‘Shh.’ He pressed a finger against her lips to stop her speaking. ‘Let me get this out while I still can.’ He took a deep breath and let the words tumble out at last. ‘I love you. I guess I’ve wanted to tell you that from the first moment I met you but I was too cowardly to do so. Instead, I hurt you immeasurably, wrecking my own life in the process, robbing myself of the precious early years of my son’s life. Can you ever forgive me for the pain I’ve caused you?’
She was openly blubbering by now but there was absolutely nothing she could do to stop it. ‘There’s nothing to forgive… I love you… I’ve loved you for so long… I… I…’
Jake crushed her to him, his face buried in the fragrant cloud of her hair. ‘I don’t deserve you… I don’t deserve Lachlan either. You’re both so incredibly beautiful… I feel like I’m going to somehow spoil your life now that I am in it again.’
‘No!’ Ashleigh grasped at him with both hands, holding his head so his eyes were locked on hers. ‘Don’t ever think that. I have spent four and a half of the unhappiest years of my life without you. I don’t think I would survive another day if you were to leave me now. You are the most wonderful person. I know that. I know it in my heart. You are nothing like your father. Look at the way Lachlan loves you; how can you doubt yourself? I certainly don’t. I know who you are, Jake. You might bear your father’s name but you don’t have anything else of him inside you. I just know it.’
His dark eyes were bright with moisture as he looked down at her. ‘I didn’t realise loving someone could be so painful,’ he said. ‘When I saw you at the bar that night I could barely breathe. I was so determined that I could handle seeing you again but one glimpse of you turned me inside out with longing.’
‘Oh, Jake…’ She looked up at him with shining eyes. ‘What a silly pair of fools we were. I was feeling exactly the same way! I had to stop myself reaching out to touch you to make sure you were really back in my life after all that time. I loved you so much and was so scared you’d see it and make fun of me.’
His eyes grew very dark and his voice husky and deep with emotion. ‘Promise me you’ll keep telling me you love me, Ashleigh. I’m not sure if my mother ever told me because I was so young when she died, but you’re the first person I can remember ever saying those three little words. You have no idea how wonderful they make me feel.’
‘I promise.’
He brushed the crystal tears spilling from her eyes with a gentle finger. ‘I love you.’
‘I know… I can hardly believe it’s true…’
‘You’d better believe it because I’m going to say it about ten times a day to make up for all the times I should have said it in the past.’
‘Only ten times a day?’ She gave him a little teasing smile. ‘What else are you going to do with your time?’
His eyes glittered as they held hers. ‘You know all those kitchen benches that were recently fitted inside?’
She gave a little nod as her stomach flipped over itself in anticipation. ‘I did wonder why you wanted such a lot of bench space. Have you suddenly developed an intense passion for cooking?’
He gave her a bone-melting look and brought her even closer. ‘I’m not much of a cook but I’m sure between the two of us we’ll think of something to do with all that space. Don’t you agree?’
Ashleigh just smiled.
EPILOGUE
Eight months later…
ASHLEIGH was in one of her nesting moods again. Ever since she’d found out she was pregnant she’d been fussing about the house, rearranging things to suit her ever changing whims; now with only a month to go she was virtually unstoppable.
Jake smiled fondly as she instructed him to shift yet another piece of furniture, her swollen belly brushing against him as she moved past him.
He still found it hard to believe he was married with a son and a little daughter on the way. His life had changed in so many ways but each one was for the better. His bitterness about the past had gradually faded to a far off place which he rarely visited now. Ashleigh’s love had healed him just as surely as his son’s devotion, which still brought a clogging lump to his throat every time he looked into those dark eyes that so resembled his own.
‘No… I think it looks better back over there,’ Ashleigh said, turning around to look at him. ‘What do you think, darling?’
His eyes ran over her, lingering for a moment of the full curve of her breasts before meshing with her blue gaze. ‘If I told you what I was thinking right now you’d probably blush to the very roots of your hair.’
She smiled one of her cat-that-swallowed-the-canary smiles. ‘What exactly are you thinking?’
He gently backed her up against the writing desk, his hand going to her belly, his open palm feeling for the movement of his child. ‘That you are the sexiest mother I’ve ever seen and if it wasn’t for Ellie and Mia bringing Lachlan back any minute now I would have my wicked way with you.’
Ashleigh felt her legs weaken and grasped at the writing desk behind her to steady herself. The fragile timber gave a sudden creak and part of the front panelling of the top drawer came away in her hand.
‘Oh, no!’
‘Did you hurt yourself?’ Jake’s tone was full of concern as he steadied her.
She shook her head, turning to look at the damage she’d done to his mother’s desk.
‘No, but—’ She stopped as she stared at the small compartment that had been hidden behind the panelling she’d inadvertently removed. In the tiny thin space was an envelope.
She took it out, turning it over in her hands, her eyes briefly scanning the feminine writing and the name written there before she handed it to Jake.
‘I think it’s a letter of your mother’s,’ she said. ‘It’s addressed to someone in New Zealand. She mustn’t have been able to post it before she died…’
Jake opened the envelope and read through the pages one by one, his dark eyes absorbing each and every word, the only sound in the room the soft rustle of paper that hadn’t seen the light of day in close to thirty years.
‘What does it say?’ Ashleigh asked softly as she saw the sheen of tears begin to film over his eyes.
Jake drew in a deep breath and looked at her. ‘You were right, Ashleigh. You knew it all along.’
‘Kn-knew what?’ Her voice wobbled along with Jake’s chin as she watched him do his best to control his emotion. ‘W-what did I know?’
‘This is a letter to my father,’ he said, wiping a hand across his eyes. ‘My real father.’
‘You mean…?’
‘Harold Marriott was infertile.’ He looked down at the words he’d just read as if to make sure they hadn’t suddenly disappeared. ‘He had testicular cancer as a young man and after the treatment was unable to father a child.’
‘So you’re not…’ She couldn’t get the words past the sudden lump in her throat.
‘My mother was five months pregnant when she married him,’ he said. ‘She hadn’t told my real father of my existence because he was already married, but when she knew she was dying she decided to write to him…but, probably due to her sudden decline in health, the letter was never sent.’
‘Oh, Jake…’
Jake pulled her to him and hugged her tightly, his head buried into her neck. ‘You were right, Ashleigh. You were right all along. I am not my father’s son.’
Ashleigh looked up at him, her eyes brimming over. ‘I would still love you even if you were his son. I’m happy for you that you’re not but it makes absolutely no difference to me. I love you and I always will, no matter what.’
No matter what. Jake breathed the words deep into his soul, where Ashleigh’s love had already worked a miracle of its own.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-0011-5
THE SECRET BABY BARGAIN
First North American Publication 2007.
Copyright © 2006 by Melanie Milburne.
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