‘I told you love was messy.’
‘Then I seized on the twins as an excuse to hang onto you, so I didn’t have to work out how I really felt.’ Star removed his tie and began unbuttoning his shirt.
‘I’m never going to say all this again,’ Luc warned her very seriously, and she smiled against his warm, muscular chest, knowing she would plague the life out of him for any tiny detail he overlooked.
‘I planned to make you fall in love with me again,’ he explained.
‘Nothing like not noticing what you’ve already got. So that’s why I qualified for the honeymoon,’ she gathered with amusement.
‘I got the honeymoon too, and it felt incredibly self-indulgent,’ Luc confided, and lifted her head to steal a passionate kiss. And things just got out of hand, much the way they usually did when they got that close. It was quite a while before they got talking again and, they were sealed together like twin magnets when they did.
‘I thought you’d got over me and fallen for Rory,’ Luc relived with a shudder of still sensitised recollection. ‘I felt threatened, which is why I laid in with all the threats about going to court over the twins.’
‘It was a loving friendship, Luc.’
Brilliant dark eyes assailed hers. ‘Now you are really and truly and for ever married to me, you’re not allowed loving friendships with other men. In all the time we were separated there wasn’t one other woman in my life.’
‘Seriously?’ A sudden delighted smile curved her lips, and then she laughed with no tact whatsoever. ‘No wonder you wanted one last night with me…oh, Luc, there wasn’t anyone else for me either!’
‘But you were thinking about it with Rory.’
Star gave him a loving look, recognising in that raw edge to his dark drawl that he was sometimes too clever for his own good. ‘I honestly didn’t think you wanted me or cared about me at all—’
‘I adore you, and I am never letting you go,’ Luc swore, with all the fervour a woman in love could ever have wished to receive. ‘It took me a very long time to get there, but now that I have I know exactly what I want most out of life and that is you.’
Star heaved an ecstatic sigh.
‘I just wish I hadn’t missed out on you being pregnant…’
Luc admitted ruefully.
‘You missed nothing. I was like a small balloon.’
‘You couldn’t look like a small balloon.’
‘Just you wait and see—’
‘You mean you’d consider extending the family again?’ Luc tensed. ‘Are you sure it would be safe for you?’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Star smiled at his concern. ‘Since you’re such a great father, your talents should be fully stretched, so I will definitely think about having another baby some time.’
‘We’ll talk it over with a doctor first,’ Luc asserted with natural caution.
* * *
Just ten months later, Star became a mother again. Being Star, she hadn’t planned the event, but was incredibly pleased and excited when she found out. Luc spent most of her pregnancy worrying and made her consult several doctors. Star only worried about Luc and enjoyed a perfectly healthy, happy nine months. She give birth to another little boy.
At the chirstening, Bruno admitted covertly to Luc that he was rather grateful they had not taken Juno up on her suggestion that this latest grandson be called Moon. Star’s mother lamented that men were so old-fashioned about names and sighed to hear Venus now being called Vivi for short. She was really very shocked when Luc named his second son Orion, and Star’s father just burst out laughing.
After putting Vivi and Mars, who were now lively toddlers, to bed that same evening, Star and Luc couldn’t resist looking in again at Orion, snuggled in his four-poster cot like a little prince.
‘Our genes mingled this time.’ Star sighed with satisfaction, for their youngest son had Luc’s dark hair and her eyes. ‘It’s like a sign, isn’t it?’
Luc laughed and folded her into his arms. ‘I don’t need a sign to know that I am very, very happy with you.’
‘I know. You were shaping up to be a pretty miserable guy before I came along.’ Star gazed up into his stunning dark eyes and felt gloriously dizzy.