Buch lesen: «Her Pregnancy Bombshell»

To Kate Hardy, Scarlet Wilson and Jessica Gilmore,

who helped bring Villa Rosa and L’Isola dei Fiori

to life. It was a joy working with you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,

Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not...

William Shakespeare

‘MIRANDA...’

Andie Marlowe lifted her coat from the rack, took a breath and fixed her face into a neutral smile before turning to face Cleve Finch, the CEO of Goldfinch Air Services.

It had been nearly a year since his wife had been killed when the little six-seater she was flying was taken down by a bird strike but his grief was still unbearable to watch. He’d lost weight, his cheekbones were sharp enough to slice cheese and right now the pallor beneath his runner’s tan gave him a jaundiced look.

‘Cleve?’

‘You’re off this afternoon?’

‘I stood in for Kevin last weekend.’

‘I wasn’t questioning...’ He shook his head. ‘I just wondered if you could spare me a couple of hours.’

She did her best to ignore the totally inappropriate way her heart lifted at the suggestion he needed her. He was her boss. He simply wanted her to take on a last-minute job.

‘No problem. The ironing can wait.’

‘Ironing? It’s Friday. Shouldn’t you be getting yourself ready for a hot date?’ He almost managed a smile.

She almost managed one back. ‘Men don’t date any more, they just want hook-ups.’

‘Men are idiots,’ he said.

‘You’ll get no argument from me.’ She’d tried Internet dating in the vain hope that it would take her mind off the only man with whom she’d ever wanted to get naked. It didn’t so she’d stopped. ‘My evening involves nothing more exciting than a darts match in the village pub but if anyone on the visiting team is under fifty I might get lucky.’ She glanced up at the white board on which the flight schedule had been written but couldn’t see any obvious gaps. ‘Has someone called in sick?’

‘No.’ He lifted a hand, curled his fingers back into his palm. ‘Imogen called.’

‘My sister?’ The sudden heart-pounding obliterated the uncomfortable sensation of being out of control of her limbs whenever she was around Cleve, taking her back to another time when her twin had been the sole focus of her concern. But Immi was fine now, happy, about to be married... ‘Has something happened to Mum and Dad?’

‘No!’ He reached towards her and, for a moment, his hand hung in the air between them. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you. She called to let me know that the new aircraft...’ He stopped as if the words were stuck in his throat.

Every instinct was to take his hand, hold it, give him her warmth, comfort, whatever he needed. Before the message reached her brain and she could do anything so stupid he was dragging his fingers through thick dark brown hair that had once been streaked by the sun but was now shot through with silver.

Cleve’s grief in the year since his wife’s death had been painful to witness. And he wasn’t the only one. The Mayfly, the six-seater aircraft she’d been flying when she died, had been built by Marlowe Aviation, the company started by Andie’s family right at the beginning of aviation. Both companies had wobbled in the aftermath.

The Air Accident Inquiry had absolved everyone from guilt; it was clear from all the evidence that the aircraft had been brought down by a bird strike. The shocking revelation that Rachel had been in the early stages of pregnancy—something Cleve had kept to himself until the inquest—and the coroner’s suggestion that, since she was such an experienced pilot, nausea or fainting might have contributed to the accident, had made it a double tragedy.

When the enquiry was over Andie’s mother, fearful that her father would follow their grandfather into an early grave, had insisted he take a complete break and, leaving Marlowe Aviation in the capable hands of Immi and her fiancé, her parents were crossing India by bus like a couple of old hippies.

Cleve, on the other hand, had not taken a day off since the funeral, insisting that his responsibility was to his staff and Goldfinch, the company he’d built from nothing.

Andie suspected that deep down he was afraid that if he walked away, didn’t get straight back in the cockpit, he never would. And, once the insurance claim had been settled, Cleve, in the most selfless, most supportive of acts, had ordered a replacement for the wrecked aircraft from Marlowe Aviation. The exact same model in which his wife had died.

