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‘That talk you mentioned we need to have...’ She wandered towards him, looped her hands around his neck and drew him towards her.
‘I can’t say I’m in the mood for talking.’ He kissed the tip of her nose and she smiled.
‘Okay. Me neither. But Mum and Dad are back week after next. As soon as they’re back, we can go and break the news.’
And with that Maude knew that there was no going back. She cupped the nape of his neck and leaned up to kiss him, then she kissed him a little bit more until she found she just couldn’t stop.
It was drizzling two weeks later when they pulled into the courtyard outside her parents’ house.
During that time they had talked and had the necessary conversations, sorted out where they would live and how that would work.
And they had made love.
On the surface, things couldn’t have been better. Mateo had wanted his ring on her finger. He would get what he’d wanted. He’d shown her the down side of a relationship spent sharing custody, working out where weekends were spent and then, eventually, the messy business of other people having a say in the upbringing of the child he and Maude shared.
When he had put a bid on that cottage, then when he had taken her there, he had known just how much she would fall in love with it.
At heart she was a romantic, in love with the notion of being in love, and that cottage had all the hallmarks of just the sort of dreamy, fairy-tale place that would appeal to someone with a romantic heart. The urgent renovation element had added to the attraction.
When he’d told her that the cottage was meant for him, as his permanent residence once the baby was born, he had known that she would be swayed. Her imagination had gone into overdrive and it had accelerated even more when he had described the idyllic life of rural perfection he was effortlessly going to achieve, a life in which a suitable wifely candidate would barrel along within weeks, eager to take up the mantle of mother-figure.
Mateo had almost bought into the fantasy himself. In fairness, he would have made it work if Maude had stuck to her guns, but he had been over the moon when she had buckled and accepted his marriage proposal. He was a cool guy with a cool head and he had got what he’d wanted the cool way.
So why was this thread of unease running through him now?
‘Are you nervous?’ he asked, killing the engine and turning to look at her.
‘Nervous?’ Maude frowned but then smiled, doing her best to wipe out the vague sadness that had lodged inside her ever since she had accepted his marriage proposal.
She hadn’t made a mistake. What she was doing was the right thing to do for a thousand reasons, not least because it was unbearable to think of this guy who had stolen her heart settling down with another woman.
Their child would have the sort of stable upbringing every child deserved, and she was in no doubt that Mateo would make an excellent father. Because it had become patently clear that he really cared about the baby. He might never have envisaged settling down withheror even prolonging what they had, however much he told her how much he still desired her and how much he had missed her, but he was fully engaged in his duty and she was the essential add-on.
Shewas and always would be the responsibility he had taken on board because he’d had no choice, not when he wanted the whole package with the whole full-time, hands-on two parents in the family unit he had never got the chance to have himself.
She had bowed her head and said goodbye to the dreams she had had growing up, and the reality of the life she was embarking on had settled like a mantle over her, spreading a sadness that she knew would never really go away, however much she told herself that she had done the right thing, theonly thing.
Her body might still come alive when he touched it but it came alive because she was in love with him, because it wasn’t just about desire.
‘About breaking the news to your parents.’
‘No.’ She smiled with more genuine warmth. ‘They’re going to be over the moon, and when Nick and Amy find out they will be as well, although they might be a bit miffed that we beat them to it.’
‘Then why have you been so quiet on the trip here?’
‘Have I?’
‘Are you having...second thoughts?’
‘No,’ Maude said firmly. She cupped his face with her hand and smiled, because this was the way ahead and she was going to make the very best of it. She was going to enjoy what she had been given and not allow herself to be plagued with regret for what she would never have.
‘Sure?’
‘Of course I am.’ She hesitated. ‘What, out of interest, would you do if I told you that Iwashaving second thoughts?’
‘I would try and dissuade you. There’s no way I would throw the towel in without a fight.’
‘And all that because of the baby?’
