Holly swung the car gently around yet another winding curve, her knuckles white, her fingers clenched around the steering wheel.
It had been years since she’d driven, and this road was certainly taking it out of her. Her shoulders sagged in relief as she reached a short straight stretch of road. To the right, a general-goods and fast-food store perched on the corner of an intersection. That must be her turn. She forced her fingers to relax and turned off to the right. As she wound down the hillside, she left banks of green bush behind her as the manuka and native ferns gave way to pasture and the occasional house.
Her back was killing her from sitting so long, but she’d been too scared to pull off the road and take a walk. Driving straight through had been the most sensible thing to do, if not the most comfortable. It had taken three hours by the time she’d deciphered the map and had had to turn back a few times, but finally she was here.
Butterflies buffeted at her stomach as she drove down the main road and straight towards the beach. The road curved to the left, and a tall stand of ancient pohutukawa trees guarded a reserve on the right-hand side. Holly grimaced as a cramp started in her calf muscles. She had to stop and stretch it out before she crippled herself. Thankfully, there were plenty of places to park.
Despite the sunny day, a cool wind blew in off the ocean. Unintentionally she compared the strand of beach, stretching from left to right for a couple of miles, with Connor’s secluded private beach on the island. They were nothing alike.
Just as she and Connor were nothing alike, she reminded herself forcefully.
The cramp was getting worse. Holly climbed out of the car and turned to lean against it, stretching out the aggrieved muscles. Despite his aloofness, Connor had taken to massaging her lower legs before bed when he’d realised it helped to prevent the painful cramps that sometimes had her shooting out of bed at night.
She missed him.
God, where had that thought come from? She needed her head read and her mind shrunk. They were poles apart and always would be. She was the daughter of a drug-addicted street kid; he was used to wealth and privilege. Once the baby was born he’d cast her off as easily as he would a shirt with a frayed cuff, although probably with a better reference. There, that felt better. She was angry again.
But her anger didn’t last. Holly looked around the reserve and the beach that bordered it. Breakers rolled in, big and fat and just perfect for body surfing. Even at this time of year the place was a miniparadise. In summer it would be magnificent. Why had her mother left? She could only have been a child herself—certainly no more than fifteen.
A group of teenagers burst from the takeaway store across the road, laughing and fooling as they crossed to the reserve and settled at a table where they eagerly started into fresh fish and chips wrapped in newspaper.
Had her mother done this with her friends? Would Holly have done the very same thing if she’d been allowed to grow up here? It was so unfair. She’d been cheated of so many things—a carefree childhood, happy memories, a sense of belonging.
She’d thought she was done with empty questions, but now, here where her mother had been born and raised, she felt them peck at her mind like seagulls picking at a sandwich on the beach.
The reality of actually being here, of walking on a path that her mother had trod was suddenly more overwhelming than Holly had ever imagined—and more frightening. Another flurry of questions, like the swirling sand lifted and cast around by the on-shore breeze, battered at her brain. What if she found her grandmother, and the woman wanted nothing to do with her? What if her mother had had good reason to flee her family and home?
What if she was just setting herself up for rejection again?
A part of her was tempted to get straight back in the rental car and drive flat-out back to Auckland. But she couldn’t run away now. She needed to know, for her own sake.
A walk, she needed a walk to clear her head and put some distance between herself and the car that would tempt her to take the easy way out. Besides, a walk would give her a few more minutes to pull her ragged nerves together. Finding her grandmother’s house wouldn’t be difficult. To the right there weren’t more than twenty houses along the beachfront, and the house photo in the report was quite distinctive. She felt sure she’d recognise it from the waterside just as easily as from the road that ran parallel to the beach.
Holly lifted her bag from the front seat, swiped her keys from the ignition and locked the car. At the edge of the beach she kicked off her runners and, balancing against a large park bench, she slipped off her socks and shoved them into her bag. The sand felt cool and soft beneath her feet and she sank a little in the loose granules before she reached the firmer base where the outgoing tide had left its mark scattered with seaweed and pieces of driftwood.