Now her sister had called to tell him that it was ready to be collected.

‘I can pick it up,’ she said, quickly. ‘I’ll take the train, stay overnight and fly back tomorrow.’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘There are procedures. Engineering checks to sign off.’

‘I can handle all that.’

Andie had a degree in aircraft engineering and would have been in the design office right now if a good-looking flier, negotiating the purchase of one of her father’s aircraft, hadn’t promised her a job if she got her CPL. If he hadn’t sealed his promise with a kiss that’d had her flying without the need for wings.

Cleve had been wearing a newly minted wedding ring by the time she’d completed her degree and arrived at his office clutching her CPL, but he’d given her a congratulatory hug and kept his promise. His wife, no doubt able to spot her crush from ten thousand feet and used to fending off silly girls, had smiled sympathetically, confident that with her in his bed he was oblivious to such distractions.

‘I just need you to fly me up there, Miranda,’ he said. ‘If it’s not convenient just say and I’ll take the train myself.’

‘I just thought...’ Obviously this was something he felt he had to do but she wasn’t about to let him go through it on his own. ‘When do you want to go?’

‘Now? Oscar Tango is free this afternoon. If the darts team can spare you.’

‘They’ll probably heave a collective sigh of relief,’ she said. ‘I was flying home tomorrow anyway. Immi’s been nagging me about...’ Her sister had been nagging her about a fitting for her bridesmaid dress but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. ‘If you don’t mind squashing into my little two-seater?’

‘Whatever suits you.’

He held the door for her as she took out her phone and sent a quick text to her sister to let her know she’d be available for the fitting the next day.

‘Is it pink?’ he asked as they crossed to the control office to file a flight plan.

‘Pink?’

‘The dress.’

‘You read my text?’

‘I didn’t have to. I received an invitation to her wedding and I imagine she wants her sisters as bridesmaids. The rare sight of you in a dress is almost enough to tempt me to accept.’

She glanced up at him but the teasing smile that had made her teenage heart stand still was now rarer than a sighting of her in a skirt.

‘If it’s pink with frills there’s no way I’m going to miss it,’ he added.

‘Please... Not even as a joke.’

‘I hope her fiancé has done his duty and lined up a best man to make your day memorable.’

‘Portia’s the oldest.’ The glamorous one that not only the spare men but those who were firmly attached would be lusting after. ‘She has first dibs on the best man.’ And if he was anything like the groom she was welcome to him. ‘Posy and I will have to make do with the ushers.’

‘You’re not impressed with your future brother-in-law?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ Had she?

‘You pulled a face.’

She lifted her shoulders a fraction. ‘Marrying the boss’s daughter is such a cliché. As long as Immi’s happy that’s all that matters.’ Feeling a bit guilty that she hadn’t quite taken to her future brother-in-law, she added, ‘Dad seems to like him.’

‘I congratulate him. Your father has very high standards.’

‘Er...yes...’ Talking about weddings with Cleve was too weird and, relieved to have finally reached the control office, she said, ‘Will you go and fuel up for me while I deal with the paperwork?’

His brows rose a fraction. ‘I’ve never known you let anyone but you touch her,’ he said. ‘You even service herself yourself.’

‘I’m cheap,’ she said, rather than admit that he was the only person she’d allow to touch the aircraft her father had given her on her eighteenth birthday.

The day she’d got her PPL.

The day Cleve had kissed her.

‘Do not drip any fuel on the fuselage,’ she said, taking the keys to the security lock from her pocket.

She would have tossed them to him but he reached out, wrapping his long, cold fingers around her hand to keep her from turning away. His eyes locked onto hers and she stopped breathing.

‘I’m honoured.’

‘Make that suckered,’ she said, just so that he wouldn’t think she was going soft. ‘You’ll be using your card to pay for the fuel.’

She would have turned away but he held her hand for a moment longer until, with a nod, he took the keys and walked away, leaving her normally warm hand like ice.

