All I've Ever Needed (After the Storm) (14 page)

 
“I think so.”
 
Natalie hadn’t yet done a test to confirm it, but her certainty grew with each day.
 
Although she knew it was splitting hairs, she would have felt dishonest to have done the test and kept the knowledge that she was pregnant from him.

“You
are
having my child.”
 
Natalie gasped as he moved to swiftly swing her up in his arms and carry her to the bed.

“I think so,” she repeated hastily, not wanting to get his hopes up.
 
“I haven’t done a test yet.”

“I think you are.”
 
He cupped her breasts and gently molded their firm contours as if gauging their size now in comparison to when he’d first touched them.
 
Natalie held her breath as he glanced slowly down her body and up again.
 
“Your body has changed.”

“Maybe I’m just getting fat,” she suggested, trying to lighten the intensity of the moment.

“I’m pleased,
tesoro
.”
 
Stephano held her gaze, his face unsmiling.

“Are you?”
 
She couldn’t help her uncertainty creeping into the question.

“I am,” he confirmed and then smiled.
 
We’ll get married.”

He bent his head and covered her lips with his, deliberately stifling her objection before she could voice it.

“You’re supposed to ask me, not tell me!” she protested when he finally let her breathe.

“I didn’t want you to say no,
mi bella
.”
 
He said it playfully, but his eyes told her that he meant it.

Sometimes it was scary the way he was able to read her like a book.
 
It would have been romantic if he had gone down on one knee and asked her, but if he had done, she might have been foolish enough to say, “no”.
 
She wouldn’t have refused because it wasn’t what she’d dreamed of even before she’d realized she was pregnant, but because she would have doubted that he loved her as much as he said he did and worried that he was only asking because of the baby.

Perhaps it was time to let life take her where it wanted to, she decided as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his head closer to kiss him back.

*****

Epilogue

Natalie hadn’t expected Stephano to insist that the wedding take place as quickly as could be arranged and begin to set things in motion with head-spinning speed.

They found a large three-bedroom house in Kensington, convenient for travel to the office and close enough, Stephano said, for his mother to come over regularly to see her grandchild when he or she was born, but far enough away for her to not come over every day to bring him food and ensure that he, Natalie and her prospective grandchild were receiving the proper nutrition.

The second reception room was an ideal entertainment space with a games room big enough to hold a pool table and a Samsung SyncMaster 70” LCD flat panel display TV, perfect for hanging around and watching sport when either Stephano’s father, his friends or her brother came for a visit.

Natalie loved the bed Stephano insisted on: an Eastern King Sleigh bed made of carved solid English oak and measuring a whopping 6’6” x 6’6” from The Big Bed Company.
 
They had even bigger beds for sale, but he’d said though he needed to be able to stretch out comfortably he didn’t want to be at one end of the bed and her at the other.
 
She had chosen the bed linen and accessories from the same company, mostly 1000-thread Egyptian cotton in pastel shades.

She had always admired his style but hadn’t realized that Stephano’s wardrobe was almost as extensive as hers.
 
As well as his bespoke business suits and shirts, he had several items of clothing made by Ozwald Boateng, who many credited as being responsible for introducing Savile Row tailoring to the new generation of men.
 
Thankfully, the master bedroom’s double walk-in wardrobes was big enough to hold everything including Natalie’s shoe collection which had grown in the weeks she’d been dating Stephano.
 
She’d bought mostly sensible shoes in the last years, though she’d a few pairs with modest heels for special occasions.
 
Dating a man of Stephano’s height had allowed her to slip on 4”, even 5” heels and not worry about towering over him.
 
They would have to be put away until the baby was born, but it had been divine to indulge one of her fantasies.

Stephano was particularly pleased that he could park his ‘baby’, as he called his car, securely in the building’s underground car park.
 
Natalie teased him that they would have to leave one child at home alone if they had more than two since they couldn’t get a third child seat in the back of the car.
 
He promised to give it up when that time came, but begged her not to have triplets the first time around because he needed time to get used to the idea of letting his first ‘baby’ go.

Her brother, Natalie knew, would be the first in line to take it off Stephano’s hands if and when that time came.

Surprisingly Nathan had objected quite strongly to her dating Stephano.
 
She knew that he was overly protective because of the abuse she’d suffered at Michael’ hands, but it had been a shock when he met Stephano and had mistaken his confidence for arrogance.
 
He warned Natalie that Stephano was a player, threatening, “If he messes with you, Sis, I swear I’ll give him twice the beating I would have given that bastard Michael if I’d known where he lived.”

Nathan was an inch taller at 6’4”, but their shoulders were almost equally broad.
 
