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He opened it and produced a small pocket recorder, switched it on and held it towards her.
‘Now promise me you’re going to marry me,’ he instructed her. ‘I want some verbal evidence to make sure you don’t go back on your word... And besides,’ he added in a very different and far more serious and emotional voice, ‘I just want to hear you say it, Claire. God, you can’t know how often, how much I’ve ached to hear you say you want me over these past damned weeks.’
‘Oh, yes, I can,’ Claire corrected him softly. ‘Because I’ve wanted you in just the same way and just as much... I thought when you didn’t get in touch that you were trying to tell me that you didn’t want any...that it was just... that I was just... Brad,’ she protested huskily as he took her back in his arms, her protest silenced by the fierce, possessive and totally male hunger of his kiss.
‘I know why you’re doing this,’ she told him breathlessly when he had eventually let her go, deciding on a little light-hearted teasing of her own. ‘You just want to make me want you so much that I’ll agree to anything just to get you into bed...’
‘Mmm...has it worked?’ Brad asked her softly, giving her a wholly male and very dangerous look that made her whole body shake with excited desire.
‘Er...yes...I think so,’ she admitted.
‘You’re going to marry me,’ Brad stressed.
‘I’m going to marry you,’ Claire agreed.
Several hours later, still shamelessly snuggled up next to him in bed, her body deliciously, sensuously satiated by the intensity of their lovemaking, Claire marvelled that she could ever have believed that he didn’t love her.
‘And you’re sure that you won’t mind making your home in the States?’
‘My home is with you,’ Claire told him huskily, meaning it. ‘Of course I’ll miss Sally and my friends, but Sally has Chris now and, after all, she’s only going to be a plane journey away... And Felicity will come with us, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Brad agreed, leaning over to stroke the kitten who had come upstairs to see what they were doing.
Mmm...I wonder if the company can afford to charter its own jet?’ Brad mused, adding with a teasing smile, ‘After all, with all these kids we’re going to have, it’s common sense—’
‘Brad,’ Claire protested, ‘we don’t even know if I can conceive yet.’
‘Wanna bet?’ Brad challenged her, drawing her even closer to his body as he leaned across her to whisper in her ear. ‘I reckon that he or she...or even they,’ he added with a wicked smile as his hand caressed the warm curve of her stomach, ‘is tucked up safe and sound in here right now.’
Claire laughed and accused him teasingly of wanting to ensure that she married him, but she had a sneaking feeling that he was probably right. When they had made love earlier there had been a distinct sensation within her body—a secret female sense of somehow being so totally and primitively open to him and the intense thrust of his body within hers that she had actually felt as though her womb itself was extra responsive to him. A ridiculous and nonsensical feeling, she knew, but still...
‘I’d like us to be married here,’ he told her softly. ‘If we wait until I take you home the family will take over and then—’
‘You’re not worried that they won’t approve of me, are you?’ Claire queried, suddenly a little apprehensive.
‘No way,’ Brad laughed. ‘They’ll approve of you all right. No, I just want to have you to myself for a little while before they swoop down on us. The way I feel about you, the way I want to be with you, is still all very new and precious to me,’ he told her huskily, linking his fingers with hers and then lifting her hand to his mouth, tenderly kissing each digit before lowering his mouth to her lips.
‘And to me as well,’ Claire whispered back against his kiss.
They were married very quietly in a small, private church ceremony just short of a month later. Just in time to prevent too much gossip about the arrival of their eight-month baby, Claire told Brad ruefully.
Her pregnancy had been confirmed the previous morning and Brad hadn’t stopped saying, ‘I told you so.’
‘It might not have been then,’ Claire had protested, but, of course, she knew that it had, and didn’t really begrudge Brad his small victory—or at least only first thing in the morning when she felt horrendously queasy.
At the end of the week they would be flying out to America—first to New York and from there to Brad’s home town. Claire had slightly mixed feelings about meeting Brad’s family; she felt both excited and apprehensive. Brad had telephoned them to tell them that they were married and Claire had spoken to his sisters and brothers and to his uncles, all of whom had welcome her warmly into the family.
‘Just so long as we’re together I don’t care where we live,’ she had told Brad only that morning, and had meant it.
Now a smile curled her mouth as she snuggled up against Brad’s side. It was mid-morning, but they had had a late night having dinner with Sally and Chris.
‘I can hear the doorbell ringing,’ she told Brad sleepily.
‘You stay where you are; I’ll go and get it,’ he told her.
Claire smiled as she watched him shrug on his robe. He had the most beautiful, sexy body... Just looking at him made her catch her breath and want to reach out and touch him. He was gone about five minutes and then she heard him coming back upstairs.
‘It’s for you,’ he told her slightly grimly, holding a beautifully arranged bouquet of flowers with a sealed note attached to it.
‘Is there something or someone I ought to know about?’ he asked her semi-jealously as he handed it to her.
As she took it from him Claire frowned slightly.
‘I don’t think so,’ she responded. ‘This is a wedding bouquet. It must...’ Suddenly her frown melted and she broke into warm laughter as she realised why the bouquet of flowers was so familiar. It was an exact replica of the one that Sally had had—the one she had ‘dropped’ as she’d ‘fallen’ down the stairs at the reception, the one which Claire, Poppy and Star had so misguidedly caught.
As Claire explained why she was laughing to Brad she tore open the sealed note, a rueful smile curling her mouth as she read what Sally had written.
‘One down, two to go!’
