The Ultimate Surrender

‘And the job—your job with Phil?’ Briony probed.

‘Oh, that…Well…er…I’ve decided to stay here.’ Polly took a deep breath. ‘Briony, darling, there’s something I have to tell you.’

‘Marcus, I couldn’t believe it,’ Polly told him in a pained voice as she related the incident to him later. ‘There I was, expecting Briony to be so disappointed because her plans to marry you off to Suzi had come to nothing, but when I told her about us she positively beamed from ear to ear. It seems that she’d wanted us to be together all the time but that she’d begun to despair that we ever would be, and so she decided to try to make us both jealous…

‘I can’t believe she could be so devious. But she told me that it had been obvious to her “for ever” that we loved one another, even if we were too blind to see it…’

‘I know; she rang me a couple of hours ago to tell me how thrilled she was—about both our pieces of news.’

‘Yes. I thought she might be a little bit shocked about…about the baby, but she was thrilled.’

‘Will you please stop looking at me like that?’ Marcus murmured softly to Polly as she smiled luminously into his eyes. ‘This is a public restaurant, and what I want to do with you right now is a very, very private matter indeed.’

‘Marcus,’ Polly protested, pink-cheeked.

‘Polly,’ Marcus teased her back.

He had given her the engagement ring he had bought her earlier, and then he had undressed and made love to her, kissing every inch of her naked body before clasping her ring hand and lifting it to his mouth. Tenderly kissing her ring finger, he’d whispered to her, ‘My ring…my baby—’ he had kissed her tummy ‘—and my love…’ And then he had kissed her mouth, and Polly had felt as though all the love inside her had turned into the softest and most delicious liquid heat, as if every bit of her was melting with desire and happiness.

‘What’s wrong?’ Marcus asked in some alarm as she suddenly pushed her meal away from her almost untouched.

‘Nothing,’ Polly told him simply, taking a small breath before she told him huskily, ‘I just want to be alone with you, Marcus…now…please…’

EPILOGUE

‘HAVE you heard the news? Suzi has had a little girl,’ Briony informed her mother breathlessly as she came hurrying into the nursery, pausing to give her mother the briefest of kisses before turning to the crib and cooing with tenderness, bending down to extract her small half-brother from his wrappings of blue-edged white cotton.

‘She was so convinced it was going to be a boy. Apparently Phil isn’t too pleased at all, because the tests they’d had done all predicted that she was carrying a boy.

‘Not that we care, do we, my darling baby brother,’ Briony crooned as she cuddled him. ‘Mum, I’m sure he’s grown since yesterday. He feels heavier.’

Polly smiled tenderly. The baby had been born prematurely, and they had all been concerned about how quickly he would grow and put on weight. But their fears had all been allayed as Alistair proved to be a healthy baby with a keen appeite.

Briony was even more besotted with baby Alistair than Marcus was, and that was saying something.

As with Briony’s birth, Marcus had been there with her to share Alistair’s, and even to Polly’s protective maternal eyes there had been no difference whatsoever in the degree of tenderness with which he had held his own blood child and that which he had shown the newly born Briony.

‘I’ll always be his favourite,’ Briony had told her mother smugly the day Alistair was born. ‘Fathers always have a softer spot for their daughters, whilst mothers spoil their sons…’

Their daughters…? But, after all, that was exactly what Briony was to Marcus—his precious and much loved daughter.

Half an hour later, after Briony had left, Marcus came into the nursery just as Polly was putting Alistair back into his crib. She smiled up at him and told him softly as she went to kiss him, ‘Thank you.’

‘What’s that for?’ Marcus asked in bemusement as he returned her kiss—with interest.

‘For being you,’ Polly told him truthfully, ‘and for giving me…everything.’

‘Mmm…Well, if you really want to thank me…’ Marcus teased her, drawing her towards the door that led to their own bedroom…