With the setting sun at her back, she headed off down the beach, peering intently at each of the houses she drew level with. The houses were an eclectic collection in various states of size and repair. At a glance it looked as if the traditional Kiwi baches, or holiday homes as they were becoming more widely known, were being superseded by palatial homes that wouldn’t have looked out of place in some of Auckland’s highly sought-after eastern suburbs. Each one built to face the sea. Holly easily identified her grandmother’s tidy cottage from the photo in the report and fought to stem the rush of adrenaline that flooded her body and propelled her up the sand to the wide grass berm that separated the houses from the beach.
Her heart hammered against her ribs as Holly placed a shaking hand on the front gate and gently pushed it open. This side of the house was built to enjoy the vista of the bay, and wide French doors were flung open. Holly determinedly placed one foot in front of the other until she was standing on the weathered deck and raised her hand to knock firmly on the doorjamb.
Her heart skipped a beat as she heard a noise from inside, but still no one came at her knock. She banged against the door frame again.
“Hello?” An elderly man’s head popped up from the other side of the fence that bordered the property. “If you’re looking for Queenie she’s coming up the beach now.”
“Yes, yes, I am. Thank you.”
“Say, you look familiar. Have I seen you before?”
Holly’s breath caught in her throat. “No, I’ve never been here before.” She swiftly descended the shallow stairs that led off the deck and walked back down to the beach, scanning the shoreline for the figure that was in all probability her only living family.
All at once she felt the earth tilt. The woman walking towards her was older than the photo from the locket that had been printed in the paper, but the likeness was unmistakable.
Queenie Fleming. Her grandmother.
Holly’s shoes dropped unheeded from her hands as she stopped and stared, unable to speak. Unable to even think.
“Hello? Were you looking for me?”
For longer than you can ever know. “Yes, I am.” Holly managed to force the words past lips that quivered as they stretched into a welcoming smile.
As she drew nearer, the woman’s smile became more set and her face, weathered by sun and wind and marked with lines of sorrow, paled as she fixed her gaze on Holly. “Giselle? No, you can’t be…” Her voice trailed away weakly.
A shiver rippled through her—Giselle, her mother. It was all she could do not to throw herself in the other woman’s arms, yet one remaining ounce of caution—a lingering fear of being brushed aside if she identified who she was—held her in place.
“I’m sorry, dear, you startled me. You look such a lot like my late daughter. Don’t worry about a silly old thing like me.” She gathered herself together and gave Holly another smile. “You look worn-out, dear. Long trip? Why don’t you come and have a cuppa with me. I’m Queenie Fleming, but the young ones around here call me Nana, you may as well, too.”
Queenie’s chatter washed over her, and Holly felt herself nod, not even believing it could be so simple. Nana. Her stomach did a little flip. If she’d grown up here she’d have had every right to call her Nana.
“Wait, please?” She put a hand out to the woman’s arm, her fingers curling gently around it ever so briefly before letting go. Her grandmother. It still seemed unreal.
“Am I going too fast for you, dear? Oh look, you’ve left your shoes in the sand. The tide’ll take them if you’re not careful.” She bustled back and collected Holly’s shoes. “Come on with me and I’ll sit you down and get you a nice hot cuppa. Gee, this wind has some bite in it, doesn’t it?”
Without hesitation Nana hooked an arm around Holly’s expanded waist, helped her over the loose sand and towards the old but well-maintained house that squatted amongst the larger architecturally designed homes.
“They call it progress, dear.” Her grandmother sniffed and waved a disparaging hand towards the two-storied home to the side, leaving no doubt as to what she thought of it, and led Holly across the deck and into the cottage. “I call it a shame.”
“I can see why. It’s so beautiful here.”
“I’ve lived here over sixty years, was born and grew up in the area. I never thought I’d see the day when my neighbours would be city folk weekending at the beach. Ah well, one thing you can’t control and that’s time. When I’m gone, no doubt this place will be bowled and another place built—it’s not like I’ve any family to leave it to. Sit down there, dear. You’ll be comfortable on the firm chair.”
“Thanks.” Holly sank gratefully into a roomy and blessedly comfortable wicker chair. “You’re on your own?”
“Yes, just me left. That’s why you’ll have to indulge an old woman who doesn’t get a lot of company. I tend to talk far too much when I do.” She laughed and slapped her hips at the joke. “My husband, Ted, passed on five years ago. It’s been a bit lonely since then.” She gave a wink and tenderly patted Holly’s belly. “You won’t be alone for long. You look about fit to pop anyday.”
