Modern Romance March 2019 5-8

When her reply came a moment or so later it was tinged with surprise underlain with a hint of defiance evident in the straightening of her slender shoulders.

‘Yes, that is my child.’

Flora had accepted the doctor’s verdict. It hadn’t been easy, and for a time she had been angry, but she had come to terms with the fact her endometriosis was so bad that her fertility was severely impaired.

She could have carried on being angry and bitter or hoped for a medical miracle. She supposed it was one of those events in life that everyone reacted to differently. Her way had been to accept what had happened, and save her energy for fights she could win, not lost causes.

That didn’t mean she hadn’t dreamt of saying those words...my child.

Ironic that when she got to say them it wasn’t because of a miracle or a dream-come-true scenario but because she was living a waking version of a nightmare Flora would have given everything she possessed not to be saying those words now, but when she did verbalising them brought home the full reality of the situation crashing in.

It was something that happened several times a day and each time the impact felt like walking into a wall of loss and pain, and, yes, fear that she just wasn’t up to the job.

Flora had never felt more desperately inadequate to any task in her life. Sure, her career had held challenges, and some were scary with an inbuilt possibility of failure, but this was different. Parenthood was different. Being responsible for a life was the scariest thing she had ever imagined. Could any training prepare you for it?

Or were good mothers born?

Sami had been one of those, she thought, her eyes misting as she thought of her sister, who had made it look so easy. Pushing her way through the jumble of conflicting emotions, she took a deep breath.

Doubts were distractions she couldn’t afford. She needed to stay in ‘one foot in front of the other’ mode, and firmly focused on mundane things like paying the bills and staying awake!

Feelings and doubts were a luxury she didn’t have time for.

‘Oh, sorry,’ she said brightly. ‘Can I take your bag?’ She glanced towards the overnight holdall he had dropped inside the door when he’d arrived.

Even standing on the second step, she had to tilt her head back to look him in the face. The action made her bright hair spill backwards in a tangled silky coil down her narrow back.

He knew from the file Salvatore had compiled—his grandfather was nothing if not thorough—that Flora Henderson had been forced by the recent tragic events to walk away from what was probably her dream job. He’d anticipated there might be resentment he might utilise to achieve his objective, that the role thrust on her might make her vulnerable.

Yes, she was, it was there to see in the hollows in her smooth cheeks, the shadowed unhappiness reflected in the shocking blue of her eyes and the dark circles underneath.

Yet instead of feeling satisfaction Ivo was conscious of something that came close enough to compassion to jolt him free of those blue eyes. A moment later he reassessed his reaction. Compassion required a degree of caring, and he did not care for this woman; there was nothing personal between them.

He only did personal with family and, aside from his grandfather, his only family now was the child sleeping upstairs. This woman stood between him and that child.

‘I think I’ll manage, Ms...?’

‘Oh, it’s Henderson.’ Then, because they were listed on all the websites as providing a relaxed, informal environment, she fought her innate reluctance to provide this man with any personal details and added, ‘Flora.’ Facing ahead, she started up the stairs, not needing the creak behind her to tell he was following. The hairs on the back of her neck told her that.

By the time they reached the top she was breathless, in part because she had attacked them like an athlete out to break records, but mostly because of the unnerving way he had looked at her, as though he could see inside her head.

They reached the top and she paused, opening the door of the store cupboard at the top and reaching in to pull out an electric fan heater, relieved to be able to look efficient, or at least slightly less inefficient. No need for him to know that she had only remembered where they were stored halfway up the stairs.

‘Your room is the other side of the house.’ Flora tucked the light heater under her arm and pushed aside a tendril of red hair that was tickling her nose. ‘So, hopefully you won’t be disturbed. Fingers crossed.’

‘That’s a very scientific attitude to customer service.’

Flora smiled through gritted teeth, rather glad she had only imagined the sympathy she had seen in his face. ‘We aim more for the warm personal touch.’ Not that personal, Flora, said the voice in her head when she realised the she was staring at the firm, sensual outline of his mouth. ‘If you’d like to follow me, Mr Rocco,’ she offered primly.