* * *

‘Do you want to take the stick?’ she asked, out of courtesy rather than any expectation that Cleve would say yes. He wasn’t a back-seat flyer and had no hang-ups about women pilots—he’d married one after all. The fact was, he hadn’t been flying much since the crash.

He complained that his time was fully occupied running the business these days, setting up the new office in Cyprus. And, when he was forced to leave his desk, the murmurs reaching her suggested that he was taking the co-pilot’s seat and letting his first officer have the stick.

That he had lost his nerve.

He shook his head, climbed aboard and closed his eyes as she taxied out to the runway. His attempt at humour on the subject of her bridesmaid dress had apparently drained him of conversation and any excitement about picking up the new aircraft would be inappropriate.

Forty silent minutes later she touched down and taxied to her personal parking space on the Marlowe Aviation airfield.

She didn’t wait for him to thank her. She signed off, climbed down and, before he could dismiss her, crossed to where the chief engineer, no doubt warned by the tower of their arrival, was waiting for them.

‘Hello, Jack.’

‘Andie...’ He took her hand, kissed her cheek, then looked up as Cleve joined them. ‘Cleve. Good to see you,’ he said, not quite quick enough to hide his shock at Cleve’s pallor. Any other time, any other man, Jack would have made a joke about women pilots, she would have rolled her eyes, and they would have got on with it.

‘Jack.’ Cleve’s brief acknowledgement did not encourage small talk.

‘Right, well, we’re all ready for you.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Andie, you’ll be interested in seeing the updates we’ve incorporated into the latest model of the Mayfly to come off the production line.’

It was a plea not to leave him alone with Cleve but, with the tension coming off him in waves, she wasn’t going anywhere.

‘I can’t wait,’ she said, touching her hand to Cleve’s elbow, a gentle prompt forward, and she felt the shock of that small contact jolt through him. She caught her breath as the responding flood of heat surged back along her arm, momentarily swamping her body.

She held her breath, somehow kept her smile in place as he pulled away from her.

‘The new tail design is largely down to Andie,’ Jack explained to Cleve as they walked towards the hangar. ‘The sooner she gets tired of life at altitude and gets back to the design office, the better.’

‘Miranda was born to fly,’ Cleve said before she could answer.

‘No doubt, but my time will come.’ Jack grinned confidently. ‘Some lucky man will catch her eye and she won’t want to be up and down all over the place once she starts a family.’

Desperate to cover the awkward silence that followed Jack’s epic foot-in-the-mouth moment, she crossed to the aircraft, sleek and gleaming white but for the new tail that bore the stylised red, gold and black goldfinch identifying the ever-growing Goldfinch Air Services fleet.

‘She’s a beauty, Jack.’

She turned to Cleve for his reaction but he looked hollow and she thought, not for the first time, that this very public support of Marlowe Aviation and the aircraft her father built had been a mistake.

‘Why don’t we go and deal with the paperwork first?’ she suggested. ‘If Immi’s in a good mood she might make us—’

‘Let’s get this over with,’ Cleve said, cutting her off before she could suggest a bracing cup of tea. But she was the one making all the right noises, asking all the questions as Jack ran through the new design details.

The chief engineer’s relief when a loudspeaker message summoned him to take a phone call was palpable.

‘I’m sorry but I have to take this,’ he said, handing her the clipboard. ‘We’ve just about finished the externals. Why don’t you take her out, try a few circuits? Get a feel for her.’

‘Thanks, Jack,’ she said, when Cleve did not reply. ‘We’ll see you later.’

‘I’ll be in the office...’

She gave him a reassuring nod when he hesitated, then turned back to Cleve.

He was staring at the aircraft, his face set as hard and grey as concrete. Her hand hovered near his elbow but she was afraid that if she touched him again he would shatter.

As if he sensed her uncertainty, he said, ‘Go and find your sister, sort out your dress. I’ve got this.’

‘I don’t think so.’ He turned on her but before he could speak she said, ‘You’re not fit to fly a kite right now.’

