Page 36 of 2 Books in One Bundle

‘Do you want to know what my greatest flaw is?’ he said after a moment, setting down his still full glass and turning to face her, his eyes dark and intent on hers.

Her heart skipped a beat. She wanted to know everything there was to know about the gorgeous, brave, compelling man her child was lucky to have as its father, whatever his faults. ‘Sure.’

‘Not being able to control my need for you.’

And, as he reached for her, it was clear that Zander was done with this conversation, which filled Mia with as much disappointment as desire.

Zander had had to bring the conversation to a halt that night in the library. He’d been hit by one earth-shattering revelation after another and his bruised and battered brain simply hadn’t been able to take any more. He’d had to take refuge in sex. By that point it was all he’d understood.

He hadn’t liked Mia’s point about his experience with Valentina overshadowing the last sixteen years. Her spin on it made him sound weak. Nor had he appreciated her implication that his so-called inability to connect on a deeper level was all in his head. It wasn’t. It was a very real, very deep-rooted part of him. But at least she hadn’t pushed him on what he was hiding. At least she hadn’t had a chance to quiz him on why he would never sit for his portrait.

The rest of their conversation, though, which had shone a spotlight on his upbringing, had made a whole lot of sense. Of course he’d been neglected. Of course he’d never learned how to communicate properly. Hehadn’thad anyone to observe and emulate. The nannies had been great, but they hadn’t exactly set an example to follow. So how could he ever have known what to do?

And as for his siblings’ ability to forge and maintain relationships, which had always bothered him because, after all, they’d all grown up in the same house, it occurred to him as he lay awake in the early hours of Saturday morning, the conversation looping around his head, that emotional neglect and having self-absorbed parents might affect different people in different ways. He’d overeaten. Leo had crashed a boat. Olympia had spent a year in rehab. Atticus and Thalia were twins, they’d had each other, which presumably had made things easier. And Daphne had certainly suffered. She’d been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia at the age of thirteen and although she’d been in remission for nearly a decade, she’d spent most of her adolescence in and out of hospital. How had she coped with their parents’ approach to parenting?

Discovering and accepting that his problem with close personal relationships wasn’t his fault, but rather a by-product of his less than ideal upbringing, was something of a game changer. It suggested he had no fundamental flaws, as he’d feared, and that he might not be as worthless as he’d always assumed, courtesy of the belief that if even his own parents weren’t interested in him then it had to mean that there was nothing about him to be interested in.

Over the next forty-eight hours, the bleak emptiness that had existed inside him for so long like a living, breathing thing seemed to ease. Far from feeling raw and exposed in the aftermath of their conversation, as he’d expected, he was aware of an odd sense of lightness and liberation.

He found he wasn’t even that bothered about pushing Mia to comply with her side of their deal any more. Marriage was no longer the pressing necessity it once had been. She’d seen into the deepest parts of him and hadn’t run a mile. And why would she? Apparently, there wasn’t anything there to run a mile from. So she had no reason whatsoever to deny him access to their child.

In fact, he was now really rather relieved she’d resisted. Marriage for the sake of their child would only have complicated the situation. They could easily co-parent apart. Many thousands of other people did.

He had further work to do on his journey to becoming a fully functioning human being, of course. The thought of large family gatherings was still going to make him uncomfortable for a while. He obviously hadsomeflaws.

But he’d taken those first tentative steps and they hadn’t been a disaster, and he was keen to take more because building a sustainable relationship with Mia and their child didn’t now feel as impossible as it once had. The more he’d talked to her and shared with her, the more he’d learned and the less insurmountable the challenges he faced seemed.

She even had the ability to soothe his agitation on the rare occasion it arose. This morning, for example, he’d run his hand down her body and when he’d felt the very faint curve of her abdomen he, a man of thirty-five who’d stared down countless rivals in the boardroom and possessed more power and influence than the leaders of some small countries, had started to shake.

‘Are you all right?’ she’d murmured, but he hadn’t been able to reply because he hadn’t been all right at all. His pulse had been racing and the walls had been closing in on him and he’d genuinely thought he’d been going to faint even though he’d been horizontal at the time.

But then she’d put her hand over his and the dizziness had faded enough for him to start breathing in and out, deeply and slowly, to be able to push down hard on everything that was demanding to be let in until it had all gone away.

‘I’m fine.’

‘I know you have concerns about your ability to be a father,’ she’d then said, ‘but youwillbe good at it. You’re instinctively protective, you want the best and you care. That’s quite a start.’

Was that really what she thought of him? he’d wondered as the chaos raging inside calmed. Did she genuinely believe he’d succeed at this? Astonishingly, it had sounded as though she did.

‘Well, when you put it like that,’ he’d said, the doubt beginning to slink off in the face of her certainty, ‘maybe it is.’

Attempting a deeper, more personal connection between them was nothing to fear, nothing to avoid. It might even be something to look forward to. Contrary to what he’d been led to believe, he wasn’t a disappointment. He didn’t lack depth or value. He was fine. And that he now knew it was all down to Mia who, if catering didn’t work out, could retrain as a psychotherapist. Whose insight and self-awareness were to be envied. Who’d told him how much she’d admired the way he’d thrown himself into something he’d clearly found a challenge and made him feel ten feet tall.

She hadn’t given up on him. She’d fixed him. Or some parts at least. And for that she deserved a thank you.

Mia had never received much in the way of presents. Her mother had left school to have her and had then got a job as a part-time shop assistant when Mia had started at nursery, but there’d been little money for toys. And then, later on, she hadn’t had anyone to exchange them with anyway.

So when Zander had told her he was giving her an early Christmas present, once she’d got over the urge to dance around the room and smother him in kisses—a ridiculous overreaction—she hadn’t been able to think what that might be. A diamond necklace? Something for the baby? A brand-new spatula? She hadn’t a clue.

Never in a million years would she have imagined being driven to her flat first thing on Monday morning to pack a bag of warm clothes and find her passport. Less still could she have envisaged him then whisking her to the airport, where his private jet was sitting on the tarmac, sleek and white and sparkling in the frosty December sunshine.

‘Where are we going?’ she said in something of a daze as she handed her bag to a member of the crew and then walked with him towards the plane.

Zander grinned, clearly extremely pleased with himself, which for some reason made her head spin and her heart melt like a snowflake in the sun. ‘It’s a surprise.’

That was a phrase no planner of anything ever liked to hear.

‘I’m not sure I like surprises.’

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