All I've Ever Needed (After the Storm) (13 page)

“I’m starving,” he admitted.
 
“I skipped the after-meeting buffet and drinks.”

“That’s why you got here so early!” she accused, pushing lightly against his shoulder.

“I couldn’t wait to see you,
tesoro.
”
He rolled aside and let her get up.

***

Stephano enjoyed the West Indian style curry and praised her as he ate it with gusto.
 
Not for the first time, Natalie silently her mother for insisting that she learnt to cook at the age of sixteen.
 
She’d resented being dragged away from reading at the time, but she had been able to feed herself adequately when she’d left home and now impress Stephano with her culinary skills.

They sat on the sofa replete from the meal, sexual awareness simmering between them, but too full to give in to it.
 
Paul had nailed the Cadbury contract.
 
Though semi-retired and enjoying golf and his much-younger third wife, Paul was the go-to man when the agency needed a big hitter.
 
He was so eloquence, they always said that instead of kissing the Blarney Stone he’d taken a bite out of it.

Later she blamed the darkness and the wine which made her lose her customary inhibitions, but before she knew what she was doing she’d started telling Stephano about her relationship with Michael.
 
Every shameful detail tumbled out, things that she hadn’t told Nathan, things that she had worried about telling Stephano lest it changed his perception of her.

He held her as she cried, stroking her hair softly.

“I still feel sad that he had such a terrible childhood,” she sniffled and blew her nose one last time.

“Even if he had an unhappy childhood, sweetheart, that didn’t give him the right to inflict his pain on you.
 
I hope I never meet that fool,
cara mia
.
 
I will find it difficult not to deliver several punches to his face,” Stephano threatened softly.
 
“He didn’t deserve you.”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you,” she apologized belatedly.
 
“I lost my confidence and when I saw you with Eva…she looked so beautiful and so…”

“And so are you,
cara mia
.”
 
He rubbed his nose against hers.
 
“You’re everything I need in a woman.
 
Beautiful, intelligent…great cook, ”

“And you’re all I’ve ever needed in a man,” she whispered back to him.
 
They were probably lines she’d read or heard sung in a corny love song, but they were appropriate.

“I’m staying the night,
teroso
.”

He didn’t ask for permission.
 
Natalie turned her head on his shoulder and snuggled her face into his neck, grateful that he’d somehow sensed that she needed companionship after stripping away the defenses she had built up over the years and allowing herself to experience the hurt and the pain she’d felt at that time.

She knew with an account as lucrative as the Cadbury’s contract, Stephano would have gone prepared for negotiations to overrun by days, if necessary.
 
He would have packed an extra set or two of fresh clothing in his overnight case.

“We can only help people who want to be helped.”
 
Stephano’s words caressed her ear as he spoke.
 
“Renata’s two previous lovers cheated on her and she couldn’t let the past go and start afresh with me.
 
Even my friends were a threat to her because her last boyfriend cheated on her with a transvestite.
 
I tried to be understanding, but her jealousy would have destroyed both of us if I hadn’t ended the relationship.”

They had more in common than she’d realized, Natalie thought, as she stroked the back of Stephano’s neck soothingly.
 
Though their experiences had been vastly dissimilar, they had both had past lovers with emotional problems.
 
And letting go of Renata hadn’t been easy for Stephano—the remembered pain was there in his voice.

***

Natalie smiled as she watched Stephano unashamedly moisturize his face as she massaged night cream into hers.
 
She’d thought that he would have been in bed, waiting impatiently as she went through her after-shower routine, but he had one of his own.
 
It was to be expected—good looks were an asset in their field of work and flawless grooming was everything.
 
No matter how tired she was, she always cleansed and moisturized before going to bed.

He finished before her, slapping on the moisturizer instead of working it in a massaging motion as she was doing, and came to stand behind her to nibble on her neck.

She had another good few years to worry about wrinkles, she decided, and turned in his arms to kiss him.

Stephano backed her up to the bed and fell onto it with her.

“I’m going to pleasure you until you scream.”
 
He placed her hands above her head and commanded, “Don’t move them!”

“Really?” she challenged his first statement with a laugh.

“Yes,” he confirmed.
 
“Don’t do a single thing.
 
Just close your eyes, lie back and let me do all the work.”

“That sounds easy.”
 
She smiled and closed her eyes obediently.

Stephano started by pressing soft kisses against her forehead and her eyelids, and along her pert nose before kissing her deeply.
 
She wrapped her arms around his neck as he plunged his tongue deep into her mouth.

Reaching up, he placed her hands back against the sheet on either side of her head.

“Leave them there,” he growled as he moved his lips along the curve of her jaw and then slowly across the slender column of her neck.
 
He’d discovered that the side of her neck was particularly vulnerable and he went in for the kill.