They seemed to stand there for hours, staring one another down and then, as if a veil had been lifted to reveal all the pain, all the grief he was suffering, his face seemed to dissolve.

Before she could think, reach for him, he’d turned and stumbled from the hangar.

The airfield was bounded on one side by a steeply wooded hill and in the few moments it had taken her to gather herself he had reached the boundary.

‘Stop!’

She grabbed his arm and he swung around. For a moment she thought he was going to fling her aside but instead he caught hold of her, pulling her to him and, his voice no more than a scrape against his vocal cords, he said, ‘Help me, Andie...’

He hadn’t called her that since the days when he’d teased her, encouraged her, kissed her in the shadowy corners of her father’s aircraft hangar and her stupid teenage heart had dreamed that one day they would fly to the stars.

He was shaking, falling apart and she reached out, slid her arms around his chest, holding him close, holding him together until he was still.

‘I’m sorry—’

She lifted a hand to his cheek and realised that it was wet with tears.

‘I can’t—’

‘Hush...’ She touched her lips to his to stop the words, closing her eyes as he responded not with the sweet, hot kisses that even now filled her dreams, but with something darker, more desperate, demanding. With a raw need that drilled down through the protective shell that she’d built around her heart, that she answered with all the deep-buried longing that she’d subsumed into flying.

She felt a shiver go through him.

‘Andie...’

There was such desperation in that one word and she slid her hands down to take his, hold them.

‘You’re cold,’ she said and, taking his hand, she led the way along the edge of the runway to the gate that led to her parents’ house. She unlocked the door and led him up the stairs and there, in the room filled with her old books, toys, dreams, she undressed him, undressed herself and then with her mouth, her hands, her body—giving him all the love hoarded inside her—she warmed him.

CHAPTER TWO

EXHAUSTED, A LITTLE SHAKY from a rough ferry crossing, Andie handed her passport to the border control officer.

‘Buongiorno, signora.’ He glanced at the back page of her passport and then gave her the kind of searching look a Roman traveller landing in the ancient port of Sant’Angelo two thousand years ago would have recognised. The kind of look that would bring even the most innocent traveller out in a guilty sweat. ‘What is the purpose of your visit to L’Isola dei Fiori?’

‘I’m running away,’ she muttered.

From her job, her life, from the man she’d been in love with since the life-changing moment when he’d applauded her touchdown in a treacherous crosswind.

Hiding the secret she was carrying.

‘Scusi?’

She swallowed down the lump in her throat. ‘I’m on holiday.’

He did not look convinced. She didn’t blame him but the clammy sweat sticking her shirt to her back had nothing to do with guilt.

‘You are travelling alone?’ he asked.

That rather depended on your definition of alone...

She nodded. ‘Yes, I’m on my own.’

‘And where are you staying?’

‘At Baia di Rose. The Villa Rosa.’ His brow rose almost imperceptibly. ‘My sister inherited it from her godmother. Sofia Romana,’ she added, in the face of his scepticism.

The man’s eyebrows momentarily lost touch with gravity. Clearly the mistress of the late King Ludano would not be everyone’s choice as godmother but Sofia had started school on the same day as their grandmother. Their friendship had endured through a long lifetime and by the time their fourth daughter had arrived her parents had probably been running out of godmother options.

He cleared his throat, returned to her passport, flipping through the pages. ‘You travel a great deal?’

‘Yes.’ She was in and out of airports all over Europe and the Middle East on a daily basis. ‘I’m a commercial pilot.’

‘I see.’ He gave her another of those long, thoughtful looks but it wasn’t his obvious suspicion that was making her feel faint, cling like a lifeline to the edge of the desk that separated them. ‘You look unwell, signora Marlowe.’

‘I’m not feeling that great,’ she admitted. Her skin was pale and clammy and her hair, blown out of the scarf she used to tie it back on the blustery deck of the ferry, was sticking to her cheeks and neck.

