Claimed for the Leonelli Legacy

Teddy slept outside their bedroom door that night because his humans didn’t emerge. The next night he sneaked in and slept under the bed until his snoring alerted Max to his presence and he got thrown out in the early hours. The third night he sat outside the door crying and gained entry by taxing Max’s patience. He was satisfied with that advance in his campaign but his ambition was set on regaining his rightful place back in the bed and he was a very determined little dog.

* * *

Two and a half years later, Tia studied the traditional Brazilian Christmas cake she had baked for Max. It was his favourite and that was saying something because he liked all her cakes. She had started up another branch of Salsa Cakes at Redbridge and it was thriving and providing more employment on the estate. Her cousin, Ronnie, had become her closest friend and, keen to have a job now that her children were all at school, she did the accounts for Salsa Cakes.

Tia was always very busy, but then she liked to be busy if she could take time off when she needed it to be with Max. And now that they had a wonderful nanny, time off was no longer a problem. She had done a part-time course on estate management to help her to run Redbridge but she had taken up other interests as well. She raised funds for the convent orphanage and did community work at various charitable events and, with Max as an advisor, had set up a workshop at the settlement for handicrafts and toiletries made from Amazonian plants. The convent was thriving and she made regular visits back to her former home. As a rule, she and Max ended those trips with a self-indulgent few days relaxing in Rio.

In a few weeks, her mother, Inez, was marrying for the third time and Tia was attending the wedding. She was looking forward to spending some time with her two half-brothers and her half-sister. Inez had finally agreed to tell her children about Tia’s existence and that had considerably enhanced Tia’s attitude to her mother. Since then she had met her mother’s second family on several occasions and they all got on well. As for her mother, well, she knew she was never going to be close to the older woman for they had nothing in common but at least they were now on relaxed and friendly terms.

Of course, Tia already had her own snug little family with Max and Sancha. Sancha was a lively toddler on the brink of starting nursery school and Tia had decided that it was finally time to think of having another child. A baby was now on the way, the well-defined bump of her pregnancy reminding Tia of that fact every time she bent over a table and found her stomach was in the way. The new addition to the family would arrive in the new year. Max was very excited. He said there was more of her to hold and he seemed to like that. In fact, Tia thought cheerfully, Max seemed to relish every change that signified her advancing pregnancy. Where she saw fat, Max saw voluptuousness and he couldn’t keep his hands off her.

Not that that was anything new in their marriage, Tia reflected with a heightening of colour in her cheeks. Sometimes she wondered if it was because they had come so close to losing each other that they never dared to forget how lucky they were to be together. And these days she could think without the smallest resentment that her grandfather had picked a very fine husband for her. Max was a terrific father, a great husband and a real family man, which was a wonderful trait to find in a male who had never enjoyed a proper family of his own.

The past no longer bothered Max. He had moved on from his sense of secret shame, learning that he could be whatever he wanted to be if he worked hard enough at it. He had set up an executive team to help him run Grayson Industries and was no longer so constantly on call. Unlike his mentor, Andrew, who had never spent much time with his two sons and whose relationship with them had suffered accordingly, Max put family first and work second.

It was Christmas Eve and Tia twitched the nativity scene in the hall into place with care. She had incorporated some Brazilian traditions into their Christmases. Now she sat down by the fire to await Max’s return, Teddy at her feet and Sancha pretending to read very importantly from one of her picture books.

Max breezed through the front door festooned with packages. Sancha dived at him, telling him about her day while Teddy bounced at his feet, joining in the excitement but not actually greeting Max. Max smiled at her, his wide charismatic smile that never failed to light her up like a firework inside. Her beautiful Max.

‘You look...amazing,’ Max told her truthfully, because she did and he could never quite believe that she was his, his to hold and keep. In a black stretchy dress that hugged her shapely form, blonde hair bouncing on her slim shoulders, cornflower eyes sparkling, she took his breath away.

There was no end to the advantages of being married to Tia, Max thought complacently. There were the cakes, cakes to die for. There was Sancha and a second child on the way. There was the sheer joy of living with Tia’s sunny, positive nature and her boundless energy. Sometimes he couldn’t credit that one woman could transform his life as much as she had and he was tempted to pinch himself to be certain he hadn’t dreamt his perfect woman up. There was something wonderfully reassuring about the arms Tia wrapped round him while the enthusiasm of her response to his kiss travelled straight to another spot.

Max surfaced abstractedly from that kiss to see their nanny taking Sancha off for her tea and Tia clasped her hand in his and led him up the stairs. ‘I thought we were having Christmas cake,’ he said weakly.

‘After supper,’ his wife told him repressively. ‘We’re on a timetable. We’re going to Midnight Mass later.’

‘And after...?’ Max ran glittering dark golden eyes over her lovely face and exhaled with pleasurable anticipation. ‘I love you, Mrs Leonelli...even when you dictate when I can eat cake.’

‘The rules are for Sancha. You can eat cake whenever you like.’

‘Only if I can bring it up to the bedroom with us. Teddy will take care of any crumbs,?

?? Max bargained.

But Teddy wasn’t falling for that unlikely offer. He knew Max wasn’t a messy eater. Teddy’s beady eyes were locked to the currently untended cake on the low coffee table.

Tia laughed and tasted Max’s mouth again, sinuously, sensually, revelling in the knowledge of his arousal. He scooped her up into his arms on the landing, pretended to stagger at her increased weight, got mock-slapped for his teasing and totally forgot about his craving for cake. Tia told him how much she loved him and it all got very soppy, and then sexy, and then soppy again.

Teddy got the cake.

Tia got more diamonds for Christmas.

And a couple of months later a little boy was born and christened Andrew.

* * * * *