Holly smiled, trying not to dwell on another loss—the grandfather she’d never know. “I’m supposed to be another three weeks yet.”
“You’ll be early, you mark my words. Have you thought of any names yet?” Nana filled the kettle and put it on to boil, before clattering about in a cupboard and getting cups and spooning tealeaves into a pot.
“No, I haven’t.” She hadn’t let herself. She didn’t dare to.
“Don’t worry. You’ll think of something perfect when the time is right. Now, my Giselle, she was a determined one. So set in her thoughts. Nothing could sway her. She always said that if she had a little girl she’d name her Holly.” Queenie sighed sadly. “She died twenty-four years ago this coming Christmas and I still don’t know what we did wrong there.”
“Wrong? Why?” Ice traced a nervous finger down Holly’s spine.
“We were older parents. She came as a late bonus in our marriage, and as a result we probably overindulged her. At least Ted said I did. He put his foot down when she started to hang out with a young larrikin from further up the coast. Nice family, shame about the boy. Mind you, he settled down some in later years. Anyway, Ted made it quite clear that he disapproved of young Matt and forbade her from seeing him again. One night, soon after, she ran away from home. She was just shy of her fifteenth birthday. We did our best to locate her, but the police said some kids simply don’t want to be found. We never did find out what drove her away in the end. It broke my Ted’s heart. He was never the same.”
Holly felt faint and forced herself to drag much-needed air into her lungs. Her voice shaking, she replied. “Maybe I know.”
“You know? Why would you know, dear?” Nana gave Holly a puzzled smile before turning back to the whistling kettle and filling the teapot with hot water.
“I think I know why she ran away.” Holly gripped the cane arms of her chair so hard she thought she’d snap them into matchsticks. “I’m Holly.”
“That’s nice, dear. Born at Christmas were you?” Slowly realization dawned on the older woman’s face, and shock replaced her friendly smile. Her skin paled, driving the lifetime of sunshine from her weathered visage, and her eyes rounded in disbelief.
She should have been more careful, Holly thought, more considerate of the older woman’s feelings. But she’d waited so damn long that suddenly even another second was forever.
Queenie lowered herself carefully into a chair opposite Holly. She opened, then closed, her mouth a few times before one word shuddered past her thin lips. “H-Holly?”
“Yes.” Holly’s voice was barely a whisper as it fought past the tears that constricted her throat. “I think Giselle was my mother.”
Nana clapped her fingers to her mouth in a futile attempt to stifle the moan that escaped. “A baby? She had a baby? That’s why she ran away?” Tears began to track down her wrinkled cheeks. “But how did she cope? What did she do? Oh mercy, why didn’t she tell us?”
Holly could only shake her head. “I don’t know. Somehow she looked after me. Then on Christmas Eve, my third birthday, she left me where I’d be found and cared for. I suppose she didn’t really know what else to do. I don’t remember her face, but I remember a tune she used to sing.” Holly started to hum the song she’d sung to herself over and over again at night to keep fear away, until one night she’d realised that no one was ever coming to get her and she’d locked the tune down deep in her memory. She stopped when Nana rose abruptly from her chair and left the room, coming back a few seconds later, a music box in her hands.
“It was my mother’s. Giselle always loved it.” Slowly she turned the key on the side before opening the box. Holly’s skin prickled as the tune swelled through the air. Her tune.
The music box ran out and silence filled the room before Holly slid from her chair and knelt, wrapping her arms around her grandmother’s waist and placing her head in her lap.
“I thought I’d never find you,” she whispered brokenly against the soft fabric of her Nana’s dress, finally giving way to the decades of loneliness that could now, finally, begin to be assuaged.
Her grandmother rested a hand on Holly’s head, stroking trembling fingers soothingly through the long dark tresses, her voice awash with emotion. “I’m so glad you did, my darling. I’m so glad you did.”
