Chapter Seven #3
‘Also if you’re uncomfortable…’ She laughed hesitantly.
‘You’re very sensitive, aren’t you? Do you think I’m going to burst into tears in a moment of rare sentimentality?’
‘I’d love to see that. But really, Rocco, you must have had a lonely childhood.’
Primed to react according to instinct, to put barriers into place, Rocco found that he couldn’t because the usual safeguards weren’t there. For a few seconds, he felt as though he was freefalling, then he regained control sufficiently to smile at her with wry self-deprecation.
‘I coped, so don’t feel too sorry for me. Now, shall we get some coffee? Breakfast? I noticed a café by the desk over there. Have you eaten?’
‘I’m fine. There’s no need to fuss.’
‘I find it seems to come naturally with you being pregnant.’
‘You sound surprised by that.’
‘Who’d have thought?’ Rocco half-murmured to himself. ‘Okay, let’s get back. Snow looks like it’s beginning to get serious. We’ll get the tree sorted and when that’s done… I suppose we need to sit down and have a conversation about the details of our arrangement if marriage is not on the cards.’
As if she’d been doused by a bucket of cold water, Ella suddenly felt the sharp pang of fear at the prospect of not having this man in her life.
Of seeing him disappear into the arms of some appropriate woman who would…
what? Provide the sort of cold example of part-time surrogate motherhood that his own mother had, from the sounds of it?
How did she feel about that? How did she feel about him no longer fussing around her or being in her life aside from slowly becoming a stranger whose only link would be the child they shared?
Did she want him moving on without her?
By the time they made it back, the tree was already at the house, and her father had positioned it in the usual place in the sitting room, by the front window.
He bustled them out of the cold and hugged her and Ella hugged him back hard.
Hugged him for the grief he had lovingly protected her from seeing when her mother had died, and for the hope and joy inside her because she knew that she was going to accept Rocco’s marriage proposal.
Rocco watched this show of love with mixed feelings.
Who was this man standing here, torn because all his ingrained and deeply embedded principles felt shadowy and ineffectual as he witnessed their open affection for one another?
He’d found some other side of himself when he’d started his affair with Ella and it was still there, illogically defying a lifetime of indoctrination that had pointed him down the rigid path he had always been expected to follow.
The path he had willingly accepted was the right one to follow.
He’d dropped all talk of marriage, but was discomforted when he thought about losing this link to someone he had grown to like, someone without the constraints that had ruled his life.
‘Here, help with these.’
Rocco shrugged off uncomfortable thoughts and found a bundle of lights in his hands. ‘What’s this?’
‘It’s an absolute pig’s ear of tangled Christmas tree lights!
That’s what happens when you don’t pull them out for a year!
Your job is to do your best to get them up and running.
And don’t tell me you’ve never done anything like that in your life before.
You can see it as one of the festive season’s little challenges! ’
Rocco looked at the clear green eyes gazing at him with amusement and he smiled. The urge to touch her was overwhelming. The flare of panic he felt at her not accepting his marriage proposal was suddenly equally overwhelming.
‘Now, a good challenge is something I’ve never been able to resist.’
Her eyes lingered on him just a little bit longer than necessary and the pink that infused her cheeks kick-started a rush of physical desire, which was something he understood and could deal with. Easier than troublesome, introspective thoughts.
The air was sucked out of Ella as she gazed back at him, on some subconscious level tuning in to what he was feeling, which mirrored her own response—hot desire, a need to touch and be touched.
Her breasts were suddenly heavier than normal, her nipples, darker and bigger in pregnancy, even more sensitive than they’d been.
Freed from the restraints of having to convince herself that Rocco was unsuitable for her, a liar who didn’t deserve much of a second chance, was her body now reacting to the freedom that had come with her change of heart? Her breathing slowed.
‘What about you?’ he murmured into the electric silence. ‘How are you with challenges?’
‘G-good, thanks,’ she stuttered.
‘Shall I get on with the lights? You’re distracting me.’
Ella blinked like an owl when he raised his hand and dangled the ball of Christmas lights in front of her, although his dark eyes never left her face for a second, not until they dipped to linger on her mouth.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur as they strung the lights and hung the decorations, and it was nearly one by the time her father decided to call it a day, because crops had no respect for Christmas traditions.
‘But stay for dinner, young man,’ he said over his shoulder before he left. ‘Always plenty in this house when it comes to food.’
‘I’ll have to ask your daughter for permission.’ Rocco turned to Ella.
‘So…’ he drawled, when her father had left. ‘Think the tree was the right choice?’
‘Amazing, and thanks for the lights.’
He moved to stand next to her so that they were both gazing at the tree, and again he felt that peculiar hollowness inside him.
‘The decorations…’ he murmured.
‘I know. Most of them are ancient, relics from childhood for me and Conor.’
He listened as she went through them, picking some of them out, smiling and reminiscing about times past and showing him a world he hadn’t known existed because it was one he’d never encountered.
The decorations were spread wide, dating back to childish paintings on cardboard with makeshift holes for hanging.
‘So, do you say yes, Ella?’
Rocco looked down at her upturned face.
They had somehow drifted over to the deep, comfortable sofa by the fireplace. From here, Rocco could see unbroken greyness through the window and the stubborn flurries of light snow slanting in the thin afternoon light.
Ella didn’t bother pretending to misunderstand his question.
‘Yes. I’ll marry you,’ she told him quietly.
Free to get physically close, she rested the palm of her hand on his chest, as if trying to gauge his heartbeat.
‘I know…it comes with certain terms and conditions…’ She waited a heartbeat for an interruption which didn’t come.
‘No love or romance or any of that other stuff…but you were right. This isn’t just about the two of us now.
This is bigger and it’s something that calls for some sacrifice. And besides…’
‘You’re not making a mistake.’
Wasn’t she? Ella couldn’t have said but what she did know was that between a rock and a hard place a choice had to be made, and with this choice came the opportunity for her love to infect him, because they would be around one another, filling the spaces between them with laughter and affection.
Those things were only a heartbeat away from love.
If she held his hand for long enough, she could surely lead him there?
‘I hope not.’
Rocco stayed the night.
He didn’t know how he managed to make it through the remainder of the evening.
He knew that the meal her dad prepared for them had tasted great.
He knew that the snow had gathered momentum.
He appreciated the Christmas tree, ablaze with light and the dozens of decorations that sat by the window, advertising a spirit of celebration and love that his family’s grand tree never had.
And, naturally, he knew that they had talked about marriage, and had been aware of her father’s quiet approval.
He had ached to get to that bedroom, and when they made it there, after what had felt like hours of talking and eating, and eating and talking, he took his time.
No hurried sex with clothes being ripped off and strewn on the floor because desire overwhelmed finesse. He’d undressed her very slowly, removing each layer of clothing with solicitous, painstaking care.
Her body was ripe with their child. Her nipples were bigger and darker, her belly just beginning to show the soft roundness of pregnancy.
He had buried himself in the soft down between her thighs, had sucked on her breasts and had caressed every part of her until, when neither of them could take any more, he had come in her.
He hadn’t pushed back against her refusal to marry him. He’d waited. For a man who preferred the immediacy of action, the wait had proved fruitful.
Today, he thought much later, as he lay in bed with her head against his shoulder, had been a good one.