By Request Collection 1. Jackie Braun

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СКАЧАТЬ me. I cut my journey short by ten days for her.

      ‘Then a week later she told me she was pregnant and that we needed to get married fast. I hadn’t known who her parents were until then. She’d kept very quiet about her privileged upbringing.’

      Lissa frowned, doing the calculations. ‘How pregnant?’

      Exactly. ‘She didn’t say and it didn’t occur to me to ask. She said it didn’t matter since we loved each other and I’d forget the navy now we had a baby on the way.’ He blew out a breath. The old pain still had the ability to crush. ‘You know, she nearly had me. Then I saw her due date on a report she’d carelessly left inside a pregnancy advice book on her bedside table. There was no way I could have been the father.’

      He’d been devastated. He’d let himself be drawn into love only to be betrayed again. It had been the last time.

      He jerked himself out of the memory. ‘So I did some quick investigating. Turned out her night shifts hadn’t been of the waitressing kind. I went to Sydney and joined the navy a week later.’

      ‘How could someone do that?’ Lissa’s voice seemed to come from a long way away.

      ‘Quite easily, it would seem.’

      ‘Blake, I’m …’ Lissa swallowed. He wouldn’t want her pity. ‘That must have been tough.’ She reached out and covered his hand with hers on the table and felt him flinch.

      Before she could think of how to tell him she understood his anguish, she stopped. Because she didn’t understand. She had no idea how he felt. Whether he’d have given up his navy dreams to be a father. To make a home with her and the baby.

      He pulled his hand away, flexed it at his side and rose abruptly. ‘I’m going for a run.’

      Lissa’s heart ached on his behalf. She’d tried reaching out and he’d rejected that, so she just said, ‘Take care,’ as he stalked away.

      There was a coolness in the air and it wasn’t just the evening’s breeze from the river. Janine’s deception had broken something inside Blake and talking about it tonight had scraped at the old wounds. She knew he needed that alone time.

      She cleared the dishes, hoping Blake would come back soon and she could see how he was. When he didn’t, she went to the room where she’d set up her artwork. She pushed the window wide to let in the evening.

      Ears strained, she listened for the sound of Blake’s footsteps on the pavement. She could hear nature’s soft night music, the distant sounds of a party in progress. The frangipani’s scent from outside mingled with the tang of turpentine and charcoal.

      With a sigh, she tucked her legs beneath her on the tarpaulin she’d set on top of the carpet, letting her gaze meander through the window to the river with the spill of moonlight shimmering like pearl beads on black velvet.

      The moonlit scene reminded her that she loved working with black and white. She opened her sketch pad. If only problems were as clear-cut. She selected a black pencil with a blunt smudged tip and drifted it at random over the blank page.

      She wasn’t aware of time or her cramped fingers or the moon’s slow arc across the sky. Nothing took her attention from her work. Until she felt the hairs on her neck rise.

      For a few seconds she froze, remembering how Todd used to creep up on her, finding it funny to see her jump.

      She looked over her shoulder. And her heart started beating again. Blake.

      ‘I startled you.’

      ‘Only a bit. I’m all right.’

      He watched her a moment without speaking.

      ‘You okay?’ she asked.

      He barely nodded.

      No words could describe the moment. The way he looked at her. The way she felt. No words necessary as he crossed the room and stretched out behind her on the tarp. No words spoken as she turned and slid down beside him.

      They undressed each other with only the sounds of their breathing and the whisper of clothing being shed in the silence. Slow in the intimacy of night’s darkness, skin slid against skin. Heart beat against heart. Fingers entwined. Mouths coming together, clinging a moment then moving on to sip and soothe.

      And Lissa knew, with every touch, every murmur, every lingering look, that this understanding could only be forged from love.

      If only he knew it too.

      Over the next couple of weeks, Lissa barely had time to turn around. Gilda’s nursery was finished, photographed and filed for future reference. It was a magical ‘Cinderella meets Snow White’ theme with a pumpkin-shaped crib and a fortune in fabrics and fittings. Blake praised the new-look living room with its deep turquoise walls and mustard and dark gold furnishings. Another nursery was completed for a client she’d met at Gilda’s party. Primrose walls, clean white furniture and a black lacquered crib for the central focus.

      The rest of the furniture for the shop arrived. Spacious sofas, unique lamps, wallpaper hangings for customers to browse and office supplies. All were pulled together with the use of vivid colours and hours of hard slog.

      They worked as a team. Blake handled the finances, any purchases needed and worked with an IT tech to build a website. When she wasn’t trawling catalogues and home-living stores, Lissa was visiting clients, sketching ideas, giving quotes and working on the publicity for the upcoming launch.

      But at night they fell asleep together. There were some days when those few precious hours were the only time they saw each other and Lissa grew accustomed to waking with someone beside her again.

      She’d learned to read Blake’s pain. She was happy to note that he’d only had one headache since that first time she’d found him on the couch. He’d needed the break to recover. If only he would come clean about his military past. He’d done his duty for his country and it was time he tried something else, even if it took him away from her.

      Lissa knew he wasn’t going to be around for ever. The business was her dream, not his. As if to reinforce that point he’d gone to Surfers one day to look at boats. He’d come home with a renewed enthusiasm. and it scared her.

      Requests for work came in, thanks to Gilda’s abundantly wealthy friends. Blake had suggested it might be time to start looking for a suitable part-time employee. ‘You don’t want to lose business because you can’t keep up the pace.’

      Because he wasn’t going to be here to help, she thought, and another piece of her heart broke. The reality was, he’d never said he would be and he’d been up front about it from day one. Silent partner.

      The night before the big event, they celebrated their hard-won achievements with oysters, Thai fish cakes and French champagne beneath the white shade sails of an open-air restaurant on the esplanade and watched the night-darkened waves lap the shoreline. Then they took off their shoes and strolled along the beach, which was still populated with tourists and locals alike enjoying the warm evening before heading home.

      When they arrived back at the house, Blake kissed Lissa the moment he switched off the car’s ignition. A long, deep kiss that reached right down to her toes and left her breathless and СКАЧАТЬ