Pleasure, Pregnancy and a Proposition (16 page)

Read Pleasure, Pregnancy and a Proposition Online

Authors: Heidi Rice

Tags: #Health & Fitness, #Contemporary, #Fiction, #Romance, #Pregnancy & Childbirth, #General

This time he let himself fall—and felt the pure unfettered rush of excitement, joy and exhilaration.

After so many years alone he’d finally found home.

EPILOGUE

‘I
THINK
I hate you—how come you look so fabulous already?’ Mel grumbled, pushing her sunglasses down and giving Louisa’s bikini-clad figure a pointed once-over.

Louisa put her glass of lemonade on the poolside table and gave her friend a deliberately smug smile. ‘Secrets of the rich and famous, honey,’ she said, tapping her nose. ‘We don’t share them with mere mortals, you know.’

‘Good grief,’ Mel scoffed. ‘I knew this whole Lady Berwick thing would go straight to your head.’

Louisa laughed at Mel’s comically sour expression. They both knew Louisa’s figure was nowhere near as trim as it had been a year ago.

Six months after an excruciating thirteen-hour labour—during which she’d called her new husband every name under the sun—Louisa’s boobs were still enormous, and even though little Viscount Berwick seemed happy to breastfeed twenty-four-seven, she couldn’t seem to lose the extra stone she’d been carrying around in post-pregnancy love handles ever since his birth. She knew she would never regain the lean, perfectly toned figure she’d once taken for granted. And she couldn’t have cared less about it. After all, she’d never been happier in her life—and
anyway, her husband had demonstrated only this morning how much he adored her new ‘Mother Earth’ look.

Louisa leaned back on her sun lounger, her cheeks glowing as she thought of just what she and Luke had got up to that morning, while their son had had one of his rare lieins. She gazed at the two most important people in her life. The smile that was never far away crept back across her face.

Standing on the pool terrace, where he’d once given her the most unromantic marriage proposal known to man, Luke looked deliciously rumpled in a pair of damp swimming trunks and the garish ‘Elvis in Hawaii’ shirt she’d got him for Christmas. His dark hair—which he kept threatening to get cut—flowed in wavy strands to his collar and dripped on the chartreuse silk of the shirt. He’d forgotten to shave after all the excitement of their elicit tryst in the shower that morning. The stubble shadowing his jaw would have made him look more like a pirate than a lord of the realm if it hadn’t been for the baby cuddled against his chest.

Little Luca Alfredo Devereaux was in his favourite place in all the world: snuggled in the crook of his daddy’s arm, one small fist stuffed in his cupid’s bow mouth and the other gripping his daddy’s hair. After twenty minutes of playing in the pool with his father, and Mel’s three children, her baby boy was utterly exhausted, but his eyelids kept blinking open as he gazed owlishly up at his father.

Standing next to Louisa’s two main men was Mel’s husband Jack, whose ten-month-old daughter Clare was already fast asleep on his shoulder. With Cal and Ella playing in the sandpit which Luke and Jack had put together that morning, it was the first moment of calm they’d had since the Devlin brood had arrived for the long
August weekend three hours ago, and she and Mel were making the most of it.

There was nothing Louisa DiMarco Devereaux would rather do than gaze lovingly at her men. As she watched, she saw Luke put his large hand on his son’s back and pat, rocking the baby instinctively while he continued his conversation with Jack. After a few seconds their son’s head drooped onto Luke’s shoulder, his fist released its death grip on his father’s hair, and his compact little body softened against the hard muscles of his father’s chest. The sunbeam inside Louisa shimmered, making her feel as if she were lit from within. How could that man ever have believed he wouldn’t be a good father?

She sighed, tears welling in her eyes.

‘There’s just something about men and babies that gets me every time,’ Mel murmured beside her.

Louisa glanced round to see Mel’s eyes as suspiciously bright as her own as she stared across the pool at her own husband.

Louisa sniffed and huffed out a laugh, wiping the tear of joy from her cheek. ‘Look at us—if those two catch us blubbing like this we’ll never hear the end of it.’

Mel grinned back and gave her own cheeks a quick swipe. ‘Don’t worry, they’re far too busy boring themselves to death talking about football, or some other twaddle.’

Louisa smiled and closed her eyes, all the sleep she’d lost the night before beginning to claim her. ‘Goodness, Mel—how did we get to be so lucky?’

‘It’s not luck, Lou. We had to work really hard to get those guys up to scratch—and we’ve both got the frown lines and the stretch marks to prove it.’

‘I suppose,’ Louisa murmured sleepily, a contented grin
on her face. ‘But it’s worth every single solitary one of them, isn’t it?’

She took a deep breath as her eyelids fluttered down, and tasted the heady scent of Havensmere’s flowers which Luke and she had planted together that spring.

As she drifted off to sleep she contemplated the argument she and Luke were going to have when she told him she’d forgotten to take her contraceptive pill that morning. And the fantastic make-up sex they would be having soon after.

And then she pictured all the other little Devereauxes they were going to make together in the years to come. In the midst of the warm, fuzzy dream, another little frown line formed on her brow. She better make sure some of them were girls. After all, she didn’t want to be totally outnumbered…

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II BV/S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

® and TM are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

First published in Great Britain 2008

Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited, Eton House, 18-24

Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

ISBN 978-1-408-91481-6

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