The selection of the room farthest from the nursery had seemed a good choice. It was the biggest and it had the best views; the size meant tonight it was also the coldest.

‘I hope you’ll be comfortable,’ she huffed, watching her warm breath mist in the cold air as she bent forward to plug in the heater before switching it to the maximum setting. ‘It’ll warm up in no time,’ she promised him optimistically.

‘So, tea and coffee making facilities.’ Her fluttering gesture indicated the tray complete with cafetière on a side table. She picked up the tin beside it. ‘The shortbread is homemade.’ Most guests looked impressed by this; he didn’t, but Flora doggedly persevered despite the lack of reaction. Heavens, would it kill him to smile? ‘Drinks and milk in the fridge,’ she added, ticking off the items in her head. She opened the wardrobe door. ‘Fresh robe and extra towels and blankets. Just let us know when you check out what you had. The prices are the same as the bar. I hope you have a comfortable night, Mr Rocco,’ she said formally as she backed towards the door. ‘Oh, would you like a hot-water bottle tucked in your bed?’

If there was anything he would like tucked...

He stopped the thought dead but had no control over the blood-warming image that followed in its wake, an image that involved him being warmed by her smooth limbs wrapped around him. A slow steady throb of heat slid through his body. When he was finally able to force the words out past the lustful fog that had seeped into his head, his voice had a throaty rasp.

‘Do I look like I need a hot-water bottle, Flora?’ What he needed was some resistance to the magnetic pull of her plump rose-coloured lips.

His grandfather’s plan might have involved seduction but his wouldn’t. Emotions complicated things, and expecting someone who showed every nuance of emotion on her face to have any degree of emotional continence was unrealistic.

His plan would be a business deal plain and simple...in theory at least. He was beginning to wonder if this woman could do plain and simple. Was she capable of looking through anything without distorting the image through an emotional prism?

It was his task to make sure she did. He didn’t doubt his ability to make this happen and, given the fact her options were limited, it should not be difficult.

His delivery was deadpan, the tone sardonic, but it was the predatory glow in his dark eyes... She wanted to look away. She wanted to run from the room in which the uncomfortable factor in the atmosphere she’d coped with up to this point by simply pretending it didn’t exist had hiked up several notches.

Ignoring was no longer an option.

But growing a backbone was.

Focusing on the sound of distant alarm bells and not the ache in her stomach, she lifted her chin and wrenched her eyes free of his molten stare. Or was it molten? Was she just seeing what she wanted to?

The mortifying idea that she wanted him to look at her that way cooled the sexual pulse that beat low and hot in her belly. Her initial antipathy had not been irrational but spot on. Her chin lifted. He might remind her of a sleek, well-fed predator, but she was damned if she was going to act like some little cowering mouse for his amusement.

Hope you freeze!

For one awful moment she thought she’d voiced the vicious and uncharitably spiteful thought out loud. She almost felt ashamed. She was neither vicious nor spiteful.

‘Goodnight, Mr Rocco.’

* * *

Flora waited until she had cleared the guest wing of the house before she leaned against the wall and released the tension that had her body in a stranglehold grip in a series of long hissing sighs.

Her legs felt like lead as she went back to the store cupboard and pulled out the heaters for Jamie’s room; her energy levels seemed to have seeped away along with the tension. She headed for the baby’s room. There were no heaters left for her own bedroom but then cooling down was probably not such a bad idea.

On tiptoe, barely breathing, Flora plugged the heaters in one of the sockets in Jamie’s room. She looked at the sleeping baby, the swell of love that tightened in her chest physically painful.

She might be a poor substitute for what he had lost but she was determined to give this baby all the love his parents would have if they had lived. If only, she mused wistfully, there were a handbook somewhere for people who had zero parenting skills.

