Maid For The Untamed Billionaire (Mills & Boon Modern) (Housekeeper Brides for Billionaires, Book 1)

by Miranda Lee

  ‘That’s very good advice,’ Jake said thoughtfully, deciding then and there that as soon as the time was right, he would tell Abby that he loved her.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ABBY WAS UNABLE to get an appointment with her doctor until four o’clock the following Friday. Jake had wanted to take her to his doctor but Abby had insisted on her own, a very nice female doctor who was both understanding and kind.

  In the meantime, Jake had tried to get her to stay at his place but she’d refused, saying she’d prefer to go home after work each day. He’d rung her several times, insisting that he go to the doctor with her. But Abby had refused this as well. She wanted to be alone when she heard the news. She didn’t want him to confuse her any more. Bad enough that she was already half wishing that she was pregnant. Which was crazy. But it was hard to think straight when you were as deeply in love as she was with Jake.

  ‘Abby Jenkins?’ her doctor called out from across the waiting room.

  Abby tried to smile as she rose from the chair. But there were no smiles left in her. ‘Coming,’ she said.

  Jake drove into the surgery car park and parked next to Abby’s car, having determined to be there for Abby as he’d said he would. He didn’t go against her wishes and go inside, but no way was he going to let her leave this appointment without his love and support.

  The wait felt interminable. He put some music on to distract his escalating tension, but it didn’t work, his stomach doing a somersault when he finally spotted Abby emerging from the building shortly before five.

  He was out of his car like a shot, his eyes searching her face for signs of distress as she walked towards him, not finding any comfort in her frown.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded to know straight away. ‘I told you not to come.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said straight away. ‘I simply had to. So what did the doctor say? Did he do one of the new tests?’

  ‘She’s a she and yes, she did a very new test, and no, I’m not pregnant.’

  Jake didn’t know if he was disappointed or not, though, of course, his main concern was how Abby felt.

  ‘Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Abby bit out. ‘Good news.’

  Why, then, he wondered, didn’t she sound happier?

  ‘I see,’ he said, wishing he knew what was going on in her head. ‘So what are you going to do now?’

  Her sigh was heavy. ‘Go home, I suppose.’

  ‘Don’t do that. I’d like to take you somewhere for dinner.’

  ‘To celebrate, you mean,’ she said with a decided edge in her voice.

  ‘In a way…’ Jake thought of the diamond engagement ring he had in his pocket and which he hoped would convince Abby of his feelings for her.

  Just then, some more people emerged from the surgery. When a woman started staring at him and pointing, Jake decided it was time for a quick getaway.

  ‘Hop in, Abby,’ he said quickly as he reefed open his passenger door. ‘Before that woman gets on Twitter and the paparazzi arrive.’

  ‘But what about my car?’ she asked even as she did as she was told.

  ‘We’ll come back and get it later.’ He quickly exited the car park and zoomed up the road.

  Abby suddenly bursting into tears brought a groan to his lips, and a swift end to his idea of a romantic dinner. ‘Oh, Abby. Darling. Please don’t cry. Look, I’ll take you home.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ she choked out, obviously doing her best to stop crying. But it was no use. The waterworks were open and she kept on weeping.

  Jake took her not to her home, but to his. By the time they arrived she’d stopped crying but was looking totally worn out. He parked out front and led her inside, where he offered her either coffee or a glass of wine. She opted for the latter, sliding up on to one of the kitchen stools whilst he did the honours with a bottle of chilled Sauvignon Blanc.

  ‘Can I ask you something, Jake?’ she said when he’d poured two generous glasses.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What would you have done if the test had come back positive?’

  He hesitated, though not for long. ‘I was going to ask you to marry me.’

  Her silence did not augur well. When Jake glanced over at her, she was staring at him with shock in her eyes.

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ she said at last, sounding shaken. ‘You don’t do marriage and you definitely don’t do children. You made that quite clear. You said it was a deal-breaker for you.’

  ‘That was before,’ he said.

  ‘Before what?’ she demanded, sounding angry now.

  ‘Before I fell in love with you. Actually, I was going to ask you to marry me today, whether you were pregnant or not.’

  She shook her head from side to side, her eyes disbelieving.

  ‘But that’s crazy, Jake. You’re not thinking straight.’

  ‘I had a feeling that might be your reaction,’ he said. ‘So I thought I had better have backup.’

  ‘A backup?’

  ‘Yep. A backup.’

  Jake put down the bottle of wine, his whole body tensing up as he faced a startled Abby, though he tried not to show it.

  ‘Sophie said you were averse to me buying you jewellery but I gather that was because you didn’t want me treating you like a mistress. So I bought the one piece of jewellery which would never be given to a mistress.’

  When he brought a small black box out of his pocket and flipped it open, revealing a diamond engagement ring set in yellow gold, Abby stared down at it, then up at him.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she choked out. ‘It…it’s lovely, Jake. And so are you. I’m touched. Really I am. But I… I can’t.’

  Dismay made his heart turn over. ‘Are you saying that you don’t love me?’