She knew exactly what he was thinking and in his place she’d probably think the same.

‘I have to ask you if you are carrying—’

‘A baby.’

She blurted out the word. It was the first time she’d said it out loud. She’d told her sister that she was tired, needed a break, and Posy, unable to get away herself, had been so happy that someone would visit the villa, make sure everything was okay, that she hadn’t asked her why she wasn’t going to some resort where she could lie back and be waited on.

The first person in the world to know that she was going to have a baby was a border control officer who was about to ask her if she was carrying an illegal substance... ‘I’m carrying a baby,’ she said, her hand instinctively rising to her waist in an age-old protective gesture as she backed away from the desk. ‘And I’m about to be sick.’

The ferry crossing from Italy had been choppy. The sandwich she’d forced herself to eat had gone overboard within minutes of leaving the harbour but her stomach seemed capable of creating a great deal out of nothing. It had been years since her last visit to the island but the Porto had not changed and she made it to the toilet before she disgraced herself.

Once the spasms had passed she splashed her face with cold water, retied her hair, took a breath and opened the door to find the officer waiting with her passport, wheelie and a sympathetic smile.

‘Complimenti, signora.’ She hardly knew how to respond and he nodded as if he understood that she was feeling grim and might just be having mixed feelings about her happy condition. As if that were the only problem... ‘My wife suffered with the vomito in the early days but it will soon pass,’ he said. ‘Relax, put your feet up in the sun and you will soon feel better. Is anyone meeting you?’

‘I was going to grab a taxi.’

He nodded, escorted her to the rank, spoke sharply to the driver who leapt out to take her bag.

‘I have told him to take it slowly, signora.’

Out of the noisy terminal building, standing in the fresh air, the afternoon sunshine warning her face, she managed a smile. ‘Did he hear you?’

His shrug and wry smile suggested that his words might well have fallen on deaf ears.

‘Could you ask him to stop at a shop...il supermercato? I need to pick up some things.’

He exchanged a few words with the driver. ‘He will take you and wait.’

‘Grazie.’

‘Prego. Bon fortuna, signora. Enjoy your holiday.’

Andie lay back against the cool leather of the seat as the driver drew carefully away from the taxi rank, out of the port and after a few minutes pulled into the car park in front of a small supermarket.

Her sense of smell, heightened by pregnancy, had her hurrying past the deli counter. She quickly filled her basket with some basic essentials and returned to the car.

* * *

‘Baia di Rose?’ the driver asked.

‘Sì. Lentamente,’ she added, using the word that the border official had used and Sofia had called after them as they’d raced down the path to the beach. Slowly...

‘Sì, signora,’ he said, pulling out into the traffic with exaggerated caution.

It didn’t last.

He was a native of this ancient crossroads in the Mediterranean; his blood was a distillation of the Greek, Carthaginian and Roman invaders who had, over the millennia, conquered and controlled the island. His car was his chariot and the hoots of derision from other drivers as they passed him were an affront to his manhood.

She hung onto the strap as he put his foot down and flung the car around sharp bends, catching glimpses of the sea as they climbed up out of the city and headed across the island to Baia di Rose and the villa that guarded the headland.

She’d left London on a cold, grey day that spring had hardly touched. How many times had she and her sisters done that in the past when her grandmother had whisked the four of them out of England in the school holidays to give her mother a break?

She still remembered the excitement of arriving in a spring so different from the one they’d left behind. Being met in a sleek Italian car by Alberto who, with his wife, Elena, looked after the Villa Rosa, its gardens and acted as chauffeur to Sofia and who treated them as if they were little princesses. The exotic flowers, houses painted in soft pastels and faded terracotta and the turquoise sea glittering in invitation.

The house was only a few hundred yards up the hill from the village, perched on an outcrop in a swathe of land that stretched from the coast to the rugged, forested lands that led to the peak of the mountains in the heart of the island that King Ludano had declared as a national park.

