The Baby Gift. Day Leclaire

on>

      

      “I came to give you Nick. He’s…your son.”

      Alessandro kept his voice low, but it still bit. “Are you trying to tell me that you and I were lovers?” His laugh held a harsh edge. “There isn’t a chance that once I’d had you in my bed I’d forget such a memorable occasion.”

      Lauren’s gaze fastened on him for an endless moment and he felt as if she were searching for something deep within him.

      “So when and where was he conceived?” Alessandro’s mouth twisted. “And perhaps I should ask…with whom?”

      Dear Reader,

      Christmas is my favorite time of the year. It’s a time for joy and laughter as much as it’s a time for stories that touch the heart. It’s also a time for miracles. The miracle of love. The miracle of family….

      The Baby Gift is a deeply emotional story about a woman who knows she can’t take care of the baby in her custody by herself, even though she wants to keep the child with every particle of her being. And it’s the story of a man who learns to accept, love and cherish The Baby Gift he’s given—and the very special woman who presents him with this gift.

      I hope you enjoy my latest book, and I wish you and yours true happiness this holiday, along with health, peace and a New Year filled with joyful memories.

      Love,

      P.S. As for the bathtub scene—it really happened. To me, unfortunately!

      The Baby

      Gift

      Day Leclaire

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To Dee Tenorio. Many, many thanks for sharing

      baby Gio with me! You’re the greatest.

      CONTENTS

       PROLOGUE

       CHAPTER ONE

       CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       EPILOGUE

      PROLOGUE

      Ten days before Christmas…

      SHE came to him again, all silk and sweetness and heady feminine perfume. Everything about her was soft—from her hip-length cornsilk hair, to her gentle, eager touch, to her soothing words. And her mouth… Her warm, hungry, giving mouth was softest of all.

      She flowed over him, rousing emotions he thought had been gutted long ago. He was helpless to resist. Hell, resistance was the furthest thing from his mind. He wanted her. Needed her.

      Took her.

      Alessandro awoke with a jolt.

      Tossing back his covers, he escaped the rumpled bed and crossed to stare out at a star-studded winter sky. Why did that dream continue to haunt him? It was so nebulous, so lacking in form or substance. And yet, it filled him with an odd restlessness. There was something he’d forgotten to do. Something urgent.

      But he couldn’t remember what.

      He reached for the chain and ring that encircled his neck, cursing when he didn’t find it. He’d lost it almost two years ago, and normally, he remembered that. But on the odd occasion—frustrating occasions when his emotions got the better of him—he reverted to a habit that had been established in boyhood, when the chain had first been placed around his neck by his grieving father.

      It was because of his dream, he acknowledged, a dream that had been haunting him with increasing regularity for the past nine months. The woman in it was, without question, his ex-wife, though for some reason Rhonda’s hair was longer and silkier than the flaming red corkscrew curls that had rioted around her face during their eighteen months together. And while he wanted his ex with a painful desperation while asleep, when he woke he couldn’t find the tiniest ember of passion lingering from the disaster of their marriage and subsequent divorce.

      Pain, sure. Anger, definitely. Regrets, plenty. But there wasn’t a shred of love or desire. He leaned his arm against the casing of the bay window, his hand folding into a fist. So why the dreams? And what the hell was he supposed to do? What had he forgotten?

      “Come on, Salvatore. Think.”

      The melancholy hoot of a great horned owl escaped from the California woods surrounding the family’s mountain cabin, the sound a painful echo of his own loneliness. He hated this time of year. Or perhaps he just hated the memories it roused. Drawing back from the window, he glared at the dream-tossed bed, his frustration mounting.

      What the hell had he forgotten?

      CHAPTER ONE

      Seven days before Christmas…

      SHE came to him again, all silk and sweetness and heady feminine perfume. There was a uniqueness to her that he instantly recognized, even in his dreams. It was as though they both sang the same song, their voices perfectly pitched to one another. He could hear his own laughter melding with hers, just as their bodies had melded throughout their long nights together. And then she whispered something to him as she danced through drifts of powder-soft snow, something he strained to hear. But the words escaped into the frigid night air before he could catch them. He swung her in his arms before she escaped, too, and the scene changed.

      They were no longer outside in the snowy coldness, but in the bedroom they’d shared for eighteen short months. He dropped her to the bed, her long cornsilk hair splaying across the pillow in streams of vibrant red. She said something to him again, but he still couldn’t hear. She smiled in gentle understanding, a smile he’d never before seen on his wife’s lush mouth. He approached, drawn by the warmth of her regard and the sweet promise in her hazel eyes.

      He was helpless to resist. He wanted her. Needed her.

      Took her.

      The harsh bark of an ax biting wood joined with the relentless shriek of the snow-laden wind. Alessandro paused in his exertions long enough to slant a quick upward glance toward the roiling sky. It wouldn’t be long before snow began to fall in earnest. Already fat flakes drifted earthward. He shifted restlessly, plagued by the remnants of what had become an ongoing dream. Or perhaps he should call it a nightmare. It came closer to describing the choked, desperate sensations