Surprise: Outback Proposal: Surprise: Outback Proposal. Sarah Mayberry

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СКАЧАТЬ between them that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago.

      “I should go,” he said. “You’ve got an early start tomorrow.”

      “Yours is earlier,” she said.

      They both stood.

      “About the business … something will come up,” he said.

      She shrugged. “Or it won’t. I’ll muddle through, I’m sure.”

      Her hand found her stomach, holding it protectively. He followed her to the door.

      “Thanks for the tiramisu,” she said with a small smile. “And for bringing my Web site stuff back.”

      “Like I said, it was on the way home. And I would have eaten all the tiramisu on my own if I’d had the chance. You saved me from myself.”

      He patted his stomach and she laughed, as he’d known she would. He hovered on the doorstep, unwilling to leave her just yet.

      “What does it feel like?” he asked suddenly. “When the baby moves inside you?”

      Her expression grew distant, and she cocked her head to one side. He had to resist the urge to reach out and touch her cheek to see if her skin really was as soft and smooth as it appeared.

      “The books say it’s like butterflies fluttering,” she said after a moment. “Some women say it’s like gas.”

      “Butterflies or gas. Right.”

      She smiled. “The closest thing I can come up with is that it’s like when a goldfish brushes up against your hand. Only on the inside, if that makes sense.”

      She was so beautiful, standing there with her uncertain eyes and her smiling mouth and her rounded stomach. He wanted to kiss her. He took a step backward.

      “Good night, Lucy Basso,” he said.

      “Good night, Dom.”

      He told himself he was being smart and fair as he walked down the darkened driveway to the street. She was pregnant. He had no business chasing her.

      And yet he felt like he was letting yet another opportunity slip through his fingers.

      He flexed his hand as he remembered the flutter of movement he’d felt beneath his palm. A smile curved his mouth as he started his car. She’d been so delighted, so amazed. He was stupidly happy that he’d been there to share the moment with her.

      He sobered as he registered where his thoughts were going. This wasn’t his baby. Lucy wasn’t his wife or partner. He wouldn’t be sharing any more moments of discovery with her—or with any other woman, for that matter.

      There was a message from his father on his answering machine when he arrived home, asking him to call back. His father sounded sleepy when he answered the phone.

      “You are late. Where have you been?”

      Dom raised his eyebrows at his father’s nosiness. “Out. What’s up?”

      “Out where? Out with girl?”

      The joys of working with his family—they felt they owned his life.

      “Pa.”

      He heard his father sigh.

      “I need you to make run to Lilydale tomorrow to collect more zucchini from Giametti’s. We short and I promise dozen boxes to Vue De Monde,” his father explained.

      Dom rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn. What his father was suggesting would mean he had to get up an extra two hours early in order to have the stock on hand for their customers.

      “You know, if you’d let me manage the stock on the computer, we wouldn’t have these kinds of problems,” he said lightly.

      To his surprise, his father blew up, sending a string of expletives and curses down the phone.

      “I sick of hearing about computers. You said you not talk about them again. I expect you to honor this even if you honor nothing else!”

      Dom let his breath out between his teeth. He loved his father, but he wasn’t a little boy anymore, and he certainly didn’t have to take crap from him—especially when it was out-of-line, unearned crap.

      “Am I part of Bianco Brothers or not?” he asked.

      “You are my son. This is stupid question.”

      “Answer the question, Pa.”

      “You are part of business. You there every day. You can’t work out for yourself?”

      “So I’m an employee. Like Steve and Michael and Anna?”

      “You are my son.”

      Dom didn’t say a word, waiting for his father to stop hedging. The silence stretched tensely for long seconds before his father spoke again.

      “What you want from me? You my right-arm man,” his father said, messing up his Anglo phrasing the way he often did. “I not manage without you. There. Happy now?”

      “If that’s true, if I’m your second in command, I want a say. I want a vote. And I want a bit of respect while you’re at it,” Dom said.

      “Respect! You talk respect when you speak to your own father like he is idiot who doesn’t know anything about anything. You have place in my business, good job. You should be grateful, counting your lucky stars, instead of whining and complaining.”

      Dom held the phone away from his ear and swore long and loud. Why did he bother? Hadn’t he banged his head against this brick wall just the other day? His father didn’t want to change. He was old. And the truth was, Bianco Brothers was so successful that his father wouldn’t notice the business they would lose over the coming years as their competitors got leaner and meaner and more efficient. By the time his father was ready to retire—or he dropped dead on the job, which was just as likely—Dom would be left with the task of picking up the pieces and trying to claw back market share.

      If he chose to take it.

      “Good night, Pa,” he said. Then he ended the call.

      “My business,” his father had said. Not “our business.”

      Dom leaned against the kitchen counter. He had some decisions to make. If his father wasn’t going to allow him to grow, to have a say. Well, maybe Dom needed to forge his own way.

      LUCY FELT RIDICULOUSLY shy as she arrived at the market the following morning. Last night she’d pressed Dom’s hand against her belly, practically strong-arming him into sharing her baby’s first movements.

      What had she been thinking? As if he cared what was going on in her belly. He was her wholesale supplier, for Pete’s sake. The guy who used to sit two pews forward of her own family in church when they were kids. He didn’t want to know what her baby felt like when it kicked. Every time she remembered how she’d pressed his hand against herself her toes СКАЧАТЬ