The next morning Holly awoke to the sound of seagulls calling across the beach and waves crawling up the sand. Although she’d slept deeply, she still felt exhausted. After dinner last night she and her grandmother had walked back to her car together, and Holly had garaged it at the cottage. Then they’d talked into the small hours of the night, piecing together the life they’d been cheated of. And yet, despite all she’d never had a chance to know before now, Holly couldn’t blame her mother. She’d been young and foolish, following a dream of love with a boy she knew her father didn’t approve of. How she’d hung on to Holly for as long as she did was a miracle in itself.
On Nana’s part, while she couldn’t come to grips with the fact that her daughter had never asked her family for help, she was so incredibly happy to have Holly here with her. Finally Holly had somewhere she belonged, someone of her own to love. And Nana was so excited about the new baby, Holly hadn’t had the heart, or the courage, to tell her the truth last night. But she would have to do it today.
When she finally summoned the courage, her grandmother’s eyes had filled with tears of compassion.
“But you love this Connor Knight, don’t you?” Nana asked, confusion clear in her eyes.
“Yes.” It was the simple truth, and Holly couldn’t deny it to the woman who deserved honesty from her above all else.
“Does he know?”
“No, I’ve never told him.”
“Well then, maybe you should think about that.”
“I couldn’t. If I told him now he’d only think I’m doing it to stay with the baby.” Holly looked down at her hands. “I didn’t want this baby. Not at the beginning. Not even a week ago. Not knowing my family, and with Andrea—I’ve been so scared.”
“Well, now you know. There are no hidden nasties amongst our lot. You have to let go of the things you can’t control, dear. Your baby will be fine. You’ll see.”
“It’s too late.” Holly’s voice was flat, devoid of emotion as if the past twenty-four hours had stripped her bare.
“What do you mean? How can it ever be too late? Look at us. Yesterday I didn’t even know you existed, yet I love you as if I’d been a part of your life since the day you were born,” Queenie argued passionately.
Dread filled Holly’s heart. How would her grandmother take the news? How could she understand? “I’ve already signed away all parental rights to Connor. Under the agreement, I won’t even see it after it’s born.” Her voice cracked on a sob as the truth rammed home. She would never see her baby. Never be a part of its life, never hear its first words, or see its first hesitant steps. Never be party to her baby’s first day at school, or its first wiggly tooth. What had she done? She didn’t think she could hurt any more, but now she felt as though she’d scraped away the very lining of her soul.
Queenie’s face dropped and she gathered Holly into the comfort of her arms. “Oh, my darling. My poor, poor girl. Don’t you worry—we’ll sort something out. You have family now. I might not be much, but I’m yours and we’ll fight this together.”
“It’s hopeless, Nana. The contract is unbreakable. He’s made certain of that. It’s what he does. Who he is.” Holly pulled away and stood apart, her shoulders slumped, her head low. She could hardly bear the truth herself—the bitter and cruel irony—that she should want this baby now more than anything she’d wanted before. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“You’re wrong, Holly. You can’t give up. I won’t let you. You haven’t waited all this time to be a quitter now. Why don’t you go out and enjoy that sunshine and take a walk along the beach before the rain comes. I have some phone calls to make.”
“I’ll wait for you.” Holly didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts. Not now.
“No, dear, you go on. Once I’ve made those calls I’m going to look out some old photos of Giselle you might like to keep.”
“I can stay and help you.”
“No, no, dear. This is something I have to do for myself. Now hurry on before the rain, my old bones never lie.”
Understanding dawned. In meeting her, her Nana finally had some of the answers she’d sought, and while neither of them would ever know the full story, it was time for her to make her peace with her daughter. And time for Holly to try and make peace with her own choices, she realised with hollow truth sounding a knell deep inside.
The tide was full out on the beach, and Holly was amazed at the width of firm damp sand. Her feet felt invigorated as the ground shells crunched beneath her feet and, in the damper spots, squelched up in between her toes. She wished her back felt as good. The nagging ache from yesterday had escalated into a dragging dull pain. Maybe her bones were becoming a weather forecaster like her grandmother’s. She smiled softly to herself at the thought of having a familial link for the first time.
In the distance Holly saw a flock of birds scatter off the point. She laughed aloud as they wheeled in the air, their angry cries at being disturbed carried down the beach. Then, suddenly, her laughter died on her lips. A familiar sound beat at the air, drowning out the birds and sending deepening dread from her heart all the way to the soles of her feet.
