathing. He concentrated on Adam’s laughter, on Ellie’s tiny perfection, on Laura’s warm brown eyes looking at him with such love it made his heart hurt.
Gradually, his pulse slowed. He mopped his forehead dry. There wasn’t anything he could do about his sweat-soaked shirt, but hopefully Laura would put it down to the grilling earlier from the lawyers. Relishing the car’s smooth purr, he put it into gear.
After keying in his security code he drove through the tall iron gates, as always enjoying the bucolic sight of Laura’s prized horses grazing in manicured pastures behind freshly painted oak fences. As he pulled into the six-car garage, he was relieved to see that Laura’s van wasn’t inside yet.
Mumbling a greeting to Marta, the housekeeper, he hurried upstairs to take a shower. The enclosed shower stall with its rain-heads and steam jets soothed away the last remnants of his panic attack. When he emerged from his dressing room/walk-in closet, he heard Laura cooing to Ellie in the nursery. She was a great mom. It added a whole new dimension to the courageous woman who’d rescued him and spent the past year saving his soul.
He poked his head into the nursery. “Anything I can do to help?”
Laura smiled up at him. “I’m afraid you lack the proper anatomical equipment to provide what Ellie wants at the moment.” He gazed at his daughter’s silky, dark head nestled against the pale globe of Laura’s breast. He might have missed Adam’s babyhood—another outrage to lay at his kidnappers’ feet—but he was savoring every minute of Ellie’s.
“Dinner will be ready in a half hour,” Laura murmured. “I’ve asked Marta to serve it in our rooms.”
He nodded and retreated to the other end of the hall to play with Adam. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to sleep with Laura. Far from it. She was as generous and adventurous in bed as she was in life. It was just that he was still rattled from the interrogation, panicked that his past was about to rear its ugly head and ruin all of this perfection. What had happened during those lost years to make him hide his identity, even from the woman he loved?
“Daddeeeeeee!”
Grinning, he braced himself as Adam launched into the air and splatted against Nick’s chest. He caught his son’s small, wriggly form against his, savoring the smell of soap that clung to the boy’s still-damp hair.
“Did you do anything fun today?” he asked as Adam dragged him over to the corner to play with the toy du jour—Hot Wheels race cars.
Adam described his day in charming detail while the two of them built an elaborate racetrack. With dark hair and blue-on-blue eyes so like his own, Adam bent over the task with concentration far beyond his years. He was a frighteningly intelligent child and would go far in life if he used his talents to their maximum potential. They laughed together as too tight a turn sent cars shooting off the track and across the room in spectacular crashes.
Lisbet, the English and shockingly Mary Poppins-like nanny, interrupted the crash fest to announce that Adam’s dinner, and Mummy and Daddy’s, were served. Nick gave his son a bear hug and tickled him until Adam was squealing with laughter before turning him over to Lisbet.
Nick stepped into the private sitting room in their suite and stopped in surprise. The space was lit by hundreds of candles and a white-linen-covered table sat alone in the middle. A red rose in a crystal bud vase sat between the two place settings, and a sumptuous meal was laid out. Marta had really outdone herself. It was some sort of exotic fowl served en croute—grouse, maybe. Among other things, the German woman was a Cordon Bleu-trained chef. A real treasure. But then Laura didn’t settle for less than the best in any aspect of her life. She’d be as intimidating as hell if she weren’t such a genuinely warm and kind person. No doubt about it. He didn’t deserve her.
Laura stepped out of her dressing room and his breath caught. She was wearing a little black dress that highlighted her newly slender body, which had already mostly regained its pre-pregnancy shape partly due to long hours with a personal trainer over the past month. Frankly, the additional curves added to her appeal.
“You look ravishing,” he announced.
“And you are as handsome as always,” she replied as he held her chair for her.
Something within her called to him at a fundamental level, a pull at his soul to protect her and make her happy. It went so far beyond mere attraction he didn’t know how to give it a name. Even calling it love didn’t seem adequate to encompass his need for her or the bond he felt with her. Maybe it was sharing parenthood of two amazing children.
Or maybe it was the fact that he owed his life to her. He would never forget the sight of her the night he was freed. His own private angel. And then the long months of patiently nursing him back to health, gradually convincing him his ordeal was actually over. Putting up with his unwillingness to face his past. And through it all, her love had been steadfast.
He wondered sometimes if there was anything that could shake her loyalty to him. What was it that lurked so dark and frightening in his past? Was it bad enough to drive her away? It really wasn’t something he wanted to find out.
“How are you holding up after being raked over the coals by those lawyers?” Laura asked.
He shrugged. “Today wasn’t fun. But I expect the trial will be worse.”
She sighed. “It’ll all be over in a few weeks, and then we can get on with our