at least found it.
The shower was bliss—and so, too, was it bliss to put on not a crisp clean shirt, but the one he must have taken off last night that smelled of him.
She slipped between sheets that held his cologne and the male scent of him—and then the door opened and he stood there, holding a cup in one hand and their son in the other.
‘Sweet milk,’ he said. ‘Do you want something to eat?’
‘No, milk is fine.’
‘I’ve called Marianna. She is getting some essentials and will sort out a nanny.’
‘I don’t need a nanny.’
‘Well, I do,’ Nico said.
‘Ah, yes, you have a very busy social life.’ She fixed him with her eyes. ‘What with balls and trips to the theatre…’
‘That was in the run-up to Christmas,’ Nico said, though he knew full well what Aurora was getting at. Those had been high-profile functions he had attended, and there were photos everywhere. ‘It has been a busy couple of months.’
‘I saw,’ Aurora said, and attempted to slice him in two with her eyes.
Nico held her gaze. He did not blink and then he spoke. ‘One thing, Aurora…’ He just could not let go of what she had said for a single moment longer. ‘You were never desperate.’
‘So had I arrived here eight months pregnant, with fat ankles—?’
‘You know the answer,’ he interrupted. ‘You were never desperate.’
No, because she had the golden ticket—his baby. And, whether he wanted her or not, Nico would see to his duty—and she would have done anything to avoid that.
‘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
