hell!’ She glared at Lucas. ‘Perhaps you’ll let me know when you have discussed it with Christi!’
She flounced off, crossing the room in search of her two children.
Complete silence enfolded the two of them once Marsha had gone, Christi speechless, Lucas
seeming lost in angry thought.
They were to have Robin and Daisy while their mother was away on honeymoon? Lucas
was the obvious and natural choice to have the children during that time, although she
couldn’t help wondering if his motives weren’t a little deeper than that. Maybe he would use
that month as a trial run for when he applied to have the children with him all the time. She
had learnt a new respect for Marsha today, and couldn’t help thinking it was an underhand
thing to do to take advantage of the situation. But why else would Lucas have waited so
long to discuss the children coming to them while Marsha was away, if it weren’t because he
intended their stay to be a much longer one than that? Hadn’t he realised yet that she would
do anything for him, would take half a dozen of his children into their home if it would
make him happy? If this was the way he wanted to do things, she wasn’t about to argue.
She had known from the first how desperate he was to have Robin and Daisy back with him.
She forced a bright smile. ‘I’m sure Robin and Daisy are excited about the prospect of
coming to you for a month.’
Lucas sighed. ‘I intended waiting until after our honeymoon before mentioning it to you. I
felt I owed you that time, at least.’ He shook his head irritably.
Two days of happiness before he intended disillusioning her about his real motives for the
marriage! She didn’t want him to think he ‘owed’ her anything; the last thing she wanted from
him was pity for the decision she had made with her eyes completely open.
‘Well, I know now,’ she dismissed lightly. ‘So we can start making plans for their stay,
things we can do, places we can go ’
‘All that can wait, Christi,’ he told her softly, his eyes gentle. ‘We may only have two
days, but it is our honeymoon, and I fully intend to make up for the last week of sleeping
alone.’
Her heart skipped a beat at the sudden intimacy in his tone, and she looked up at him with
widely hopeful eyes. ‘We can leave now, if you would like to,’ she suggested breathlessly.
‘I’d like to.’ He gazed around ruefully at their guests. ‘But do you think they’ll let us go
yet?’ he derided.
Her mouth quirked. ‘I would say they’re wondering why we took this long!’
Lucas chuckled softly. ‘Then let’s get out of here!’
They left amid laughter and good wishes. Marsha, of all people, was the one to
catch her bouquet of yellow roses, her pleasure in the act so genuine that, after the initial
awkward silence, the good wishes and laughter became even louder.
They had booked into a lovely hotel by the Thames, away from London itself, having
decided they didn’t want to spend what little time they did have driving to their destination.
Two hours later, having shared a delicious dinner with Lucas in the restaurant downstairs,
Christi was glad of the decision. She hurried through her bath, aware of having longed for the
moment of being Lucas’s wife for as long as she could remember.
Dizzy and Zach had come down a couple of days before the wedding so that Dizzy could
help her with the choice of her dress. The white silk dress had been a complete success, Lucas’s
eyes full of admiration when he’d first gazed at her. But besides the wedding dress Dizzy had
insisted that all brides should have ‘a nightgown’, and Christi had quickly learnt what her friend
meant by that. The floaty white creation had narrow ribbon shoulder-straps, lace cups over
her pert breasts, satin falling silkily to her feet. It was definitely ‘a nightgown’, and as Christi
gazed at her own starry-eyed reflection in the full-length mirror, she knew that Dizzy had
been right to insist that she buy the nightgown; she felt beautiful and desirable, as any new
bride should do.
And yet she felt a little nervous about seeing Lucas now. It was one thing to make love
with spontaneous abandon, the way it had happened the one and only night they had made
love, it was something else completely to know that tonight she truly belonged to Lucas, in every
sense of the word. It almost felt as if she were married to a stranger, and not her dear familiar
Lucas at all.
As she hesitated in the bedroom, the door softly opened, and Lucas watched her from the
doorway with caressing eyes. Christi turned slowly to face him, seeing the dark leap of desire in
his eyes, and suddenly all her nervousness fled, and there was just Lucas and herself left, her
emotions revealed unashamedly as she gazed at the man she loved.