The dark shape of a helicopter swooped over the hills at the end of the beach.
“No!” she shouted. “Not yet. It’s too soon.”
She turned and struggled through the sand, desperate to get back to her grandmother’s. Desperate to find sanctuary.
She flung a look over her shoulder. A short distance away the Agusta set down on the hard-packed sand and an all-too-recognizable figure stepped down.
“Holly! Stop!”
“No-o-o!” she cried. “Go away. I don’t want you here. Leave me alone.”
Connor was at her side quickly. She felt his presence before he stepped around her, halting her in her frantic flight.
Strong. Powerful. Angry.
“What the hell did you think you were doing?” he demanded.
“How can you even ask me that? Like you were going to tell me and bring me on a family visit? I don’t think so. How could you keep something that important from me? I had a right to know! Oh!” She heard a soft pop and a warm gush of fluid rushed between her legs.
“Your waters?” Connor scooped her into his arms. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you to the chopper. I’ll have you back in Auckland in no time.”
“No! Put me down.” Holly struggled against him, forcing him to let her feet back down to touch the sand. “Ahhhh.” Holly clutched at his forearms and groaned as the dragging pain in the small of her back intensified and spread around the front of her belly, tightening and tightening, then slowly easing off. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Holly, you have to.” For the first time in her life, Holly saw Connor at a disadvantage. Her groan of pain sent fear rushing into his eyes.
“I’ve waited a lifetime to be here. I’m not leaving now.”
“You can bring my granddaughter back to my house, young man.” Queenie strode down the beach towards them, a fiercely protective expression on her face.
“Nana! It’s too early. What if there’s something wrong?”
“My point exactly.” Connor interjected. “Look, I can have you at Auckland hospital in close to half an hour.” Connor rested his hands on Holly’s hips, looking her straight in the eye. “Please, Holly. Let me take you back.”
“You don’t need to be frightened, my darling,” Nana interrupted. “We’ve birthed many a baby here.” She turned and fixed a stern look at Connor. “Bring her to the house and then make yourself useful. You can call the local doctor for me.”
“She’s coming back to Auckland.” Connor looked from one woman to the other. This was his baby they were talking about, and this woman—Holly’s grandmother, he corrected himself—expected him to simply let them have the baby here? They were out of their minds.
“It’s starting again.” Holly clutched hold of his arms again, this time breathing through the contraction.
“You really don’t have time, Mr. Knight. The women in our family have our babies mighty quick.”
In the face of her testimonial and Holly’s frighteningly quick onset of labour, Connor couldn’t argue any longer. He lifted Holly back into his arms and followed her grandmother.
Half an hour later he paced back from the beach after reluctantly sending the helicopter off to the nearest grassed landing area, hopefully to await his call to return and take Holly and the baby back to Auckland. He let himself into the house and strode into Holly’s room. “Where’s the damn doctor?” he growled. “I rang him ages ago.”
“It hasn’t been that long,” Holly answered, her hair already beginning to mat against her forehead as perspiration built up on her face. “Here comes another one. Ahhhh.”
“Come here and rub her back like this, nice and firm.” Nana took Connor’s hand and pressed it against Holly’s back. “No, no, lad. Not like that. That’ll never give her any relief. Firm, like this.”
Finally he seemed to be doing something right in the old woman’s eyes. Holly sat back to front on a tall wooden-backed chair, her arms resting along the top rail, her legs spread on either side. He sensed her body tighten and spasm, could feel the moment she separated her mind from her surroundings and focused one hundred percent on the process that wracked her body.
This wasn’t as simple as negotiating a contract. Nothing quantified how helpless he felt. He was responsible for what she was going through right now.
As she sighed a moan of relief, Connor acknowledged he should have cared a lot more. Should have listened to his inner voice when it urged him to let himself love her.
He’d been coming through Auckland Customs when his cell phone had buzzed with the frantic call from Thompson, who’d discovered Holly’s flight from the obstetrician’s rooms yesterday. He hadn’t had time to be angry. All he’d felt was fear. Fear that something would happen to Holly.
On the periphery of his thoughts he heard another man’s voice. The doctor, at last. Connor stepped aside to let him introduce himself to Holly.
“How’re the pains?” the doctor asked.
