want, Nina?
‘You to …’ His hand went over her mouth and he spoke into her ear and reminded her she was a lady. He felt her mouth stretch on his palm into a smile and then he felt the heat of her skin as it flared into a dark blush.
‘What do you want?’ he checked.
‘For you to make love to me.’
And so he did, and Nina didn’t care about tomorrow as he moved inside her, as he took her completely, because whatever happened from this point he had given her tonight—a night when she didn’t hold back, when she moaned and writhed beneath him. And Jack didn’t hold back either. Maybe it would be awkward at work in the future because, when they came, he was telling her he loved her and she was telling him the same. Afterwards they lay there, Nina burning from the pleasure and just a bit embarrassed because, yes, she loved him, she just hadn’t really wanted him to know how much.
‘What do you want, Nina?’
She frowned and turned her head to him, had thought that delicious game was over.
‘Tell me,’ he insisted.
She looked at the playboy on her pillow and would love him for ever, but she knew there were limits, knew that the truth couldn’t fully come out here. ‘What I can’t have.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I know that.’ She smiled, and watched as he turned onto his elbow and then gave her a little telling-off.
‘You need to start saying what you want,’ Jack said. ‘You need to be able to say what you want.’
‘I know that.’
‘So say it.’
‘I’d like to see more of you.’
‘How much more?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I think you do.’
‘And I think it’s impossible …’ She forced another smile. ‘I’ve effectively got two kids …’
‘Forget them.’
‘I can’t,’ Nina sobbed, because she couldn’t and never would, even if it meant that she and Jack couldn’t have a future together.
‘Forget about your brother and sister and my reaction, and just tell me what it is that you want.’ Jack was insistent.
And at the risk of him running from the bed and grabbing his suit, at the absolute risk of him running off and life being terribly awkward in the morning, she told him.
‘I want you to be a part of my family.’ She said it and Jack listened and he didn’t run. He’d done that in the past few days when he had carefully thought about all he might be about to take on, and as he looked down Jack knew he had come to the right decision and her honesty only proved it now.
‘I’d love to be.’
‘Don’t say that …’ She didn’t want a heat of-the-moment thing, she told him.
‘It isn’t,’ Jack assured her. ‘I’ve thought about it, I’ve done nothing but think about it, and, yes, it’s a bit overwhelming, but …’ He had never been so honest either. He told her about Monica the other night, how empty he had felt, how empty he had been till she’d come into his life.
‘Your mother’s going to hate me!’ Nina grinned, starting to believe this might be true.
‘I know.’ Jack grinned. ‘I just can’t wait to tell her!’
And then he told her that he was going to go and buy a ring, but figured she’d want to choose … ‘I can’t really win,’ Jack moaned. ‘If I spend too much you’ll get upset, but I’m not donating for trees somewhere or buying goats instead, like I know you’ll suggest. I want to take you out and spoil you.’
‘How can I say no to that?’
‘You can’t.’
She couldn’t.
So, instead, Nina said yes.
EPILOGUE
JACK LOVED FRIDAYS.
He always had and he always would, but he was especially looking forward to this one.
Blake and Janey were off at summer camp and tonight he and Nina were flying to Hawaii for a delayed honeymoon. He walked up the garden path of their large Brooklyn home after a very full week working at the pro bono centre.
Nina had been right.
His rather more analytical mind had been exactly what the centre had needed and Jack was part of the team that allocated funds as well as running two night clinics a week, and he loved it.
Jack didn’t miss Angel’s. He was often there, consulting on a patient he’d had admitted or stopping by to take Nina for lunch.
‘How was work?’ Jack asked as Nina woke up from a doze, stretched on the sofa and yawned.
‘Exhausting,’ she admitted. ‘I think I got everything done before we go away, but the trouble with working part time is that you end up doing a full week’s work in half the time. Though it was a good day. I saw Tommy and Mike …’
‘And?’
‘Tommy’s finished his chemotherapy and the doctors are really pleased with the results.’
‘Is he having surgery?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Nina said. ‘I think there’s a big case meeting next week, but for now, at least, things are going better than expected.’
Everything was going better than expected.
Nina had been a Carter for a few months now, but as of this week so too were Janey and Blake. A few days after they’d announced they were getting married, Janey had flared up at something, and shouted that Jack had no say, that he was only her sister’s boyfriend, or her brother-in-law.
‘We’ll see about that!’ Jack had snapped back, and so earlier in the week they’d all stood in front of a judge who had smiled as broadly as all of them for the photo to capture the moment Jack officially became a father.
And now Nina had to somehow tell him that he was about to become a father again.
She didn’t know how she felt about it, had wanted to wait a while, but that option was closed to them now.
‘So,’ Jack said, ‘are we packed?’
‘I am.’ Nina smiled.
She followed him into their bedroom and he laughed when he opened the case because it contained two bikinis, a sarong and not much else. Jack threw in a couple of things too.
They