  The loving look in her eyes was some comfort. ‘Of course I love you. Surely you must know that. But I can’t marry you. Because marriage means children to me. And I just can’t go there again. Not yet. Maybe not ever.’

  Jake did his best to hide his hurt and disappointment.

  ‘Can’t we just stay as we are, Jake?’ she pleaded. ‘You know you don’t really want marriage, anyway.’

  Actually, I don’t know any such thing, Jake thought, a great lump filling his throat. After Craig died, he’d realised that his way of life wasn’t as great as he’d thought it was. Who wanted to die alone, with no one at their bedside, holding their hand and telling them that they were loved?

  Abby’s hands clasped the sides of her face, a face full of escalating panic.

  ‘Oh, God, if only you could understand…’

  When she looked as if she was about to burst into tears again, Jake knew she was thinking about the babies she had lost. It must have been truly terrible for her. He could see that. He could also see that he had rushed her with his proposal. She wasn’t ready to face that kind of commitment.

  But one day she would be. And when she was he would be right there by her side.

  Slipping the ring box back into his pocket, he smiled over at her. ‘It’s all right, Abby,’ he said gently. ‘We’ll do what you want and just go on as we are. But could you at least move in with me?’

  She lifted adoring eyes to his. ‘Oh. Yes. I’d love to.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Twelve months later…

  ‘IT WILL BE so good to see Megan and Timmy again,’ Abby said excitedly as the plane started its descent into Mascot. ‘And your family too.’

  ‘We’ll see them all on Christmas Day,’ Jake told her. ‘I booked the same boat we had last year.’

  ‘Did you? You didn’t tell me that.’ Which surprised Abby. Because she and Jake told each other everything. During the last year, their love for each other had deepened to a true love. It wasn’t just lust, as Abby had once feared. T
ravelling together, living together, twenty-four-seven had been marvellous. She’d loved every minute of it. Paris in the summer had been magnificent, even if she had picked up a tummy bug. But honestly, she was glad to be home.

  ‘I wanted to surprise you,’ Jake went on. ‘I have another surprise for you as well.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning you have an appointment with one of Sydney’s top fertility experts.’

  Abby sucked in sharply, her stomach tightening as well. ‘You…you shouldn’t have done that without talking to me first.’

  ‘Abby,’ Jake said gently but firmly, ‘it’s time.’

  And it was. He was right. During the last year, Jake had convinced Abby that he really would like to marry her. And one or two children would be all right by him. And whilst she’d remained on the Pill they had stopped using condoms. But there wasn’t a single day that she forgot to take that Pill; she’d programmed her phone with a reminder.

  The trouble was, Abby was still afraid. Afraid of hoping and wanting and having her dreams dashed one more time.

  ‘If all else fails,’ Jake said, ‘we can adopt.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely. There are a lot of wretched orphans in this world who would love a wonderful woman like you as their mother.’

  Abby’s heart melted with love for this man. ‘That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’

  Jake smiled. ‘So when we get home can I drag out that engagement ring which is still sitting in a drawer somewhere?’

  ‘Oh, God, I still feel awful about that ring. Have you forgiven me for turning down your proposal that day?’

  ‘There’s nothing to forgive. You were right to turn me down. It was too soon. But it’s not too soon now, Abby. It’s time for us to face the future together.’

  Jake watched Abby fiddling with her ring as they waited for their turn with the doctor. She was terribly nervous. But then so was Jake. He knew how much having children meant to Abby. He’d seen the look in her eyes every time they’d come across a happy family during their overseas travels. Becoming a father still wasn’t an all-consuming dream of his but anything that made Abby happy would make him happy.

  The door to the doctor’s office opened and Dr Gard walked out. She was about fifty, tall and slim with a plain but kind face.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Sanderson?’ she asked, whereupon Abby threw Jake a wry smile.

  They traipsed after the doctor into her rooms, where she waved them to two chairs in front of her desk. Clearly, she often saw couples together.

  Jake listened to Abby bravely tell her whole medical history, even though her voice was shaking. The doctor listened intently, throwing in a question every now and then.

  ‘I think, Abby,’ she said at last, ‘that I should examine you. Would you mind?’

  Of course she didn’t mind and was taken behind a curtain for what felt like an eternity to Jake. Finally, the two women emerged with the doctor’s expression a rather puzzled one.

  ‘Well,’ she said once they were both seated again, ‘I have to confess that this doesn’t happen to me very often.’

  ‘What?’ Jake asked immediately, sensing that it wasn’t all bad news.

  Her eyes were directed at Abby. ‘You said you were on the Pill?’

  ‘Yes,’ Abby replied.

  ‘And you’ve been having regular periods?’

  Abby flushed. ‘Well, not exactly. We’ve been travelling and I’ve been skipping the white pills so that I didn’t have to worry about periods.’

  ‘I see,’ the doctor said with a smile. ‘Well, Abby, I am happy to inform you that you’re actually pregnant.’

  ‘Pregnant!’ Abby gasped whilst Jake held his breath. His head was whirling.

  ‘Yes. About four months, by the feel of your uterus. We’ll know for sure when you have an ultrasound. I’ll organise one for you straight away.’

