Page 29 of The Venetian One-Night Baby

He came back to take her hands in his. ‘There is only one wedding I’m interested in right now and that’s ours. And the sooner it happens the better.’

Sabrina chewed the side of her mouth. ‘But I need time to make myself a dress.’

‘Don’t you have one in stock you could use?’

She rolled her eyes and pulled her hands away. ‘Duh. I’ve been planning my wedding since I was four years old. No. I cannot wear a dress from stock. I want to make it myself.’

He frowned. ‘How long will it take to make one?’

‘I usually have a six-month lead time for most of my clients. I’m only doing Holly’s in a shorter time frame because she’s my best friend.’

‘Six months?’ His tone was so shocked she might have well as said it would take a century.

‘I might be able to rustle something up a little earlier but I want my dress to be something I can be proud of when I look back on our wedding day.’ Not to mention her relationship with Max. But would she look back on that with pride or despair?

‘You’re stalling.’ The note of schoolmaster censure was back in his tone. ‘I don’t want to wait for months on end to get married. We’ve made the decision so let’s get on with it.’

‘I am not stalling,’ Sabrina said. ‘Weddings are not dinner parties where you invite a few guests, cook some food and open some wine. It takes months of planning and—’

‘So we’ll hire a wedding planner.’

‘Max, you’re not listening to me,’ Sabrina said. ‘I want to plan my own wedding. I want to make my own dress. I don’t want it to be a rushed shotgun affair.’

His jaw worked for a moment. ‘I’d like to be married before the baby is born. I want it to have my name.’

‘The baby will have your name regardless.’ Sabrina sighed and came over to him, touching him on the forearm. ‘Maybe we can compromise a bit. I can’t say I want to walk up the aisle with a big baby bump on show. That’s not quite what I envisaged for myself when I was growing up.’

His hands came to rest on the tops of her shoulders, his eyes searching hers. ‘Would you be happy with a small and simple wedding, just family and a few close friends?’

She would have to be happy with it because she was starting to realise there wasn’t time for her to plan anything else. How far from her childhood dreams had she come? ‘Is that what you would like? Something small and intimate?’

One of his hands went to the nape of her neck, the other to cradle the side of her face. ‘I’m sorry I can’t give you exactly what you want but we can make do.’

Make do. There was that annoying phrase again. But Sabrina was increasingly aware of her habit of idealising stuff and ending up disappointed when nothing met her standards. Maybe it was better this way. To lower her expectations and be pleasantly surprised when it worked out better than she thought. She pasted on a smile. ‘Then that’s what we’ll do. Make do.’

CHAPTER NINE

BY THE TIME the weekend came, Sabrina had almost convinced herself her relationship with Max was just like that of any other young couple in love and preparing for their marriage and a baby. Almost. He whisked her out of London on Friday afternoon, with their weekend bags loaded in the boot of his car, and drove a couple of hours into the countryside to a gorgeous Georgian mansion a few kilometres from a quiet village.

The mansion had been recently renovated for the garden was still showing signs of having had tradesmen’s workboots and ladders and other construction paraphernalia all over it. But even in the muted late evening summer light she could see the neglected garden’s potential. Roses bloomed in messy abundance, clematis and fragrant honeysuckle climbed rampantly over a stone wall, and along the pathway leading to the front door she could see sweet alyssum filling every crack and crevice in a carpet of white and purple.

‘What a gorgeous place,’ Sabrina said, glancing at him as helped her out of the car. ‘Is it yours?’

‘Yes. Do you like it?’

‘I love it.’ She breathed in the clove-like scent of night stocks and sighed with pleasure. ‘Wow. It’s just like out of a fairytale. I’m almost expecting fairies or goblins to come dancing out of that back section of the wild garden.’

Max took her hand. ‘Come on. I’ll show you around.’ He led her to the front door, taking care she didn’t trip over the cracked pathway. ‘I bought it a while back. I’ve been coming down when I can to do some of the work myself.’

She gave him a sideways glance. ‘Well, I know from personal experience how good you are with your hands.’

He grinned back and squeezed her hand. ‘Cheeky minx. Careful, the sandstone step here is a bit uneven. I was going to replace it but I quite like the fact it’s been worn down over the years.’

It was becoming more and more apparent to Sabrina that Max was a traditionalist at heart. He was always careful in his designs to respect a building’s history and incorporate it cleverly into any new development on the same site, just as he had done with his house in Notting Hill. And wasn’t his determination to marry her because of the baby another indication of his commitment to his strong values?

Max unlocked the door and led her inside the house, switching on lights as he went. The interior had been tastefully decorated in mostly neutral colours, which brought in more light. The furniture was a mixture of old and new and she wondered if he’d chosen it himself or got an interior decorator to do it for him. He would certainly know plenty in the course of running his architectural firm. Most of whom would be female.

Sabrina swung her gaze back to his. ‘You have excellent taste. Or did you get someone to do the decorating for you?’

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