Modern Romance Collection July 2024 Books 1-4

EPILOGUE

SIXYEARSLATER, Sunny rested back in the sunlight and contemplated her family as they played.

Pansy, a strikingly pretty little girl even at the age of seven, was presiding over the younger children in the family. She was a bossy boots and already obsessed with medicine. Since she showed every sign of having inherited her grandfather and uncle’s intellect, it was likely that Pansy would eventually fulfil her ambition.

Kristof was five, pushing six, with a head of dark cropped hair and his mother’s violet-blue eyes. He was a maths whizz like his father but he wanted to be a fireman. His little brother, Tamas, was three and he liked to paint on walls, if nothing else was available. He was a laid-back little boy otherwise, blond and brown-eyed. Pansy’s long-desired little sister had finally been born the year before. Lili was dark and blue-eyed like her older brother Kristof and, now that she could crawl, she tried to follow Pansy everywhere. Pansy had found her little sister more of a liability than she had expected but also more fun. That was the family complete. Four children, all relatively close in age, were quite sufficient, Sunny reflected, simply grateful to have achieved the family she had always wanted without having the fertility problems she had feared would dog her.

They lived in London during the week and often spent weekends at Ashton Hall, where the children could run wild and participate in all the outdoor activities they enjoyed. Holidays invariably revolved round the yacht and visiting Raj’s various properties. Sunny had discovered a very rare orchid on the Ashton estate and her painting of it now hung in the Royal Academy. She painted most days and their travels had influenced her art, for she now excelled at depicting more exotic flora than had once been to her taste. Raj, she had come slowly to recognise, had not clipped her wings. No, he had enhanced her ability to fly high and free.

She still wasn’t very much into fashion and she still mislaid her specs everywhere she went. Raj still organised her but she had got used to it. She realised that she had never really known what it was to be happy until she had met him, and having found that happiness, she had at first been afraid to trust in it and had feared all the change and vulnerability that came with reaching for what she most wanted. But she had no regrets.

Raj striding out now to join their picnic, sheathed in well-worn jeans and an open shirt surveyed his family with pleasure. An elderly chihuahua, who had become like his little shadow followed his every step while Bear, who was much lazier, slumbered peacefully in the shade of the trees while keeping a careful eye on the children.

‘Dad’s here...atlast,’ Pansy exclaimed. ‘Do you realise that Mum wouldn’t let us eat until you arrived?’

Amused by that reproof, Sunny merely smiled. ‘Family eats together.’

‘I got stuck on the phone,’ Raj sighed, dropping fluidly down beside Sunny on the rugs she had spread.

She was wearing something long and loose and swirly. It probably had a designer tag but it was still very much her style and she looked beautiful. Lili was steadily crawling towards him. Kristof, showing off, tried to execute a rugby save which sent Tamas flying and he burst into floods of overexcited tears. Sunny picked him up and planted a sandwich in his hand and he subsided before returning to the game with vigour. Lili finally reached Raj’s knees and he swung her high and she giggled and giggled, her chubby little body convulsed with delight.

‘If people will keep lifting her and carrying her, she’ll never learn to walk,’ Pansy lamented.

‘She needs cuddled,’ Raj countered. ‘We all need cuddled now and again.’

‘Mum’s always cuddling you,’ Pansy groaned in embarrassment.

Lili saw food and sat down clumsily to eat and Pansy dropped down beside her to help, pushing a toddler cup into her sibling’s hand. Eventually they were all eating and quiet.

Raj poured Sunny wine and lay down beside her in the dappled sunlight. ‘Tonight we will be alone in Paris,’ he savoured. ‘And you, my children, will have Maria and her assistants taking care of you.’

Sunny smiled even more widely because they spent their every anniversary alone in Paris and she got her fireworks and her fancy bath. Her dancing violet blue eyes met his level dark gaze in a moment of intense connection. She had never believed it possible to love anyone as much as she loved Raj. Or that anyone would ever look for her when she was absent and love her with the intensity that he did.

‘Watch out...they’re going to start kissing!’ Pansy screwed up her face in disgust.

Raj’s hand closed over Sunny’s. ‘Remind me again. Why did we decide we would have four of them?’

‘You and Pansy needed more people to boss around.’

Her shapely body melted into the heat and hardness of his that night in Paris while she watched her fireworks from the balcony, exulting in the happiness flooding through her. ‘I love you,’ she murmured with her warm heart in her eyes.

He carried her back indoors to the big white linen draped bed and spread her across it with precision. He leant over her and kissed her until her heart was pounding. ‘You are so loved, my precious Mrs Belanger.’