Kate Hewitt - Mills & Boon Christmas Set

Larenzo smiled at that, his whole face lightening, and Emma quickly looked down at her plate. Larenzo’s smile was dangerous.

‘And the birth? It went well?’

‘As well as these things go,’ Emma answered frankly. ‘It hurt. A lot.’

‘Why didn’t you get pain relief?’

‘No time. She came a week early; she wasn’t due until New Year’s Eve. And I didn’t think I could actually be in labour, because the contractions were irregular and they didn’t hurt all that much.’ She let out a sudden, embarrassed laugh. ‘I can’t believe I’m telling you all this.’

‘Why not? I want to hear it.’

‘Really?’ She heard the scepticism in her voice, and Larenzo must have too, because he nodded firmly.

‘Absolutely. I missed this, Emma. I want to know now.’

But would he have wanted to know then? If Larenzo hadn’t gone to prison, would he have been an involved father? Would they be dating or even married now? Emma’s cheeks heated at the thought. She was glad Larenzo had no idea the turn her thoughts had taken. She cleared her throat and continued. ‘Well, Meghan had been telling me how first babies take for ever, and as it was Christmas Eve I was hoping the contractions might die down. I didn’t want to be in the hospital over Christmas.’

‘Understandable.’

‘But they didn’t, and by the time I realised we needed to go to the hospital, Ava was almost ready to make her arrival.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘Meghan was pushing me in a wheelchair into the delivery ward, and I was bellowing at the top of my lungs. I’m not so good with pain.’

‘I wish I could have been there,’ Larenzo said quietly, and Emma knew he meant it.

Before she could think better of it, she asked the question that had been dancing through her mind. ‘What do you suppose would have happened, if you hadn’t gone to prison?’

Larenzo frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I would have stayed on as your housekeeper. I would have told you I was pregnant right away.’ She held her breath, waiting for him to say something, although she didn’t know what.

Larenzo sighed and leaned back in his chair. ‘The truth is, Emma, if I hadn’t gone to prison, if I hadn’t known I was going to go to prison, there wouldn’t have been a baby. That night happened because I knew I was going to be arrested in the morning.’

‘Oh.’ Emma blinked, stupidly feeling hurt by this, and not quite sure what to do with that emotion. ‘I see.’

‘You gave me something precious that night.’

‘My virginity?’ she filled in, trying to joke, but it came out flat.

‘No, I didn’t mean that, although that of course is precious too.’

She really didn’t want to be having this conversation. She kept looking at her plate, focusing on the food she no longer felt like eating.

‘I meant comfort,’ Larenzo said quietly. ‘Human connection. Pleasure, not just physical pleasure, although there certainly was that. But pleasure in talking to you, and being in your company. Playing chess, seeing your photographs...that night made a memory that sustained me through many dark days in prison.’

‘Oh.’ And now she didn’t feel so hurt. She felt... honoured that she’d been that important to him, and deeply thankful that their one night together had meant something to him, as it had to her. ‘Well, I’m glad about that, I suppose.’

‘And look at the result.’ He glanced at Ava, who now had tomato sauce in her hair, before turning back to Emma with a smile. ‘I don’t have any regrets, since she came out of it. But I think she needs a bath.’

‘Do you want me to—?’ Emma half rose from her chair as Larenzo unbuckled Ava from her high chair.

‘I can do it,’ he said.

‘She can be pretty tricky in the tub—’

As if to prove her point, Ava started wriggling out of Larenzo’s grasp, and soon his shirt was splattered with tomato sauce.

Larenzo looked rather endearingly amazed by his daughter’s gymnastics and Emma rescued him. ‘I’ve found this is the best way sometimes,’ she said, and, tucking Ava under her arm as if she were a parcel, she took her to the bathroom.

Larenzo followed, standing in the doorway while Emma put Ava down and turned the taps on. ‘Fortunately she likes her bath,’ she said, and turned to look over her shoulder. Her breath dried in her throat as she saw he was unbuttoning his shirt. What, she wondered distantly, was so mesmerising about his long brown fingers sliding buttons out of their holes? Something was, because she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the sight.

‘I’d rather not get my shirt wet,’ Larenzo explained. ‘I have a feeling Ava is a splasher.’ He shrugged out of his dress shirt, revealing a plain white T-shirt underneath that clung to the defined muscles of his chest and abdomen.

‘She is,’ Emma answered, and finally managed to drag her gaze to Larenzo’s face. She couldn’t read the emotion in his eyes, and she hoped that he hadn’t noticed how she’d been staring. Wanting.

She knew she should go back to the kitchen and clean up their dishes, but she felt as if her feet were rooted to the floor, and all she could do was watch as Larenzo battled Ava out of her clothes and then plopped her in the tub, one strong hand resting on her back to keep her steady.

‘Is this right?’ he asked, and the uncertainty in his voice made Emma’s heart ache.

‘Yes...yes, that’s perfect.’ She felt as if her feelings were a kaleidoscope that Larenzo twirled every time he spoke. In these unguarded moments of honesty everything in her swelled with feeling, ached with loss.

What if things could have been different? What if that night had still happened, without the arrest, and she and Larenzo had built a relationship? What if they’d become a proper family, rather than this awkwardly constructed temporary one?

Emma knew she shouldn’t torment herself with such thoughts. She’d never been looking for that kind of relationship, and, in any case, there was no going back. And yet as she gazed helplessly at Larenzo bathing their daughter, she almost wished there were.

Half an hour later Emma had cleaned up the kitchen when Larenzo emerged from the nursery with Ava in her pyjamas.

‘You’ve buttoned up her pyjamas wrong,’ she remarked in amusement as Larenzo raked a hand through his hair.

‘Those things are worse than a straitjacket. There are a million buttons.’

‘It’s a learned skill.’

‘Clearly.’ He pulled his damp T-shirt away from his chest, and Emma tried not to stare at his perfect musculature, or remember how warm and satiny his skin had felt, how she’d once put her lips to his taut abdomen...

‘She’s ready for bed, I think,’ Emma said. ‘I’ll get her bottle ready.’ She’d brought a can of infant formula from Meghan’s, and now she poured cooled boiled water into a bottle and added a few scoops of the white powder. ‘You were a little low on groceries, by the way,’ she said. ‘I don’t think there’s anything for breakfast.’

‘I can arrange for food to be delivered, unless you’d prefer to do it yourself.’

‘Actually, I was thinking about that,’ Emma said. She’d finished making the bottle and Ava was reaching for it with both hands. ‘I’m not comfortable just living off your generosity, and one thing I know how to do is be a housekeeper.’

Larenzo stilled. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘I could be your housekeeper. You don’t have to pay me, but at least it will make up for mine and Ava’s room and board.’

Larenzo’s face had darkened as she spoke. ‘Ava is my daughter, Emma, and you are her mother. This isn’t a question of room and board .’