While Nathan tapered dramatically to a lean waist, Stephano’s torso was bulkier.
 
Nathan had studied karate as a child and had competed for the local club.
 
He still had a lean, muscled fighter’s body and with his karate skills would no doubt deliver some lethal blows to Stephano’s anatomy.
 
Stephano, on the other hand, could probably bench press her brother’s weight.
 
If he caught Nathan in his muscular arms there would be little escape, but he would have to catch him first—she had witnessed Nathan’s fleet footwork when he’d competed and won against much older boys.
 
She would hate to see them fight.
 
It would be a tough contest and for her there would be no winner.

But Stephano had invited Nathan out for beers and they seemed to have talked man to man and come to an understanding.
 
Then he’d pulled the
coup de grace,
arranging for them to have an afternoon of boys’ fun in his car at Silverstone Circuit.
 
It had been shameless bribery, Natalie knew, but she loved Stephano for going out of his way to defuse her brother’s antagonism.
 
It would have been tough if both of her close male relatives treated Stephano like he had committed a crime; her father was still barely civil to him.
 
Her mother had taken one look at Stephano when Natalie had brought him round for a formal introduction and winked at her daughter in understanding.
 
Later, when Natalie had been helping her bring the platters of food to the dining room she had whispered, “Oh!
 
My!
 
God!
 
He’s so hot!”
 
She’d told Natalie not to worry about her father, it might take years, she’d said, but he would eventually come around.

Her father had grudgingly admitted, though, that he’d been impressed with Stephano’s confidence when he had formally asked permission to marry her later that evening.
 
Her father had been as friendly as a rabid Rottweiler, his words, when Stephano had requested a word in private, but Stephano had not let that fact faze him.
 
He’d made his request and promised to try his best to make her happy.

Stephano’s parents had been welcoming, as he’d promised her, although his father hadn’t said very much.
 
In many ways his father reminded her of her own with his quiet ways and his love of reading the newspaper and watching sport.
 
The meeting of their mothers to plan the wedding had gone well, with only a few heated disagreements over details, which they had eventually managed to sort out between themselves.

Natalie’s and Stephano’s colleagues took the news of their relationship well, though Morgan teased, “So
he’s
the big spender.
 
Now I know what the two of you got up to when you,” he curled his elegant fingers into quotation marks “worked late.”

“We
worked
, Morgan,” she insisted, blushing as she remembered the memorable occasion when they hadn’t.

“You mean you
worked it.
”

“Do I have to get Stephano over here?” she threatened.

“Yes, get your
big, bad
man to come over here to beat up
little, skinny
me just because I’m telling the truth!” he flounced off pretending to be offended, but he was chuckling.

He and their other colleagues all attended the reception after the registry wedding Natalie wanted.
 
With few close girlfriends she had never envisioned a large wedding and Stephano had been happy to have a simple, elegant wedding, and a lavish reception afterwards.

Natalie’s strapless, silk organza and satin hand-embroidered, sweetheart wedding gown echoed that understated elegance.
 
Stephano looked magnificent as always in a crisp white shirt and dark charcoal suit which emphasized his broad shoulders.
 
He didn’t used styling gel as he did for the office and a mischievous curl fell across his forehead, adding to his roguish appeal.

They drew curious stares wherever they went on their honeymoon in Dubai, but Natalie had already become accustomed to being the object of scrutiny.
 
Stephano wasn’t overly demonstrative in public—he held her hand when they walked, opened doors for her and carried the heavier bags when they went shopping—but his affection was plain to see.

He looked forward to the birth of their child with an eagerness that was infectious, although he insisted on calling the baby “her”.
 
Natalie was convinced that she was having a boy—sometimes in daydreams she saw a clear image of a boy with curly hair and a cheeky smile that was the mirror of Stephano’s.
 
Time would prove one of them right, but whatever sex the baby was, she knew that it would be cherished by both of them.

She still pinched herself sometimes to see if she was dreaming.
 
She had been incredibly lucky to get the job with the agency and to meet Stephano.
 
He had since admitted to feeling the same strong attraction she had felt from the start.
 
It still amazed her that it had taken something as innocent as an injured wrist to unleashed their undeniable passion for each other.

Stephano had become the best friend she’d longed for all her life.
 
She held nothing back from him, letting him inside to the last of the dark, deep places she’d kept from everyone else.
 
She felt physically and mentally stronger than she’d ever felt in her life.
 
There were even days she thanked Michael for the hard lessons he’d taught her, so that now she could feel the new joy life had brought her more joyously, in contrast.

Finally she had come to a place of acceptance of herself and her right to be loved unconditionally and exclusively.