what?’ She frowned, naked in his arms. ‘If you really think you can just come here and have sex…’
She made him laugh and she loved making him laugh. She loved the Dominic others so rarely saw. When it was just the two or them, the austere, remote man seemed to leave—and he understood her humour and matched it. He made her laugh too, turned those cold black eyes into puppy-dog ones. ‘I don’t want sex, Bridgette. I just want to hold you.’
‘Oh, no.’ They were laughing so much they would wake up Harry.
‘I just want to lie next to you…’ he crooned.
‘No.’
He straddled her.
‘I just want to talk,’ he said.
‘No talking,’ she begged.
It was a whole new realm for Dominic, like swimming in the ocean after a lifetime doing laps in a pool.
He did not know that you could laugh so much on a Saturday afternoon, that she could laugh even now as she lost him.
As she loved him.
It was a different kiss from any they had tasted before, a different feeling from any they had ever felt.
He kissed her slowly and more tenderly and he let himself love her—smothered her, physically, mentally, buried her and pressed her against her very best sheets. He wrapped his arms under her and drove into her till she wanted to scream, and she pressed her mouth to his chest and held on for dear life. She didn’t know what the future held and she couldn’t control it anyway, so she lived in the moment, and what a lovely moment it was. And she could cry afterwards and not be embarrassed or sorry.
It was a wonderful afternoon, and nothing like the one he had intended, the most delicious surprise. His head was spinning that she could love him like that when she considered it over between them.
‘I’ve made some decisions too.’ He took a deep breath, dived out of the pool and into the ocean, where it was rough and choppy but exhilarating and wild. ‘When I went to resign this week, when I told them I wouldn’t be back, I was offered a job.’ He looked at her grey eyes that were for the first time today wary. ‘Here.’
She felt little wisps of hope rising again, then she moved to douse them. They were guilty wisps. Surely this was wrong.
‘I’m going to ring on Monday and take it.’
‘You want to work in Sydney, though. Your family’s there, your friends, Chris. You always wanted to work there. It’s your goal.’
‘Goals change,’ Dominic said.
‘What about your brother?’
‘I’m not going to say anything to him yet,’ Dominic said. ‘It’s his birthday.’
He shook his head, because he couldn’t do it to Chris this weekend. ‘Look, the job doesn’t start for a month and I’m taking the time off. I’m not working. You and I will spend some proper time together, do some of that talking you so readily avoid, and we’ll see how I go with Harry…’
‘You could have told me!’
‘I tried,’ Dominic said. ‘You didn’t want to discuss it—remember? I’ll be back on Monday and we can talk properly then.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’m going to have to get going soon. This is one plane I can’t miss.’
She lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling, tried to take in what he was saying. A month…
A month to get to know Harry, to see how they went, and then…She was happy, happier than she had ever felt possible, but it felt like a test. Then he turned around and maybe she should compromise too.
‘I could ask Mum and Dad to come over.’ She was torn. ‘If you want me to come tonight…’
‘I think Harry needs a couple of nights in his new bed, don’t you?’
And she was so glad that he understood.
‘I have to get back.’ He smiled. ‘Would it wake Harry if I had a shower?’
‘Don’t worry about that.’ And she had a moment of panic, because Harry was being golden and sleeping now, but what about at two a.m. when he decided to wake up, what about when it was six p.m. and her mother hadn’t picked him up from crèche? How would Dominic deal with those situations? She wasn’t sure she was ready for this, not convinced she was up to exposing her heart just to have Dominic change his mind. ‘I’ll get you some towels.’
‘Could you pass my trousers?’ he asked as she climbed out of bed. ‘Oh, and can you get out my phone?’ He snapped his fingers as she trawled through his pockets, which was something Bridgette decided they would work on. Sexy Spaniard he may be, and in a rush for his brother’s party perhaps, but she didn’t answer to finger snaps. ‘I can’t find it and don’t snap your fingers again,’ she warned him. ‘Hold on, here it is.’ Except it wasn’t his phone. Instead she pulled out a little black box.
‘That’s what I meant.’ He grinned. ‘So, aren’t you going to open it?’
Bridgette was honestly confused. She opened the box and there was a ring. A ring that looked as if they were talking about a whole lot more than a month.
‘I thought we were going to take some time…’
‘We are,’ Dominic said. ‘To get to know all the stuff and to work things out, but, compatible or not, there’s no arguing from me.’ He pulled her over to the bed. ‘I love you.’ He looked at her and to this point he still didn’t know. ‘And I hope that you love me?’
She had to think for a moment, because she had held on so firmly to her heart that she hadn’t allowed herself to go there. And now she did. She looked at the man who was certainly the only man who could have taken her to his home that first night. She really was lousy at one-night stands, because she knew deep down she had loved him even then.
‘If I say it,’ she said, ‘you can’t change your mind.’
‘I won’t.’ That much he knew. She was funny and kind and terribly disorganised too—there was nothing he might have thought he needed on his list for the perfect wife, but she was everything that was now required.
‘How do you know?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure…’ Dominic mused. ‘Chemistry, I guess,’ he said.
‘And Chris?’ she said as he pulled her back to bed and put his ring on her finger. She realised the magnitude of what he was giving up.
‘He’ll be fine.’ Dominic had thought about it a lot and was sure, because of something Tony had said. He should have thanked Tony, not the other way around, for far better a full plate than an empty one. He didn’t want to be like his father, hitting golf balls into the sky at weekends, a perfect girlfriend waiting at home, with not a single problem. ‘I’ll go up at least once a month and he can come here some weekends. If I’m working you might have to…’ He looked at her and she nodded.
‘Of