‘You are so beautiful, you take my breath away,’ he finally murmured gruffly.
He was still wearing the suit he had worn to the wedding, minus the jacket, and he probably
wished for a leisurely shower or bath himself; yet, as they gazed at each other, they were
both filled with a sudden urgency to be one again, to know each other in a way that would
leave no doubts in their minds as to how much they needed each other.
Lucas kissed her long and lingeringly, finally raising his head, his lips only inches
from hers. ‘Give me a few minutes,’ he urged softly. ‘Better yet, come and keep me
company,’ he encouraged huskily.
Christi loved every muscle and sinew of his body, and watched with unabashed pleasure as
he stood beneath the shower’s spray, muscle and bronzed skin rippling as he soaped his whole
body.
And when he finally stepped out of the shower cubicle Christi stood up to meet him,
knowing neither of them could wait a moment longer, their gazes locked as they moved
slowly into the adjoining bedroom.
It was as beautiful as a ballet, as erotic as a dance, each caress, every movement pure poetry
and rhyme as they fitted together in perfect unison, the final crescendo more beautiful than anything
Christi had ever imagined before.
As she lay nestled in Lucas’s arms throughout the night, awakening to passion
often as they constantly sought each other out, Christi knew that she was home, that she
would always find her home in this man’s arms.
CHAPTER NINE
‘BUT when can we come back again?’ Daisy demanded petulantly, throwing things
into the case that Christi was meticulously trying to pack.
Christi sat down with a sigh, taking the little girl into her arms. ‘I don’t know,
poppet.’ She smoothed the silky black hair away from the angrily flushed face. ‘You’ll have to
ask Daddy,’ she told Daisy ruefully.
She wanted to do the same thing! The children’s month of staying with them was up, for
Marsha and Julian would be back from their honeymoon this afternoon, and yet during the
last seven weeks of their marriage Lucas hadn’t mentioned a thing to her about having the
children with them all the time. Surely he had to realise that it would affect her as much as it
did him—more so, because she had even less experience of bringing up children than Lucas
did, and yet with Lucas out at work all day she was sure to spend more time with them than he
did. Not that she minded that; the last month of caring for Daisy and Robin had been very
enjoyable. They had enjoyed themselves too, hence Daisy’s reluctance to return to her
mother. But, if Lucas did intend fighting for custody of them, he was going to have to tell them
that himself.
Daisy pouted. ‘We could at least have stayed until tomorrow. Mummy and Uncle Julian don’t
get back until this afternoon.’
‘Mummy has missed you so much, she can’t wait until tomorrow,’ Christi told her reprovingly.
‘You know she’s telephoned almost every day.’ And, considering the newly-weds had
honeymooned in the Bahamas, she hated to think what Julian’s telephone bill had been like at
the end of their stay! But it was unthinkable that he would deny Marsha those conversations
with her two children, for he was obviously very much in love with his new bride.
‘I wish we could have gone with her,’ Robin chimed in from the other side of the
room, where he was managing to pack his own suitcase, albeit rather haphazardly. ‘She says
she’s been swimming almost every day,’ he added enviously.
Christi knew that Robin’s wish bore no reflection on the time he had spent with
her and Lucas, it was just that swimming was his passion at the moment, worth any other
sacrifice, even that of spending time with his beloved father.
‘Now you’re being silly,’ Daisy told him in a prim voice. ‘Children don’t go on honey—
honeymoon, with their mummy and daddy. Do they, Christi?’ she prompted knowledgeably.
She held back her smile with effort. ‘Not usually, no,’ she admitted.
‘That doesn’t mean they can’t,’ Robin challenged his sister, more than a little of
the usual sibling rivalry between these two.
It had been a little strange to suddenly find herself a surrogate mother when Daisy and
Robin had first come to stay with them. Delicately, she had tried to sort out their squabbles
without causing resentment towards her, but, as the days had passed and they had all
become more used to each other, she had found she was enjoying caring for the two children,