‘Hello,’ he said.
As soon as Liza was out of danger Matteo arranged for her to come home. Her room was turned into a mini- hospital, and three nurses were hired to give her round-the-clock care.
He spent as much time with her as possible, insisting on taking time off from work, relishing his happiness, and safeguarding it.
Holly would have stood back, letting them be alone to discover each other again. But neither of them would allow that. They opened their arms, drawing her into their magic circle.
Alone with Matteo, the magic was different, profound, breathtaking. Now he could speak openly about his love, but it was when he said nothing at all that she knew it most deeply. Since the day she had drawn him back from the precipice he had placed himself in her hands entirely.
Soon it would be Christmas, the first that the three of them would share. As the weather grew colder and the leaves fell from the trees Holly found herself haunted by a strange thought. She was unsure about confiding it to Matteo. His heart had opened further than she had dared to hope, but was even his generosity enough for this last step?
One day as they sat together he gave her a sudden, curious look, and asked, ‘What are you thinking?’
‘I just had an odd idea…’
‘Share it with me.’
‘You may not like it.’
He smiled. ‘But I shall trust it.’
‘All right. I was thinking that the person I feel most sorry for is Alec Martin.’
‘Carol’s lover? The man who took my daughter.’
‘Yes, but-’
‘But he didn’t take my daughter,’ he said, reading her mind as he could do so easily now. ‘I took his, didn’t I?’
‘You’ve had her all her life. She met him only once, on the train, and she didn’t like him.’
He nodded, beginning to understand.
‘Carol did him a wrong, just as she did me-perhaps more so. All that time he had a lovely little daughter, and he didn’t know.’
‘It’s you she loves,’ Holly said.
‘Yes, and me she snuggles against and kisses goodnight. I thought he’d taken everything away from me, but actually it was the other way around.’
He walked slowly out into the garden, and this time she made no effort to go with him. He needed time to clarify his own thoughts. She had given him the lead, but the conclusion must be his own.
He didn’t mention it again for two days, but then he said, ‘I need to go out. Will you come with me?’
In the car he explained, ‘It took me a while to check out where he was buried, but I’ve found him now. I was afraid that they might have taken him back to England, but it seems that he had no close family to care.’
The cemetery was small and bleak, a place for people whom nobody wanted. Here were no beautiful monuments, only small, ugly slabs that almost seemed to shrink with the cold. At last they found Alec Martin’s, with his name and dates.
‘He was only thirty-three when he died,’ Matteo said. ‘And his whole adult life had been taken up making enough money to claim his family back from me. Now he has nothing.
‘I’ve hated him, but I never before wondered how much he must have hated me.’
He was silent for a moment before looking at the grave and speaking, almost as though there were someone there who could hear.
‘I came here today…’ He hesitated, and for a moment Holly thought he would be unable to go on. But then he lifted his head. ‘I came to say thank you for our daughter, and to promise you that I’ll always look after her.’
His face softened. ‘You have my word on that.’
He drew Holly’s hand through his arm and led her away from the loneliness. The air was cold with frost and dusk was falling, but through the trees they could see lights, beckoning them on to another place, where there was warmth, hope and new life.
Just before they reached the lights he stopped and said, ‘But for you, I could never have understood. I could never even have made a beginning.’
‘The beginning will go on,’ she promised.
‘Only if you’re with me.’
‘I will be-always.’
He kissed her tenderly.
‘Let’s go home,’ he said.
The Boss’s Pregnancy Proposal by Raye Morgan
CHAPTER ONE
EMPTY offices were dark and spooky at night.
Callie Stevens took the stairs. She didn’t want to use the elevator. Too noisy, and the last thing she wanted was to draw any attention from the night watchman.
By the time she’d climbed to the fifth floor of ACW Properties, she was beginning to rethink that position. But she had to be careful. After all, she’d just been fired by Harry Carver, the elderly CEO. She wasn’t supposed to be here at all.
Reaching the sixth-floor landing, she stopped to catch her breath and listen for signs of life. Glass sconces lined the hallways giving off a dim light, but nothing was stirring. A sigh of relief and she made her way toward the area where her little cubicle stood among all the rest.
The light from the hallway cast an eerie spell over the room, lengthening shadows and making hiding places where they weren’t meant to be. She stopped for a moment, orienting herself and feeling a sharp pang of regret. She’d liked this job. She was going to miss it-and the money that went with it.
Looking around quickly, she finally saw the object of her quest-her treasured orchid plant. She’d left it behind during the hectic ten minutes they’d given her to clean out her desk before escorting her off the premises. She’d been afraid someone might have thrown it in the trash, but there it was up on the high corner of a metal bookcase.
She glanced around quickly for something to climb on. There was no stepladder, so she pushed a chair over and hopped up, stretching high. Her fingers could barely reach. She’d just made contact with the ceramic pot that held her floral darling when the lights of the room snapped on and a deep male voice sent a shock wave slicing through her.
“Looking for something, Ms. Stevens?”
She screamed.
It wasn’t a very loud scream, more of a yelp, really. But it was enough to cause her to lose her balance. She grabbed at the edge of the shelf, but it was too late. She was falling and so was the ceramic pot with the orchid she’d come back to rescue.
She hit bottom with a thud, but not the sharp, painful smack she’d expected. It took a couple of seconds for her adrenaline to fade and her mind to register that the man who’d startled her had stepped forward and tried to break her fall, and that she’d smashed him to the floor for his trouble-and now they were locked together in an embarrassing tangle of hair and limbs.
This was not good.
“Oh!”
She scrambled to her feet and looked down at him. It was Grant Carver-her ex-supervisor-nephew of the CEO