Her mum was there to help and pass on her parenting skills and Flora was thankful for that, but she was also reluctant to rely on her too much. It was easy to forget sometimes, given her very youthful outlook and zest for life, that Grace Henderson had had her share of health problems. Typically, she played them down but losing Sami had taken a massive emotional toll and then she’d had her own accident... No, her mum needed to be resting and healing, not running to the aid of her pathetic daughter, which was why Flora had been glossing over any difficulties she was having and not confiding her doubts. She would tell her mum about the nightmare financial problems she had inherited after she had worked out a solution...or they foreclosed on the mortgage.

Pushing away the depressing thought, she took one last look at the sleeping baby, wondering if it was possible the baby just knew there was an amateur in charge, that at some instinctive baby level he knew that the two people who loved him most were gone.

But he’d know his parents; they would be real people to him. Flora had already begun putting items, photos and mementos in a memory book to show him when he was older. She had pasted photos of her sister growing up on the first few pages; she just wished she had more memories of his father to put in.

‘Sleep tight,’ she whispered, checking the red light on the baby monitor one last time before she quietly left the room, then slipping downstairs for a last-minute check. She switched off the outside light and peered through the window just as the moon appeared through the clouds.

Her stomach gave a little lurch of dismay and her eyes grew round in horror as the silver light revealed the water level; the waves were lapping in the middle of the road just feet from the low wall.

Was this the perfect storm moment, the once every twenty years that they would flood?

She pushed away the thought. She was not the sort of person who assumed the worst, though, after the worst had happened to their family, her built-in optimism was feeling more than a little battered and bruised. It was weariness and not optimism that enabled her to dismiss the potential disaster and make her way up the stairs.

* * *

With the heater turned up full the room became, if not toasty as his hostess had optimistically predicted, at least tolerably warm enough to make him feel able to strip down to his shorts before he got into the surprisingly comfortable bed with the pristine white sheets.

His head had barely made an indent in the pillow before he heard the sound, the soft but unmistakable sound of a baby’s cry above the sounds of the storm that continued to rage outside.

Ten minutes later the baby was still crying.

Did healthy babies cry this much?

Ivo had always possessed the ability to tune out background noise and distractions. He could sleep anywhere—at least he’d thought so. But it turned out there was a nerve-shredding noise that he couldn’t tune out. Twice over the next half an hour the sound stopped only to start up again just as he had been lulled into a false sense of security and relaxed.

When it happened a third time he snapped; throwing back the quilt, he bounced out of bed and over to the door.

The temperature in the hallway was several degrees colder than his room. At some point, he supposed, this had seemed like a good idea, if for no other reason than anything was better than lying there listening to the racket that was driving him crazy. Now you’ll just look crazy!

Quite suddenly the noise stopped. Aware it could be another false alarm, he didn’t relax, neither did he turn around and crawl into his comfortable bed and get what sleep he could. He was committed to the course of action that took his feet towards the flickering light he could see spilling out into the hallways ahead.

The compulsion that drove him was stronger than logic. His brother’s child, his nephew, was inside that room, the only part of Bruno that remained.

When he reached it, the door was ajar. On well-oiled hinges it swung silently inwards when he touched it. The room it revealed was small, painted a bright in-your-face yellow. The heat blasting out from the heaters that were positioned either end of it made the mobiles hanging from the ceiling spin, bringing the clowns and seals and cats to life. The effect when you added the stars and moons the night light projected on the ceiling was all a little surreal.

Ivo barely noticed.

His attention was completely focused on the spot where Flora Henderson was standing, her back turned to him, for the moment oblivious of his presence. She was holding the child, who seemed to be sleeping now; all he could see was the dark curly top of his head and his legs encased in blue, hanging limp.

He watched as she walked barefoot across the room to where the cot was situated under a curtained window. She was wearing a thin blue cotton nightdress that ended just below her knees and was held up by thin straps that revealed the curve of her delicate shoulder blades. The fabric billowed a little as she walked, allowing him to see the narrowness of her waist and the firm curves of her bottom through it.

