Page 257 of Lovers' Dance: Vol. 2
“You don’t believe in jinxes.”
Matt shrugged and wrapped one of my curls around a finger. “Madison Bradley sounds perfect. Plus you can use my embroidered robes and my personalized letterhead writing paper. I’m MB and you’re MB, win-win for everyone.”
I shook my head then laid my head down on his chest in order to listen to his strong heartbeat.
“I’ll take that as a yes then.” Matt decided at my silence. “And no pre-nuptial agreement either. I’ve amended my will, that way you and the children will never have to worry about finances if anything happens to me.”
The reassuring thud of each beat was in sync with mine. I liked that. “This is nice. Lying here is nice.” I sighed and started to move but Matt tightened his arms around me, keeping me in place. I had to give the warning. “My boobs will leak all over you if I fall asleep like this. I should put my bra on.”
“We’ll deal with it if it happens. You’re right, this is nice. I missholding you like this, poppet.”
“Mmm.” If he wanted to risk it, who was I to complain?
“I’m serious about the pre-nup though-”
“Go to sleep, hon.” I murmured. “And wearedoing the pre-nuptial thing. I’m getting kind of rich and famous now. Have you - (yawn) - seen the write ups about my ballet company? Collins said-”
“Collins? When have you spoken tomysolicitor? Wait, why are you even talking to a solicitor?”
“He called a couple of weeks ago and you weren’t here. We talked about stuff. I’m tired. Anyway, pre-nups aren’t that bad. You’re old money, knight. Old money means pre-nup and I’m cool with it. Sleep tight.” My eyelids closed. I was in sleepy-after-sex mode, and actually always exhausted these days. Oh crap, what about when I returned to work? How did single parents do it? They must be part-superheroes.
“We’re not signing any bloody pre-nups.” he grumbled before pressing a soft kiss into my curls. “And you’ve forgotten your head scarf. Your curls are loose, don’t complain about knots in the morning.”
Then in a down-to-earth, practical show of love, Matt stretched his arm across to the edge of the bed in an attempt to snag my discarded headscarf. Once he had it, he haphazardly wrapped it around my head and tied it off. Forget the big gestures, that right there was true love.
“Thanks.” I murmured in appreciation.
“I do love you more than anything, poppet. You and our children.” Matt whispered right before sleep took me. Those words followed into my dreams, and they were happy ones.
EPILOGUE
“Ethan! Get backhere, you little terror.”
My six year old son yelled something about tyranny and took off in a speed I had no energy to match. I remained kneeling on the floor while glaring at his retreating back with maternal consternation. My mouth instinctively uttered the necessary swear words to ease some of the pressure building within me. Why had I agreed to give their nanny emergency leave this weekend? And what was the now frail Grumps filling my kids’ heads with? Tyranny? Huh. Why did Patricia’s daughter have to go into labour yesterday? I swore again and shook my head. At least Matt and I were happy with Patricia. She was the fifth nanny in our employment and I hoped she would stay.
The first nanny, sourced via a highly rated service, came into our lives when the twins were six months old. Initially I had been against the idea, but I needed to go back to work and Matt kept reminding me there was nothing wrong with having a nanny. I caved, she came, and I adored her. Fran was the same age as me and great with my babies. Then her stupid fiancé had to go and ruin things by getting a job in Australia and stealing my Fran away from me after six months of support. Ah, I missed Fran.
The second nanny, who was privately sourced and not via the service, lasted half a day. Hannah had warned me Matt wouldn’t allow it, but I had liked Sebastian’s interaction with my fifteen month old twins and he came highly recommended; yes, it had taken three months for me to get over Fran’s relocation. Matt had come home from work, I introduced him to our newest employee, then he looked at me and shook his head. Sebastian was devastated. Poor thing. I totally understood how difficult it must be for him as a male nanny, plus I wanted to practice what I believed when it came to equality between the sexes. Matt politely thanked Sebastian for his time and had George show him out. He told me off for an hour and when I pointed out George was practically his nanny when he was a child, Matt had arched an eyebrow at me and told me to go back to the company everyone else in our income bracket used. I went back to the service.
The third nanny, once again sourced from the highly ratedservice, Matt sent on her way after four months. I thought her happy demeanour was great for the babies, until Matt advised she was becoming overly familiar with him. Scornfully, I had pointed out she was taking care of our children while we both worked, it was inevitable she would be part of our family. Matt had done his eyebrow thing and said he wanted it on record he wasn’t happy with her, I told him to grow up and get over it. Bethany was fun. Then Matt raised the issue the following week while casually stating once more he wasn’t comfortable with Bethany’s changing behaviour around him. I told him he was full of himself and Bethany was a delightful, full of life, twenty-something year old who probably saw him as a cold, stern workaholic hence her behaviour around him. Matt did his eyebrow thing again and left it another week. Then he sacked her without running it by me first and I lost it. Dante and I were in the process of creating a new production with Francois, time was almost non-existent and the twins were into everything. Matt sat me down and confessed the nanny had been giving him the come hither vibes, I reminded him of his arrogance and he said she’d deliberately walked in on him in various states of undress over a three week period. He also alluded to her becoming touchy feely when I wasn’t around. I had sighed and told him to stop looking so damned good. His handsomeness had lost me a nanny. Matt had kissed me, staunchly announcing he was not going to fall into that seductive trap of shagging the hot nanny and losing his wife. I had popped him in the eye for even thinking it was a possibility, the shagging of hot nannies that is; losing me was a fact, not a mere possibility, if any extra-marital shagging took place. The make-up sex between us had been great.
The fourth nanny had lasted three years. Edith was great. She had her own teenaged kids and Matt found her charming. Ha. On her first family vacation with us as the twin’s nanny, she’d made him a full English breakfast every morning of the trip. The chef had been happy to allow it, I warned Matt about cholesterol levels, and Edith loved our kids. We loved her and it was sad when she left because of family issues.
Patricia had been with us almost eighteen months now. George, who still lived with us because I couldn’t bear the thought of him not being there, secretly enjoyed her company. He was still starchy though and quick to tell her off if he thought she wasn’t instilling theproper values in the twins. He thought hugs were overrated.
Nannies. I was ashamed to have need of them, but I couldn’t live my life without them. Yeah. I blamed Matt. And now -
“Mummy,” Eva popped up like the magician she was, eyes wide with disbelief and startling the hell out of me. “You really shouldn’t swear.”
“Darling,” I feigned innocence, beckoning her over from where she played inside the walk-in closet separating her room from Ethan’s. “Are you sure you didn’t just mishear Mummy?”
She blinked her eyes at me, rosebud mouth pulling into a little frown. “No. You said-”
“Ok, ok,” I interrupted her in a flash. It was bad enough I said those words, couldn’t have her repeating it. “Mummy is sorry.” Darned English. No matter how much I had tried to correct them, to teach them the word was ‘Mommy’ they still pronounced it like Matt did and chastised me if I didn’t agree with it. “What are you doing, Evie? Why aren’t you dressed as yet?”
She looked down at her tutu, firmly in place over her pyjamas, then shrugged. “I look fine. Ethan isn’t wearing pants.”
“I saw. Can you go get him back here?”
