Bestselling Authors Collection 2012(27)

For something referred to casually as a suite, she realised, it was bigger than her entire house in Sherwill. And one hell of a lot more luxurious.

‘Will it do?’ Dominic asked after the tour had concluded, depositing her bag on the blanket box at the end of the bed. ‘Do you think you’ll be comfortable here?’ And for the first time she sensed a hint of insecurity. Was he so worried she’d take his baby away? But his Will it do?—who was he trying to kid?

‘You’ve seen where I come from. What do you think?’

‘Then I’ll take that as a yes,’ he said. ‘I have work to catch up on. The rest of your things will be here tomorrow. Let Rosa know if you need anything else in the meantime and she’ll take care of it. I’ll see you at dinner.’

‘Thank you. I appreciate it,’ she said, meaning every word, looking around at the plush fittings and decor and secretly relishing the idea of this suite being hers for the next six months. Hardly some kind of jail sentence. Unless she thought about who she was being locked up with. Thank God he had an office to go to. With any luck, he’d work long hours and she’d never see him.

And then she sensed movement and turned and found he’d gone, with just a hint of his tantalising woody masculine scent remaining on the air.

Across the room, Rosa smiled softly at her. ‘It is good you are here,’ she said. ‘For too long he has been alone. And now to have a baby…’ she put her hands over her mouth but Angie had already seen the tremors even as she’d pressed her lips together, had already seen the moisture sheening her eyes ‘… a baby is like a gift from the heavens. You must be a very special woman, to do this thing for Dominic.’

And Angie felt her own tears well up again, shaking her head in a futile effort to make them go away. She wasn’t special or noble or unselfish. Her reasons were far more personal. ‘It had nothing to do with Dominic,’ she insisted. ‘I’m just pleased this baby has found its home. A place where it is wanted.’

The light glinted off Rosa’s tear-laden eyes as she nodded, blinking and blotting her cheeks dry with a handkerchief. ‘And I am forgetting myself. What would you like? Can I get you something to eat, or perhaps I could run you a bath? It will relax you. Or maybe you’d like a swim in the pool?’

So many choices and all of them so inviting! But she wasn’t hungry yet after that huge lunch and she hadn’t packed bathers. She looked longingly in the direction of the bathroom. That marble-tiled, gold-tapped submerged bath looked like temptation itself. So much decadence should be illegal or at the very least immoral, but the concept of submerging herself within its watery depths was like a lure to the senses. ‘The bath sounds wonderful.’

Rosa nodded, pulling a white plush robe from the wardrobe and laying it on the bed. ‘I’ll run it for you and then bring you a cup of tea. We have ginger and green tea, unless you’d prefer something else?’

‘That would be perfect,’ Angie said, thanking her, wondering what guardian angel had deposited her here, into Rosa’s warm and welcoming care. Not Dominic, she knew. He might want to guard her for the next six months, but if he was an angel, he was definitely of the dark variety, complex and—she searched for a word to describe him—dangerous.

It fitted, she thought, trembling just a little as she changed into the robe. Definitely dangerous. Maybe not physically threatening, in spite of his size and presence. More the kind of danger that operated on another level.

For his danger came in dark eyes that could unnerve and unsettle, look at her with undisguised disdain or, in the very next look, send heat spiralling through her. His danger was that dark longing that left her weak and breathless.

And when he touched her…

She shivered. Forget about Dominic and guardian angels and touching, she told herself, the perfumed steam coming from the bathroom beckoning with the scent of rosemary and orange and maybe even a hint of vanilla. Maybe, for just once in her life, something was going right. Maybe these next six months would be the perfect opportunity to work out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.

After all, she was single now. No ties. She could make a fresh start. Maybe do some study? Make something of herself.

And as for this baby? She curled a hand over her tummy, her heart aching for the mother who would never know her child, and for the child who would never know its mother. She’d so wanted everything to be perfect for this baby! But still she’d made the right choice, she knew. This baby would have a home. The baby was wanted. What more could she really ask?