Later, when he examined the moment he viewed it in the light of a long, very bad, incredibly frustrating day, but at that moment he could not apply logic to the scalding heat of the hormone rush that blanked his mind totally. Just wiped it clean of everything but the sense-destroying lust that for a few moments utterly consumed him.

He had begun to claw his way back to a semblance of control when she lifted her head, the upper half of her body half turning towards him, allowing him a view, through the gaping neck of her nightdress, of the smooth slopes of her breasts and the darker shadow of her nipples through the fabric. Their glances connected, blue on black, and he felt the control he had fought for slipping through his fingers like a wet rope burning flesh as he clung on.

Then he saw the wetness on her face, absorbed the evidence of tears that she didn’t seem conscious of and the gleam of intent in his eyes faded. He swallowed.

‘Let me help.’ Ivo had no idea where the words came from; he was immune to female tears.

So why was he reacting to them now?

The answer threw up a lot more difficult questions.

He’d first set eyes on the woman a couple of hours ago so how could he be so sure, so absolutely bet-your-life-on-it positive, that the tears were not there to gain sympathy? Why did he know she’d crawl before she’d ask for help?

Flora’s chin went up in response. She opened her mouth, the huffy rejection ready to deliver with the right degree of ‘I can take care of myself’ ice, when on her shoulder the baby shifted and gave a sleepy sigh.

She reacted automatically, shifting his weight so that he lay against her chest in the crook of her right arm. She flexed the fingers of her left hand, still numb and tingling from the time she had taken his weight there.

Oh, God, what was she doing, and what place did pride have in the situation? She needed a helping hand even if that hand, with the long tapering brown fingers, did seem to exert a weird and worrying fascination. Help, even if it came from a totally unexpected and frankly disturbing quarter, was still help.

And on the plus side, accepting his offer would mean hopefully he’d vanish a lot quicker.

And Flora needed him to vanish. He was too big and too...everything for the room. His presence seemed to alter the constituents of the air she was breathing, making it heavy, making breathing require a conscious effort.

‘I have kind of lost the feeling in my left arm. If you could just pull the cot sheet back?’ Her chin resting on Jamie’s dark curls, she stretched out, letting out a tiny but revealing gasp as her hand felt the brush of his long brown fingers.

The electrical surge that made her eyes widen left her knees feeling weak and reawakened the shivery sensation that had originally alerted her to his presence a few heavy heartbeats before she actually saw him standing there, carrying off the tumbled-out-of-bed look like only your average sex god could.

She supposed that she should be grateful that he didn’t sleep naked, though the boxer shorts he wore were not substantial enough to help her!

‘Thank you.’

She had no defence mechanism to deal with the compulsion to stare at his long, lean, golden, totally magnificent body. There was not an ounce of surplus flesh to hide the perfect definition of his toned body. Her eyelids fluttered and her throat grew dry as her glance slid again over the broadness of his muscled shoulders and chest to the slabbed muscles of his belly. His legs were long, the muscular thighs slightly dusted with dark hair. The same dark hair that formed a directional arrow that vanished beneath the waistband of his boxer shorts.

Pulling in a sharp, tense breath, Flora lifted her gaze and found it connecting with his, dark shadowed and deeply disturbing. His olive skin looked warm, his carved mouth looked... She blinked hard and took a step back like someone who had just discovered they were standing on the edge of a precipice, which explained the dizziness.

He watched her lift a fluttering hand to her face, looking bemused as it came away wet. She frowned at her fingers, not seeming to make the connection between the salty moisture and her own tears.

He didn’t know if the tiny negative shake of her head was aimed at herself or him, and a moment later her expression was hidden from view, the silky curtain of her flame-red hair falling in an abundant cloud as she bent forward to lay the sleeping baby into the cot, fumbling with the crumpled sheet as she tried to pull it back.

‘Let me.’

Without waiting for a response, he pulled back the tangled sheet she had been struggling with, smoothing it back so that she could lay the baby down on his back.