“Awful,” Holly replied with a weak grin, before closing her eyes and breathing through the next wave.
“I think it’s time we got you up onto the bed so I can examine you.”
“Oh!” Holly gasped, “I feel like I need to push.”
“Hold back as much as you can. We need to check you first.”
Connor and Queenie swiftly helped Holly onto the bed while the doctor slipped away to wash his hands and glove up. Once back he quickly examined her before giving her a smile and a nod. “You’re all set to go.”
“Connor!” Holly shrieked his name. He was at her side in a second, and she gripped his hand so tight his fingers lost all feeling. But the discomfort was minor as he became lost in another more miraculous event. The birth of his baby.
He couldn’t tell later if it had been minutes or hours, but the incredible rush of seeing his son slide from Holly’s body beat all description. The doctor lifted the squalling infant onto Holly’s stomach, and Connor reached out to touch his son.
His son! The gift of life he’d never thought would be his.
Tears coursed down Holly’s cheeks as she looked at the child, but she didn’t reach to hold him, instead she turned her cheek against the stack of pillows bunched behind her and closed her eyes.
“Look at him, Holly. He’s perfect. We have a son.” His voice broke with emotion.
“No. Take him.” Her voice shook.
“Wh-what?” Had he heard her correctly?
“Take him. He’s yours. You have what you wanted. Take him now.” The harsh whisper that dragged from her throat slashed him to his core. “Take him before I can’t bear to let him go.”
The doctor and Holly’s grandmother exchanged worried glances as they attended to the final stages of the birth.
“Now, now, girl. That’s no way to talk,” her grandmother admonished gently. “Look at him. He’s beautiful.”
“I don’t want him. Please, take him away.” Her voice rose in pitch, and the doctor reached forward to swaddle the baby in a receiving blanket and gave Connor a troubled look.
Connor nodded in reply. “Take him out of the room. We need to talk.”
Tremors shook Holly’s body as the doctor handed the baby to Nana, who cradled him close, then swiftly covered his patient with a sheet and woollen blankets. “Keep her warm, she’s in shock. We’ll be just outside the door.”
As they closed the door behind them, Connor lowered himself carefully on the bed. Still Holly kept her face pressed against the pillows, away from him.
“Why don’t you just take him and go?” Her voice, muffled against the pillow, wrenched a gaping hole in his chest.
“I can’t go. Not without you.”
“You don’t need me. You have him now. It’s what you wanted isn’t it?”
“Did you think I’d just toss you a cheque, pick up the baby and go? What kind of man do you think I am? It’s not about the baby anymore, Holly. I want you, and I’m not leaving here without you.”
She turned back to face him, her mouth a twisted line. “No-o-o! You can’t do that to me. You can’t demand any more from me. I’ve done everything you asked. Now go, and leave me alone.”
“Holly, you can’t abandon him like this. Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t do this to our baby.” Maybe shock tactics would work, he thought, grasping at anything he could to shake her from her resolve. “I read the report on your mother; it was faxed it to me in the States. Haven’t you wondered if she died that way because she couldn’t bear to be without you? Didn’t you learn anything from her death? Don’t you see? You’re doing exactly what she did, except she was too young and too alone to know how it could be any different. Give yourself a chance. Give our son a chance.”
“How dare you. She had no choice. I made mine,” she whispered, her face paling. “I pity the poor woman you fall in love with, Connor Knight, I hope she never knows how low or how mean you’re prepared to go.” He barely made out her words through the thickness of her tears.
“Then pity yourself,” he answered, finding her hand beneath the covers and holding it firmly in his.
“Don’t! Don’t lie to me.”
“I mean it, Holly. I love you.” He reached forward and brushed her damp hair from her face, his fingers tingling at the softness of her skin. “I’ve been a complete fool. I didn’t tell you about the investigation because I didn’t want you to have an excuse to leave. I wanted you to need me. I wanted to be the only one there for you, even though I fought it and fought it and treated you abominably every step of the way. I couldn’t even admit it to myself until last week. I knew I needed to talk to you before the baby arrived but I couldn’t do it over the phone. How could I tell you from thousands of miles away that I love you? You have every right to never want to forgive me.”