Portia, her older and more worldly sister had shocked them all by suggesting the real reason was to keep his visits to his mistress from prying eyes.

Whatever his motive it had preserved this part of the island from commercial exploitation, the ribbon development of hotels along the east coast.

The last stretch to an elevated promontory was reached by a narrow, twisting road. As children, they’d competed to be the first to catch a glimpse of the pale pink Villa Rosa. With its tiered roof and French doors opening onto a garden that fell away to the sheltered cove below, it was so utterly different from home.

Inside was just as exciting. Endless rooms to explore and the excitement of being allowed to join grown-up parties in the vast drawing room with its arched ceiling painted in the pale blue, pink, mauves of an evening sky.

There were dusty attics filled with treasures to explore if you dared brave the spiders and, her favourite place of all, the cool covered veranda looking out to sea where you could curl up with a book in the heat of the afternoon.

When they were children the gates had stood wide open in welcome and as soon as the car came to a halt they’d tumbled out, rushed down to the beach, kicked off their shoes and socks and stood at the water’s edge, shrieking with excitement as the water ran over their feet.

Today the gates were closed and it was too early in the year to swim in the sea. Too late in the day to go down to the beach. She just wanted to curl up somewhere and sleep off the flight from London, the ferry trip across from the Italian mainland.

The driver asked her a question in something that wasn’t quite Italian, that she didn’t understand, but his look of concern suggested he was asking if she was in the right place. She nodded, smiled, paid him and waited while he turned and headed back down the hill.

Once he’d gone she took the weighty bunch of keys that Posy had given her from her bag, opened the small side gate and stepped into the peace and tranquillity of the villa courtyard.

On one side there was a low range of buildings that had once been stables but, for as long as she had been coming here, had been used as garages and storerooms. On the other side of the courtyard was the rear of the house with its scullery and kitchen. The door that, wet and sandy from the beach, they’d used as children.

It had been eight years since their last visit. She and Immi had been sixteen, Posy fifteen. Portia hadn’t come with them. She had been in her first year at uni and thought herself far too grown-up for a family holiday by the sea, even in a glamorous villa owned by the mistress of the island’s monarch.

Those years had not been kind to the villa.

King Ludano had died and Sofia had been left alone with only her memories to warm her in their love nest. Alone without her lover to call whenever something needed fixing.

It was an old house, there were storms in the winter and the occasional rumble from the unstable geology of the island.

The pink was faded and stained where rainwater had run from broken and blocked gutters. There were some tiles missing from the scullery roof and there was a crack in the wall where the stucco had fallen away and a weed had found a home.

Posy’s wonderful bequest from her godmother needed some seriously expensive TLC and she would have been lumbered with something of a white elephant if it weren’t for its location.

The Villa Rosa was the only property on this spectacular part of the coast. It had a private beach hidden from passing boats by rocky headlands that reached out into the sea like sheltering arms and, thanks to the island’s volcanic past, a pool fed by a hot spring where you could bathe even in the depths of winter.

As soon as she put it on the market she would be swamped with offers.

The sea sparkled invitingly in the low angle of the sun, but this early in March it would still be cold and all she wanted was hot mint tea and somewhere to sleep.

Tomorrow she would go down to the beach, feel the sand beneath her feet, let the cold water of the Mediterranean run over her toes. Then, like an old lady, she would go and lie up to her neck in a rock pool heated by the hot spring and let its warmth melt away the confused mix of feelings; the desperate hope that she would turn around, Cleve would be there and, somehow, everything would be back to normal.

It wasn’t going to happen and she wasn’t going to burden Cleve with this.

She’d known what she was doing when she’d chosen to see him through a crisis in the only way she knew how.

She’d seen him at his weakest, broken, weeping for all that he’d lost, and she’d left before he woke so that he wouldn’t have to face her. Struggle to find something to talk about over breakfast.

She’d known that there was only ever going to be one end to the night they’d spent together. One of them would have to walk away and it couldn’t be Cleve.