Christmas Day, one year later…
NICOLAS sat at the head of the huge dining table, with Serina on his right, and three-month-old Sebastian lying in his bouncinette between them.
‘How about a toast, everyone?’ Nicolas said, and lifted his wineglass high.
There were eight other people seated around the table. Ken, Janine and Kirsty; Bert and Franny; Margaret, Serina’s mother; Mrs Johnson; and of course, Felicity.
This was what a Christmas should be, Nicolas realised. Not presents so much—though he had gone over the top a bit this first year—but friends and family all gathered together.
‘Happy Christmas!’ he said, and clicked his wineglass against Serina’s.
‘Happy Christmas!’ everyone chorused.
Sebastian responded to the noise by rocking madly back and forth in his bouncinette, flapping his arms and laughing his highly infectious laugh.
Everyone laughed with him, then got on with eating. Everyone except Serina, who wanted to take a moment to drink in, not the wine, but her happiness.
What a year it had been! So much had happened, everything orchestrated by Nicolas with speed and efficiency. They’d married by special licence in the middle of January, at the old Rocky Creek church, then honeymooned in both New York and London, during which both Nicolas’s properties were sold. By the time they returned home to Australia in early February, Serina was well and truly pregnant. She’d actually fallen during the first week she’d spent with Nicolas in New York but kept that news to herself for a while.
On returning to Australia, Nicolas decided that the penthouse apartment—which he’d put a deposit on—wasn’t suitable for family living. So he pulled out of that contract, then took Serina and Felicity house-hunting. They ended up buying, not just a house, but a small acreage not far from the Port Macquarie racecourse. It had belonged to a horse trainer who’d decided to go farther north.
Both Felicity and Serina had fallen in love with the place at first sight, Felicity because of the stables—extremely suitable to house sick animals in!—and Serina because of the house, which, though only five years old, was in the design of a colonial farmhouse with a high pitched roof and verandahs all around. Although much larger, it reminded her of the house she’d been brought up in and where she’d always been very happy.
And it was from this new and much-loved home that Nicolas had driven her to the hospital to have their baby.
Her pregnancy was the only worry that this year had brought Serina. Despite being thrilled at falling so quickly, she had been secretly concerned that she might have to endure another ten-month pregnancy before popping out a clone of Felicity. The news during her four-month ultrasound that she was having a boy eased her mind somewhat, but she was still a little nervous over what her baby might look like, especially if his birth was delayed.
She need not have worried. Right on her due date her water broke, and after a thankfully short labour, Sebastian came into the world, the spitting image of his father. Nicolas had been over the moon and everyone who came to visit oohed and aahed over the babe’s angelic appearance.
Serina had anticipated that Nicolas would be besotted with his son. And he was. She hadn’t been quite so sure about Felicity’s reaction. After all, Felicity had been top dog in the family for thirteen years.
But Felicity quickly became just as besotted with Sebastian as his father. She spent every spare second with her baby brother, playing with him and playing to him. On the grand piano Nicolas had bought her. She told Serina in secret one day that she knew Nicolas was disappointed that she didn’t want to become a concert pianist, so she was determined to program Sebastian into fulfilling his father’s wishes.
‘You’re not eating your dinner, Serina,’ Nicolas said with a frown in his voice. ‘I hope you’re not on some silly diet.’
‘Good heavens, no.’ And she picked up her knife and fork. ‘I’ll be having seconds later. I love turkey.’
She’d taken several mouthfuls when Felicity suddenly stood up from where she was sitting at the other end of the table.
‘I have a toast I want to make, too,’ she said, and lifted her glass of Coke. ‘To Nicolas. The best stepfather in the whole world.’
Serina’s heart squeezed tight.
‘To Nicolas,’ everyone said, then drank.
‘One more thing,’ Felicity added. ‘I’ve talked this over with Nanna and Pop and they think it’s a good idea. The thing is…I don’t want to have a different surname than my brother. So I’m going to be known as Felicity Harmon Dupre from now on. If that’s all right with you, Nicolas.’
Serina saw the muscles working overtime in Nicolas’s throat.
‘Absolutely all right,’ he finally managed to say.
‘And you, Mum? You don’t mind?’
‘Not at all, darling. I think it’s an excellent idea.’
‘What a lucky girl you are, Felicity,’ Serina’s mother said as Felicity sat down. ‘To have been blessed with two wonderful fathers.’
‘Felicity is a lucky girl,’ Nicolas told Serina as they lay in each other’s arms that night, their son asleep in the cot next to their bed. ‘But no one is more blessed than me. I have everything any man could ever want.’
Serina glanced up from where she was snuggled against his bare chest. ‘You don’t miss show business?’
‘Not at the moment. But if I ever do, I can always buy a place in Sydney and get back into it. This is all I want to do right now. Spend every day with you and my children.’
‘You’ll eventually get bored.’
‘Maybe. Meanwhile, what say we make another baby?’
Serina’s breath caught. ‘So soon?’
‘The sooner the better. I didn’t realise how much I would enjoy having a baby. The last three months have been the best three months of my life.’
‘You might change your mind once Sebastian learns to walk. And talk. Haven’t you heard of the terrible twos?’
‘All the more reason to start a baby straight away, before I get disillusioned.’
‘But if I have another baby I might have to give up work.’
‘What a good idea! Then you can stay home all day every day with yours truly.’
‘You are a wickedly selfish man.’
‘It is a failing of mine. But you love me, just the same.’
‘I don’t know why.’
He showed her why.
Then he showed her again, just to be sure.