“Ah.”
 
Natalie clutched the sides of the pillow beneath her head and tried to stay silent as Stephano sucked on the soft skin of her neck, pulling the flesh into his mouth and teasing it with his tongue.
 
Who would have thought that someone kissing your neck could be so arousing.
 
And trust Stephano to know exactly the right amount of pressure to apply to drive her out of her mind.
 
But it was a contest now and she refused to scream as he had promised she would.
 
Her toes curled and her hips undulated as she tried to contain the sensations.

Stephano cupped her breasts as he moved down the bed, holding her gaze as he began to tweak her nipples firmly.
 
She bit her bottom lip and remained stoic.
 
Stephano smiled as he bent his head and captured her right nipple between his teeth.
 
She lost the battle, gasping as she pressed her head deeper into the pillow, her neck arching.

Forgetting that her hands were supposed to remain where he’d placed them, she cupped his head instinctively as he moved to her other breast.
 
He suckled her gently as his fingers plucked the nipple his lips had abandoned, the moisture making it seem like it was still covered by his lips.

***

Sitting in the office waiting for Stephano to appear, Natalie felt so happy she was afraid.
 
He had called, as he often did, to say that he was in a taxi on his way back from his meeting and should be in the office in ten minutes.
 
He seemed to miss her when he was away from her as much as she missed him.

It was absurd to be this happy.

It couldn’t last, she knew.

It really couldn’t.

Reaching blindly into her bag for her compact mirror to discreetly check that her face wasn’t shiny, her hand closed around a small cylindrical object that she recognized by touch.

About to release it and continue her search, Natalie’s fingers groped for it again and tightened around it reflexively.
 
Something had been at the back of her subconscious mind trying to make itself known for days, but she had been so caught up in Stephano and the sheer bliss of being loved by him, she hadn’t taken the time to be still and listen.

The object in her hand triggered the message and she received loud and clear—she hadn’t had a period since she and Stephano had had that heated, very reckless encounter.

Horrified, Natalie stood up and walked to the bathroom with as much dignity as she could muster.
 
Once she got there her knees threatened to give out.
 
Stumbling into the first of the two cubicles, she locked the door and sat heavily down on the closed lid, leaning weakly against the wall for support.

A missed period didn’t mean pregnancy, but Natalie had a sinking feeling that for her, it did.
 
There had been other signs which she’d ignored.
 
Her breasts felt heavier and just the week before she’d tried on one of her closer-fitting suits and found it uncomfortably snug.
 
She had changed clothing, promising herself to eat less the next time Stephano cooked his fabulous spaghetti and meatballs, or his decadently rich lasagna.
 
She had missed a couple of Boxercise classes in the last weeks, but she had probably burned just as many calories making love with Stephano, so that didn’t explain the weight gain.

It was all too soon.

She’d wanted to be a little more sure of Stephano’s love, to know that he was with her because he loved her and not because he had to be.
 
New love was always so blinding it hid the cracks in a relationship.
 
It was only when the shiny newness wore off that the flaws became apparent.
 
Stephano spent a lot of time at her home, but she hadn’t suggested that he move in.
 
She was grateful that he hadn’t suggested it because the request would have been a hard one to refuse.
 
It was a technicality really since he spent as many as three or four nights a week with her, but she felt better knowing he was only sleeping over.
 
She’d never wanted to be, or have, a live-in lover.
 
It was an old-fashioned view, but she liked the idea of having the commitment of a marriage—though it didn’t mean much these days with celebrities getting married and divorced in a matter of days.

If she was pregnant it would change everything.
 
She wouldn’t want to go through a pregnancy on her own—not that Stephano would let her.
 
He had already said that he was ready to be a father; he would want to be involved.
 
They had been ultra careful after that first fateful time, but it seemed like everything else in their relationship, this was out of their hands.

She had always hoped that she would be lucky enough to have children and having Stephano’s baby would…

Reality suddenly hit her—this was more than a missed period. She was having a baby!
 
Stephano’s baby!

The thought started a strange fluttering inside her stomach.
 
How was she going to tell him?

***

More than a month later, Natalie was still waiting for the right moment.
 
Berating herself for being a coward, she bent nearer to the mirror after their evening shower and quickly applied her night cream, rushing to get under the sheets and away from Stephano’s often too-perceptive gaze.

“Natalie?”
 
Stephano had stopped in the middle of towel drying his hair and was looking at her quizzically.

“Yes,” she answered, her breath quickening.
 
She straightened hastily, realizing that the position would have emphasized her fuller breasts and the slight rounding of her stomach.

“Are you pregnant,
cara
?”

She had worried that he’d question the baby’s paternity.
 
After all he had ensured that he’d used protection after the first slip, but there had been no mistaking the eager anticipation in his voice as he asked the question.