Page 206 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 1-4

She would just have to plaster a smile on her face when she was with him, always keep a careful guard on her emotions and love him from afar, knowing that to be open about how she felt would risk turning him off.

And who knew? There were always surprises round every corner. He might not come to love her in the way thatshedefined love, but he could come toneedher, and that would be a step up from affection.

Want and need were close companions, weren’t they? And he wanted her. It was there every time he glanced at her, or looked at her until her body was raging with an urgent, primal burn. One that matched his. Oh, how glorious it was to be able to feel that hard, perfect body once again.

She’d made her choice at his ultimatum: marriage and the knot tied for good, lovers once again. Since then, permission granted, they had fallen back into each other’s arms with the exquisite satisfaction of two people who knew each other intimately, who revelled in the pleasure of touching.

There was no question how he felt for her on a physical level: he wanted her. Honestly, whatever doubts she might harbour about this situation, one thing was absolutely clear: this part of their relationship worked and who knew if this one thing might not grow into more? One day he might need her.Needwould make it harder for him to stray when the physicality between them eased away and he no longer wanted to touch her the way he wanted to touch her now.

Right now, getting done the final touches before she left for the leaving party her friends at the school were throwing for her, Alice blushed at the thought of those touches, thatphysicality.Shewould never tire of the way he could make her body sing and even now, with it swelling and getting bigger, he was still turned on—more so, if anything.

She didn’t get it. When she thought of that woman she’d seen in the picture, leggy, skinny and tall enough to look Mateo in the eye instead of roughly somewhere in the region of his chest, Alice could only wince at the unfavourable comparison. She knew that she was marrying the most gorgeous, eligible bachelor on the planet through default and she had to fight to overcome the occasional burst of insecurity that generated in her. Yet, when he traced the contours of her swollen belly with such tenderness, she had no doubt that he wasn’t put off by her expanding girth.

Sometimes, at night, she wondered how things might change after the baby was born, which was no longer in the distant future. Would the romance of an unborn child and the adventure that represented turn into the more prosaic business of sleepless nights and exhausted days? Would he still be turned on by a tired, yawning wife who didn’t have time to look after herself because of the demands of an infant? Would temptation elsewhere begin to beckon as the mysterious pull of her pregnant body no longer existed?

Since she had no answers to those questions, and since she knew that speculation would only end up with her in a place where she probably wouldn’t want to be, Alice boxed up those concerns, to be considered some other time in the future.

She stepped back and looked at her reflection with a critical eye. She could see the change in her shape, the small but distinct roundness of her expanding belly. Possibly not a great idea to go for bright, summery colours when she was short, genetically plump and a few months’ pregnant. But, then again, she looked cheerful, which was exactly how she felt as she saw the beep on her phone: Mateo’s driver outside and waiting for her. She flew out, grabbing her bag and her lightweight jacket on the way.

She would miss her friends, but would still keep in touch with many of them socially, and, if she was finishing a tiny bit ahead of the usual maternity-leave schedule then that was fine. Deep down, she could see the sense of taking it easy and relaxing before the baby came along rather than trying to prove a point about independence when she really didn’t need to work. She would enjoy herself and then look forward to the new chapter in her life in a couple of days, when they moved in to their new place together.

Right now, she was still in the rented apartment Mateo had moved her to and Mateo had said he was making sure that as many complex deals were completed as possible before the baby came along. Alice hadn’t protested and, while she trusted him, she knew that there was no such thing as certainties in life, so she made damn sure not to go near any gossip pages just in case.

But tonight wasn’t for any anxious thoughts. Tonight was for enjoying herself.

Mateo had no idea why he had decided to surprise Alice at the school where her leaving do was being held. Things were exactly as he had hoped for: she had accepted his marriage proposal.

He was guiltily aware that a certain amount of tactical economy with the truth had played into that decision. He’d painted a nicely vivid picture of what Alice could expect when he found another woman. He’d allowed her to think that, having had his proposal turned down, he was already easing himself back into the dating scene...even though he hadn’t looked in the direction of another woman since Alice had returned to his life. But he had no regrets about those creative liberties. He’d got what he’d wanted and it was for the best.

