‘Yes, Nico, I was.’
He closed the bedroom door and headed through to the lounge. He looked into navy blue eyes, and saw the groove in Gabe’s chin that mirrored his, and then went back to gazing into those sumptuous eyes.
‘Your mother,’ Nico said to his son, ‘is the most difficult woman on the face of this earth.’
And then he fell in love—because an eight-week-old could win a heart with a smile.
‘You did not inherit that smile from me,’ Nico said.
He had both of them now.
Two hearts that he had to take care of.
Two lives that twined and twisted into his.
When he had never even wanted one.
Aurora slept for a couple of hours and then woke to the sight of a crib by the bed.
And the weight of Nico’s arm over her.
He was on top of the bed, not in it, and he was asleep.
She wriggled out from under his arm and sat up on the edge of the bed. She peered into the crib at her son, and for that moment all was right in her world.
‘He wanted you,’ Nico said sleepily. ‘I couldn’t get him to settle in the crib, but the moment I carried it in here he fell asleep.’
‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘You were out of it. Come back to bed. Sleep when he does.’
‘No, I’m awake now,’ Aurora said. ‘And I’m hungry.’
But the deeper truth was she was nervous beside Nico. Nervous of the conversation to come and not sure how she was going to react to his weary, inevitable proposal.
There would be questions first, and accusations, but something told her that a proposal of marriage would come at the end of them.
Happy now? his eyes would say.
No—for she had never wanted to force him into doing his duty like this.
‘I’m going to make something to eat…’ Aurora said.
‘There’s a meal being delivered in an hour.’
‘A meal being delivered…?’ She frowned.
‘I often have the hotel chefs prepare my dinner.’
‘Well, I just want some bread,’ Aurora said. ‘Do you have that in your fancy house?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t do the shopping. Marianna brought a lot of stuff over for Gabe…’
‘What did you tell her?’
‘Nothing,’ Nico said. ‘I just told her to arrange a nanny and that I needed stuff for an eight-week-old baby.’
‘And she didn’t ask any questions?’ Aurora looked over at him, and felt a delicious teasing in his vague answers.
‘She asked if you were breastfeeding.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said that I believed not.’
‘I wasn’t able to,’ she said.
‘Well, there’s plenty of formula and bottles, and there’s an emergency nanny on her way. There is a separate wing in the house, and she shall have Gabe with her at night.’
‘No.’
‘Aurora, even aside from the bruise, you look terrible.’
‘Thank you for being so tender in your assessment of me.’
‘You are exhausted.’
She was… Not from the birth—the fog had lifted from that. And not from the night feeds, nor the drama of Louanna and her husband.
It was from eight years of chasing his love and running from his love and then chasing it again.
‘You look tired too,’ she observed.
‘Because you’re exhausting, Aurora,’ he said, and then he smiled.
The nanny arrived a little while later, and as Nico went to the entrance hall to let her in Aurora sat there, feeling on the back foot, still dressed in his shirt because her clothes were being washed. She braced herself for someone brisk and efficient, as all the people Nico hired in Rome seemed to be.
Instead she was a… Well, all Aurora could think of was a vast Italian nonna, who hugged Aurora as if she had raised her and was besotted as soon as she saw Gabe.
‘He looks just like his daddy!’
‘That’s the assumption we’re working on,’ Nico said, to the nanny’s bemusement, but it made Aurora laugh.
And as the nanny got to know Gabe, so he wouldn’t get a fright when he woke in the night and saw her, Aurora and Nico ate dinner. A gorgeous osso bucco in a wine and herb sauce. There was even bread! Well, there were rolls…
And as they sat at his gleaming dining table, and dinner was served by staff from the hotel, Aurora’s stomach growled as wine was poured.
Nico must have sensed her discomfort and dismissed the staff back to the hotel. ‘Grazie,’ he said.
‘But dessert…’ one of the waiters said.
‘We can manage.’
Manage.
That was what he would do, Aurora thought. Nico would manage this situation as best he could.
‘I’m sorry to have landed on you,’ Aurora said.
‘I’m glad you called.’
‘Please, Nico, don’t be polite.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I won’t be polite. Are you wearing underwear?’
She gave a shocked laugh, but then her smile faded as she felt his eyes on her.
And then Nico was serious. ‘I am glad that you called.’
‘Truly?’
‘Yes. I just wish that it had been sooner.’
‘And what would you have done?’
‘I’d have done better than a summerhouse in winter.’
‘Please don’t…’ She was starting to cry. ‘I did my best, Nico. I got us into this…’ She looked at him. ‘You think I trapped you.’
‘Did I say that?’
‘Nico, I wasn’t on the Pill.’
‘And I didn’t use a condom.’
‘But you thought I was on the Pill.’
‘Aurora, I am arrogant, yes, but not arrogant enough to expect you to remain on contraception for me because of one night four years ago.’
Oh.
‘If you had actually told me that day that you were ovulating I don’t think I’d have even heard. I was going to have you—’
‘Oh!’ She said it out loud this time.
Actually, she was surprised he knew such a word—but then the witch in her head flew in and reminded her that Nico knew all about female anatomy.
‘We made love and we made a baby,’ Nico said.
‘Yes.’