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‘You’re talking in riddles.’
‘Let me come in. Please, Celia. If you don’t want me to, then that’s fine. I will stand right here and say what I have to say.’
‘Have you been drinking?’
‘Black coffee.’ He half smiled. ‘I’d aimed for stronger but realised that, when it came to getting my thoughts in order, whisky on the rocks wasn’t going to work in my favour.’
Thepleasealong with theI’m sorryhad got to her, and, with a click of impatience with her own weakness, she nodded curtly and told him that he could come in but that she was tired and that he shouldn’t think for a second that she was going to have a change of mind.
‘I do want to change your mind,’ Leandro said in a low voice. ‘More than anything else I want to change your mind but, even more than that, I want you to be happy and if being happy means letting you go, then I’ll do that.’
‘You will? Is this...some sort of game you’re playing, Leandro?’
‘I’ve never been more serious in my life before. I was sleepwalking, Celia, and it took you telling me how you feel about me to wake me up.’
‘I don’t need reminding of that,’ Celia said stiffly.
‘It took guts.’ Leandro met her eyes. ‘More guts than I’ve had.’
‘Don’t say things you don’t mean,’ Celia whispered. As fast as she tried to squash it, hope flared, a little flame that refused to be extinguished. She hated it yet couldn’t stop it.
‘I’m saying things... I never thought I’d ever say but you told me you loved me and suddenly everything fell into place. I’ve spent my life accepting that love and everything that went along with it wasn’t for me. It was no great loss. I saw my father’s life and I worked out before I even hit my teens that what he had wasn’t what I wanted. I heard him crying at night and putting his dreams in a box and throwing away the key because my mother left him. Well, you know all this because I’ve said as much. Truth is, the very fact that I said that much to you should have set alarm bells ringing in my head.’
‘What do you mean?’ Unconsciously, Celia was straining towards him. Caution warred with simmering excitement because every word that left his mouth rang with heartfelt sincerity. She weakly tried to remember the dangers of believing what you wanted to believe.
‘I made my mind up about a lot of things,’ Leandro said quietly, ‘when I was too young to know that life isn’t something you can plan out like a military campaign. I forgot about nuance. Then you came along and that’s what you brought to my life. I didn’t want it and I didn’t like it, but I was powerless to resist it.’ He sighed. ‘So, I guess, what I’ve come to say is this: I’m in love with you.’ He held up both his hands in a gesture of weary resignation. ‘I know what you’re going to say and I can’t blame you, Celia. You’re going to tell me that you don’t believe a word I’m saying and I shall have to accept that.’
‘You would do that?’
‘I want you to marry me, Celia, for real. For love. I need you to believe me when I say that, but...if I’ve left it too late then, yes, I will never bother you again, but I will never be the man you made me again. So will you marry me? Be my wife? Grow old with me and have a dozen more kids with me?’
Celia flung all doubt out of the window and threw herself at him, at this wonderful guy she loved with all her might.
‘Yes, yes, yes, yes!’ She laughed and half sobbed and covered him with kisses. ‘Except for the dozen kids...although...’ she smiled and this time kissed him tenderly ‘...who knows what the future holds?’
The wedding, three months later, couldn’t have been more perfect.
That first dress would never have an outing, destined to remained preserved behind plastic for ever, a reminder of what, thankfully, had never been.
But the simple ivory dress she created for herself, with the help of her two enthusiastic assistants, was perfect in every detail, from the white soft folds like petals along the hem, that reminded her of the falling snow in Scotland, to the pink delicately woven beads and rosebuds that made her think of the glorious sunrises in Dubai. She got her opportunity to walk up the aisle of the little church her parents attended and all her friends and relatives, past and present, were there for the ceremony.
And if she was showing her baby bump? Leandro couldn’t have been more proud. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. The honeymoon, which was now planned post baby and when all the settling into their new house was done and dusted, would be to the Maldives.
‘Sun,’ he had promised two months previously, ‘sand, sea and sex. Don’t forget the dozen babies you promised me...’
‘Let’s just get baby number one out of the way first.’ She had laughed.
And baby number one was born three days early and arrived with no fuss, although Leandro had been prepared for all and every eventuality.
He had downloaded the latest baby book and had passed many a contented evening squirming at some of the more graphic details.
Yet, when the time came for her to go to the hospital, he was more nervous than she was.
Tomasina Elizabeth Diaz.
His father, Tomas, had been over the moon and so had Celia’s mother, Lizzie.
But Lizzie Drew had more than her cupful of joy, for Dan and Julie, whose wedding had been low-key on a beach in Scotland followed by a reception at Leandro’s country estate there, were also expecting their first child.