What could beat two parents united and together when it came to bringing up the child they shared? What could beat the fire between them? He’d resisted her for as long as he could when he’d been waiting for her to come to him, but he had prodded and she had come to him, and it was damn near wonderful not having to deny what his body wanted—what both their bodies wanted!

There was no way she could deny that they got along. He’d been nothing but accommodating—the ideal husband to be and father in the making. But he was beginning to think that proving himself was a vain pursuit, because she honestly didn’t seem to notice all his hard work.

For instance, she had no idea how much grit it had taken to accept the wedding taking place in weeks rather than hours. He had nodded, murmured something or other and battled the instinct that had pushed him to firm things up while he still had her, because the longer they delayed walking down the aisle the more time it allowed her to reconsider.

For the guy who’d never given marriage a second’s thought in years, he found himself in the challenging position of desperately wanting it now.

He hadn’t raised an eyebrow when she’d made noises about the house he’d bought being too modest for his taste. True, he would have gravitated to something bigger and more impersonal, but he’d been quick to appreciate that that would never have been to her taste. Besides, as she had pointed out, infants were allergic to too much white and too many hard edges. So he’d left the choice of whatever décor she wanted to her.

He’d likewise listened with interest as she’d rambled on about resuming work locally once the baby was born. He didn’t see the point of that, but he was determined to prove to her that she hadn’t made a mistake when it came to giving in to him and giving up on whatever romantic dreams she still clung to.

Yet, he had caught glimpses of her when she hadn’t realised he’d been watching her and her expression had hardly been one of undiluted joy. At times like that, his gut instinct was to touch her, because on that one front he was perfectly secure.

Her body curved to his as natural as a flower keening towards the sun, but he had to resist that because it was a cheap fix; he knew that. They could still lose themselves when they were making love, get to a place where nothing mattered and there was no sadness, thoughtfulness or anything at all but enjoyment of the moment, but more and more he found that he wanted more than just passing enjoyment.

He wanted her to smileall the time. He just didn’t know how to get there with that.

So he’d decided that he’d surprise her at her staff party—maybe remind her somehow that he was there for her and the baby. Show her that the life she was leaving behind wasn’t one that she should file under the heading of ‘whimsical nostalgia for the good times’. If she conditioned herself to think of her past as a sacrifice she’d been obliged to make, then there would be no chance of her ever really accepting the present without wondering whether an alternative would have been better.

He could have told her to expect him but he favoured the element of surprise. It was only as his driver neared the uninspiring building that he realised something: part of him was curious to see her in her natural habitat rather than his.

He knew the code to the door. With the agreement of the other members of staff, she had been allowed to share it with him. Mateo thought that his hefty financial contribution to the school finances might also have had a little something to do with that particular decision, but had tactfully refrained from pointing that out. Time had shown him that she was naive when it came to her accepting the unpalatable truth that money bought pretty much everyone and everything. Probably because she was the one exception to that rule.

He’d been to the school on a number of occasions and knew the layout pretty well, although it felt a little eerie to wander around without the noise of kids everywhere. Lord only knew why they’d chosen to have a party at the school, but Alice had been thrilled. She’d wanted it to be informal and private. And besides, she had confided at the time, her memories were all there, which was important to her. She hadn’t wanted lots of waiters and staff faffing around, serving them, with a deadline for them to leave and no music allowed.

He followed the noise. Only essential lighting was on in the corridors and the doors to the classrooms were all firmly shut. It wasn’t a big school, serving kids between the ages of eleven and sixteen, with a sixth-form college standing on other grounds not far away. If he’d somehow looked at it through rose-tinted specs, he would say that it was as cosy as a functional, unimaginative concrete and glass block could possibly get. That was thanks to sheer ingenuity when it came to filling the unappealing wall space with posters.

Mateo heard old-school 80s music as he nudged open the door to the staffroom, which was adorned with balloons, a banner and a long table groaning under the weight of food ordered in for the occasion.

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