As the baby lay there clenching and unclenching this pudgy fists, Ivo had his first proper look at his nephew, hungry to see a resemblance to his brother in the unformed features. He felt a strange tightness in his chest as he took in the details: dark hair, a snub nose and pale pink skin, eyes tightly closed, untouched by life yet and totally perfect.

So vulnerable.

Your father would have died for you, he thought.

Better Bruno had lived.

‘I...thank you.’ The light brush of his fingers lasted longer than it should this time. As for the stomach-clenching shudder that felt as though it would never go away even after his hand had moved and he had straightened up...

She took longer than she needed to smooth the sheet over the baby, giving herself some time to recover from the primal reaction that had convulsed her body when she’d seen him standing there, a confusing combination of heart-thudding excitement and fear blurred into one.

‘You must be cold,’ she blurted stupidly.

His mobile lips twitched into a wicked smile that made her stomach lurch.

The man looked like a fallen angel on steroids!

The impression intensified as he spread his arms wide, then slowly he glanced down, an expression of comical injured dismay on his ludicrously handsome chest. ‘You have very high standards, cara.’

The softly drawled cara hit her reasoning functions dead centre, delaying her deciphering of the softly seductive insinuation.

When his meaning hit she wanted to crawl under a stone. Instead she lifted her chin and, hampered by the need to keep the noise down, whispered, ‘I didn’t mean...’ She stopped. Of course he knew what she didn’t mean. ‘Funny!’ She sniffed, slinging him an unamused glance as she moved away from the cot containing the sleeping baby.

He followed her; the combination of handsome, half-naked, totally gorgeous man and small room was enough to make anyone hyperventilate. She resisted the impulse to pick a cushion from the rocker and wield it defensively. Instead she pressed a hand to her chest and willed her breathing to slow. ‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you.’

It was the next best thing to pushing him through the door, an obvious signal for him to go; it was equally obvious he didn’t recognise it as such. She ground her teeth in frustration and, seriously, he had to be cold by now. Despite the unbidden thought, by some miracle she kept her eyes above waist level, though the effort raised her own internal temperature by several uncomfortably shameful degrees.

She took another step towards the door and reached across to switch the lamp off, before turning the dimmer on the night light down. The room was now lit by the soft soothing silhouettes of moons and stars revolving on the ceiling.

‘So, goodnight, Mr Rocco,’ she said softly.

He saw the dismissal in her smile and, while part of him recognised walking away was a good idea, he just couldn’t let it go and he didn’t have a clue why!

She hadn’t quite reached the door when his soft voice brought her to a halt.

‘You’ve been crying.’

Her eyes flew to his face, her first instinct to deny this crazy assertion. It was a reflex. People looked at her and saw fragile; she wasn’t, and if it meant acting a bit tougher than she actually was to show them how wrong they were it was a price worth paying.

Fast on the first instinct and overpowering it in a heartbeat was the realisation that letting her guard down to someone who didn’t know her, and who couldn’t care less, someone who wasn’t going to lose sleep over anything, might be the outlet she needed.

In any event the internal debate was useless because the words came of their own volition.

‘It was the blinds.’ Her eyes went to the blinds with their cheery fabric of sailboats and balloons, drawn to cut out the darkness beyond. Flora had her own darkness inside and there was no hiding from that. She felt as though she’d never feel light again.

Only crazy people wept buckets about window dressings. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d made a dash for the door—it would save her making any more of a fool of herself than she had already.

But he didn’t.

‘Sami, my big sister, she made them—she could make anything!’ Her smile dissolved into a gulp as she rushed on. ‘We shopped for the material...’ It had been a girls’ day out in Edinburgh. ‘We had lunch, too many cocktails—it was a perfect day.’

Her big blue eyes lifted to his. It was all there for him to see: the pain, the grief, the aching sense of loss. He didn’t want to see it but he couldn’t stop looking and listening to her beautifully accented, hushed voice.