She remained silent; her eyes boring into his as if she could see right through him, as if nothing he said mattered. Connor held her gaze and felt his heart skip a beat. He’d missed her with a physical and emotional ache that he hadn’t wanted to identify when he’d first arrived in the States. He’d thrown himself into business and meetings, but in the back of his mind, and during every quiet moment, he’d wondered and worried about Holly. What kind of day she’d had. How she was feeling. Did she miss him as much as he missed her?
Bit by bit, he’d recognised that his motivation to close the deal and get home was no longer the imminent birth of his baby.
He wanted Holly. He wanted her like he had never wanted any woman.
It shamed him to realise it had taken the distance of several thousand miles to allow himself to admit he loved her. Right now, nothing he’d achieved in his career, in his entire life, meant a thing if he couldn’t convince Holly of that too.
“Do you know why I wanted this baby, our baby, so much?” he asked, leaning forward to gently rest his forehead against hers. When she didn’t respond he continued, regardless. “On your birthday last year I discovered Carla had terminated a pregnancy in the early stages of our marriage. It doesn’t excuse what I did, but when you became pregnant all I could see was that I had another chance. A chance to do it right this time. Maybe, in the back of my mind, I even wanted you to fall pregnant.
“I put you through months of hell for my own selfish reasons, to replace the baby she killed. I couldn’t let another child of mine die like that. When you talked about ‘options’ at Carmen’s office that day, I was incensed. What if you’d insisted on a termination? My fears made me pretend you were just like her, when deep down I should have known better. Known you could never be anything like her.”
“She had an abortion?” Holly asked, her voice hushed and filled with disbelief.
“Without ever telling me—then she was sterilised to make certain it would never happen again.” Connor drew back and looked deep into her eyes, relieved to see the anguish had begun to fade, that the tears had finally dried. “Holly, you were right. I did treat you like nothing more than an incubator. By dehumanising you I didn’t need to face my own feelings or inadequacies. I couldn’t help my first baby, couldn’t stop its murder. I was prepared to do anything to make sure that never happened again. Can you ever forgive me? Can you ever love me?”
“Love you? I’ve loved you forever, Connor Knight. It was killing me slowly inside working with you, then living with you, and knowing you were unattainable. I felt so alone, so unwanted. That night we made love? I wanted you so much. Making love with you gave me a chance to pretend that you wanted me, too.”
“Holly, you didn’t need to pretend. I needed you that night more than I’d ever needed another human being in my entire life. You were so real. So giving. So beautiful.”
“And so wrong for you. When I saw you with your family the next day, I knew I could never be good enough for you. I had no background, no family. And at the office party, you obviously loved children. It was there in every movement, every gesture you made with the children. I couldn’t give you that. My fear made that impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible. Not for us. Not anymore. I love you, Holly Christmas. Will you marry me?”
“Marry you?” Her breath squeezed tight in her lungs. Her hands shook. “You don’t need to marry me. What will your father say? What about your brothers?”
“They’ll tell me again what a fool I was not to have married you before our child came into this world. In fact, they’re barely speaking to me, they’ve been so disgusted with my actions. So, do you have an answer for me, my beautiful Holly?”
“Nothing would make me happier.” She reached for him, a burst of pure joy blooming deep in her chest, chasing away the last pockets of darkness, of fear, of loneliness.
“So what do you say you reintroduce yourself to our little man.” Connor tipped his head towards the door through which the newborn’s demanding cries could be heard. “Something tells me he wants to meet his mama.”
“Please! Bring him back.”
Connor rose from the bed and swung open the door, putting his arms out to take the baby, his heart filled to bursting at the feel of this tiny adorable infant in his arms. Gently he gave him to Holly and watched, a lump forming in his throat as the baby settled in her arms and she pushed away the blanket and checked his long slender fingers tipped with perfect nails and his tiny pink toes, before gathering him to her and pressing her lips against his little face.
“He is perfect, isn’t he?” Her voice was full of wonder.
“Yes, yes he is. And so are you. Thank you for the gift of my son.”
“Poor little guy, he needs a name,” she said softly, a gentle smile of wonder curving her lips as she gazed upon his tiny face.
“Why don’t we call him André, for his aunty.”
“André.” Holly tested the sound of the name on her tongue. “Thank you. Andrea would have loved that.”