But at night when he finally came to bed he would reach for her. His arms would go around her; his mouth, hands and deliciously male body would pleasure her until she was tingling from head to foot. She would sometimes wake and see him lying on his side looking at her, one of his hands idly stroking her arm or the back of her hand.
How could that just be lust?
The date blurred in front of Miranda’s vision. How could she leave without telling him how she felt? But how could she tell him when he had warned her from the start about moving the goal posts? She was supposed to be an adult about this. Do what everyone else her age did—have flings and ‘things’ with no strings. She wasn’t supposed to fall in love. Not with Leandro. He had always been so honest with her. He hadn’t made any promises or misled her in any way. She knew what she had been signing up for and yet she had broken the first rule.
The love she felt for him felt completely different from what she had felt for Mark. More adult. More mature. She loved him with her body and her mind. She couldn’t separate the two, which was part of the problem. She couldn’t separate her desire for him from her love of him. They were so deeply, inextricably entwined, like two parts of a whole.
Something about that date on her phone calendar began to niggle at the back of her mind.... She was as regular as clockwork. She should have had her period two days ago. She couldn’t be pregnant...could she? But they had used protection. Condoms were fairly reliable, weren’t they? She wasn’t on the pill because she hadn’t needed to be.
Surely it was too early to be panicking? Periods could be disrupted by stress and travel—not that hers had ever been disrupted before. They were annoyingly, persistently regular. She could set her watch by when the tell-tale cramps would start.
Miranda put a hand on her abdomen. Could it be possible? Could Leandro and her have made a tiny baby? The thought of having her very own baby made the membrane around her heart tighten. How could she have thought she could go through life without experiencing motherhood? Of course she wanted a baby. She wanted to be a mother more than anything. She wanted to be a wife, but not just anyone’s wife. She wanted to be Leandro’s wife. How could she live the rest of her life without him beside her? He was everything to her. He had shown her what she was capable of feeling as a woman. He had unlocked her frozen heart. He had awakened the needs she had suppressed. He was The One. The Only One. How could she not have realised that before now? But maybe a part of her had always been a little bit in love with him.
Would the prospect of having a baby change his mind about them having a future together?
Miranda gnawed at her lip. It would be best to make sure she was actually pregnant first. She would have to slip out and get a test kit and take it from there. There was no point in mentioning it until she was absolutely sure. Her mind ran with a spinning loop of worry. How would he take it if the test was positive? She couldn’t imagine how she was going to find the courage to tell him. ‘Hey, guess what? We made a baby.’ Like that was going to go down well. How would she explain it to her family? Or Mark’s family?
Leandro was tied up with the gardening team who were sorting out the garden in preparation for selling the villa. Miranda told him she was going to do some shopping for dinner, which was fortunately partially true. She was the world’s worst liar and didn’t want to raise his suspicions. Luckily he was preoccupied with the gardeners, as he simply kissed her on the forehead before turning back to speak to the head gardener.
Inside the pharmacy there were two young mothers. One was buying nappies; the other was looking at nursing aids. Their babies were under six months old. Miranda couldn’t stop staring at them sleeping in their prams. In a few months’ time she would have one just like them. Would it be a girl or a boy? Would he or she look like her or Leandro or a combination of them both? One of the babies opened its mouth and gave a wide yawn, its little starfish hands opening and closing against the soft blue bunny blanket it was snuggly wrapped in.
Miranda felt a groundswell of emotion sweep through her. How had she managed to convince herself she didn’t want to be a mother? She wanted to be just like these young mothers—shopping with their babies, doing all the things mothers do. Taking care of their little family, loving them, nurturing them, watching them grow and mature. Taking the good with the bad, the triumphs with the tragedies, because that was what made a full and authentic life.
Miranda came home with three testing kits and quickly took them upstairs to the bathroom off her suite. Not that she had slept another night in her suite. She had spent every night with Leandro in his. Could that mean he wanted her to be in his life more permanently? Hope lifted in her chest but then it deflated like a pricked balloon. She was in his room because the furniture had been packed up in hers. It was a convenience thing, not an emotional one.