Page 39 of 2 Books in One Bundle

‘You’re very welcome.’

Later, lying in the huge bed next to him as he slept, naked beneath the silk sheets and cashmere blankets, she gazed up through the laser-heated glass roof at the aurora borealis painting the dark starlit sky with great swathes of glowing colours. The sheer scale and awesome majesty of what was going on overhead stole her breath and brought tears to her eyes all over again, and it was only when she thought that her mother would have loved this that she realised she’d stopped thinking about her mother hours ago.

From the moment she’d stepped out of the car all she’d thought about was Zander and this wonderful trip he’d arranged for her. Not for their baby or anyone else. For her. To please her and her alone.

He did care about her, she thought giddily. Possibly even more than that because he’d told her he’d never given anyone a present before, so this had to be special, surely. He was the most thoughtful, most amazing man she’d ever met. Not flawless—who was?—but deep and layered and complex. Her child was so lucky to have him as a father. She couldn’t wait to see him caring for and playing with his son or daughter. She’d never had that experience with her own father, but she knew Zander was going to be great.

This was the most perfect Christmas present she could ever have been given, and as a shooting star streaked through the sky she knew that she didn’t have to wonder any more about whether or not her heart was engaged. It was—wholly and irrevocably—because she was head over heels in love with him.

He was everything she’d always wanted. He’d talked to her, he trusted her, he valued her. He was the fairy tale. And she was pretty sure he loved her back. It was there in the tenderness of his touch. The warm heat of his smile. The faint trembling she’d felt in him when he’d kissed her in the car.

So what was she going to do about it? Wait to see how things panned out? That had never been her style. And how much of a risk would it really be to tell him how she felt? Surely it had to be minimal. Success, security, happiness, love—you had to reach out and grab them when you could. Because, as she well knew, life could simply be too short not to.

But a little voice in her head was telling her to exercise caution. These were early days still, and they’d been pretty intense ones at that. Only a fortnight ago Zander’s life had changed for ever with the news that he, the tabloids’ favourite international billionaire playboy, was going to be a father. Over the weekend everything he’d believed for the last thirty years had been tossed in the air and reshaped. It was a lot to contend with.

What if she dived right in and it was too much too soon? She did have form on that. What if, in the single-minded pursuit of her own happiness, she demolished his? If she told him how she felt and he spooked, definitely a possibility, how awkward would that be?

On this occasion, then, perhaps it would be wise to wait. To test the waters first. She had to get it right. Her future, and their baby’s, depended on it. She could not afford to screw it up.

Overall, it had been an extremely successful twenty-four hours, Zander thought with satisfaction as he made Mia a cup of green tea the following morning and took it back to her in bed.

Admittedly, the start had been shaky, but she’d explained what had happened and the relief that it hadn’t been his fault, that his self-reflection hadn’t been for naught, made him feel quite light-headed. The rest of the day had pleasingly played out as he’d envisaged—pure, exhilarating, carefree fun of the kind he hadn’t had in a long time.

Zipping through the trees on the snowmobile first with Mia wrapped round him and then with him around her had given him more of a rush than any ski run, and he’d made it down La Chavanette intact, twice. Her delight at the ice hotel had been infectious. Her avid interest in the precise formation of the frozen waterfall another fascinating facet to discover.

He wasn’t immune to the impact of the scenery either. More than once his breath had caught at the sheer magnificence of the landscape. Last night, he’d looked up at the canopy of stars and the swirling colours that danced across the sky and was perfectly willing to admit the sight had brought a lump to his throat.

There’d been something unique about making love beneath it. A new dimension to their heat. As if they’d somehow, impossibly, been trying to match up to the glory of nature. Mia’s passion had been wild, her desire to please him infinitely more intense than usual. He still hadn’t fully recovered.

‘Can you believe it’s Christmas Day in less than a week?’ she said, taking the tea from him and snuggling back against the pillows. ‘Scoffing jelly babies and watching old films in my pyjamas is going to be quite an anti-climax after this.’

‘Is that what you usually do?’

‘Yes.’

He frowned. ‘On your own?’

‘I know it doesn’t sound much fun, but it’s fine,’ she said with a reassuring grin that strangely didn’t reassure him at all. ‘Really. I’ve had invitations over the years, but being part of other people’s families only emphasises the fact that I don’t have one. It’s easier to treat it as just another day and I’m normally exhausted after the manic December rush anyway. There doesn’t seem much point in going to a lot of effort when it’s just me, and I’ve had more than enough of food by then. I don’t even have the energy to put up a tree, let alone hang any decorations.’

She took a sip of her tea and he recalled her admitting to loneliness, thought about her breakdown yesterday morning, and found himself wishing he could remove her pain the way she’d removed his.

‘What about you?’ she said, pulling him away from that perplexing and faintly troubling notion and back to the conversation.

‘Christmas isn’t my favourite time of the year either,’ he said. ‘Neither of my parents was ever at home. My father was inevitably immersed in work. My mother was always somewhere hot and sunny. There wasn’t a lot of festive spirit around. These days I have an open invitation to Leo’s place on Santorini.’

‘Is that what you’re going to do this year?’

It was an idea. He never had before. He’d always felt as if he’d be intruding, so he tended to head to the office and then, when the eerie quiet got to him, which it inevitably did after a couple of hours, he walked the seven miles home and had an uncharacteristically early night. But this year, because of all the personal revelations he’d recently had and the implications of them, he could indeed buy some presents for his nieces and take them to Santorini.

‘I’m undecided.’

‘Well, I know that, technically, my two weeks will be up by then,’ she said, her eyes shimmering as she looked at him from above the rim of her cup, ‘but maybe we could spend the day together this year. Maybe we could start making some traditions of our own.’

The back of his neck prickled. His stomach pitched. But where his sudden discomfort came from, he couldn’t say. It wasn’t an outlandish suggestion because they could well be sharing many Christmases to come.

However, the sparkle in her gaze and the expression on her face unnerved him. She seemed to be radiating hope, warmth, yearning, and he couldn’t work out whether all that was for his body or for something else.

Worse was the way in which his stomach was revolting at the thought of her moving out. Did she want to leave? Why? Wasn’t she happy with their arrangement? He’d thought it was working well. He’d been thinking about making it permanent, for the sake of convenience.

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