  Both Abby and Jake were in shock as they were taken into another room for the ultrasound. But underneath the shock lay the hope of happiness. If the doctor was right, then Abby was already past the three-month danger time, which was further than she’d ever got before.

  Jake held her hand whilst the doctor moved the instrument over Abby’s gelled-up stomach, which did indeed have a small baby bump. She’d complained only the other day that she’d put on weight, blaming all the restaurant food they’d been eating. But it hadn’t been that. It had been a baby. His baby.

  Jake’s heart turned over as he stared at the screen and saw the outline of a living, breathing human being.

  ‘A little more than four months, I would say,’ the doctor told them. ‘Do you want to know the sex?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ they both chorused.

  ‘It’s a girl. Small but beautifully formed.’

  ‘Oh,’ Abby said through her tears.

  Jake lifted her hand to his lips. ‘Just like her mother,’ he said, his heart so full of love for this woman, and his child, he was almost in tears himself. He vowed then and there that he would be the best husband and father. Just like his own dad, who he saw now might not have had wealth, but had been rich with love.

  ‘You…you think I’ll be all right then?’ Abby tentatively asked the doctor.

  The woman smiled down at her. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine. After all, you have a very good doctor. Don’t you worry, dear. I’ll look after you.’

  EPILOGUE

  THE DOCTOR WAS as good as her word. Jake and Abby’s daughter went full term. She came into the world a very beautiful baby with a soft crown of fair hair, big blue eyes and the prettiest little face. The birth was a natural one but with enough drugs to make sure Abby wasn’t in too much pain.

  After the birth, Abby could not stop looking at her daughter, and cuddling her. Jake hardly got a look in. Not that he minded. He knew how much having this baby meant to Abby. Finally, after she’d had her fill, she handed the bundle over for him to hold.

  Parental love squeezed Jake’s heart as he rocked his daughter to and fro.

  ‘Paris,’ he murmured. It was the name they’d chosen once they worked out that that was where she’d been conceived, the doctor explaining that the gastric bug Abby had caught had probably rendered the Pill ineffective for a few days.

  ‘Well, Mrs Sanderson,’ he said with the fatuous smile of a besotted father, ‘you’ve produced a real beauty here.’

  ‘She is lovely, isn’t she?’

  ‘She’s the spitting image of her mother.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  He did, and so did everyone else who came in to visit them. Sometimes, there were so many people in Abby’s room that the nurses would complain about the noise. The maternity ward breathed a sigh of relief when Jake took Abby and Paris home.

  Sophie and Megan were asked to be godparents at the baby’s christening three weeks later, both of them receiving very generous gifts from the happy parents. Abby gave an over-the-moon Megan her old house and Jake presented Sophie with the deed to Craig’s apartment.

  The following Christmas was an especially joyful one. Jake hired the same boat for another harbour cruise, amazed at how much he enjoyed the family gathering, perhaps because he could show off his very beautiful daughter. Abby revelled in everyone’s compliments plus the knowledge that, at last, her dream of creating her own happy family had finally come true. Already she was planning a second baby, and Jake was happy to oblige. Truly, for a man who’d once claimed not to want marriage and children, he’d proved to be a wonderful husband and father.

  ‘She was a big hit, wasn’t she?’ Jake said that night as they stood next to Paris’s pretty pink cot and stared down at her sleeping form.

  When he slipped a tender arm around Abby’s waist, she leant her head against his and sighed. ‘It was a wonderful Christmas Day. Even better tha
n last year.’

  Jake had to agree. Though last year’s Christmas had been pretty special. It had been, after all, their wedding day as well. Which reminded him. loz.

  ‘I have a surprise present for you,’ he said. And he produced another ring box, which contained an emerald and diamond eternity ring.

  ‘Oh, Jake,’ Abby choked out as he slipped it on her finger. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘Not as beautiful as you, my darling.’

  ‘You say the loveliest things to me.’

  ‘That’s because I love you.’

  ‘I’m still not sure why, but I’m glad that you do.’

  Jake bent his head and kissed her. He could think of a thousand reasons why he loved Abby, not the least that she was the bravest, kindest, most genuine person he’d ever met. He thanked his uncle every day for the legacy which had set him on a path that showed him marriage and children need not be a grind; they could be a joy. He’d never been happier than during the last year. Of course, he was lucky that he didn’t have to work if he didn’t want to. But Jake knew he would not enjoy being idle for long. He was already thinking of creating a series of documentaries called the Honeymoon Show, highlighting places to go for a honeymoon, a feel-good show full of happy people who actually loved each other.

  Now that would be different…

  When Abby gave a small moan of desire, his head lifted.

  ‘Time for bed, I think, my love.’ And, taking Abby’s hand in his, he walked off with her into the future.

  Coming next month

  SECRETS OF HIS FORBIDDEN CINDERELLA

  Caitlin Crews

  She hadn’t seen him clearly that night in September. That had been the point. She had been bold and daring, and he had responded with that brooding, overwhelming passion that had literally swept her off her feet. Into his arms, against a wall. And then, in a private salon, still dressed in their finery, with fabric pushed aside in haste and need.