The Mills & Boon Stars Collection. Cathy Williams

once I thought over what you’d said to me. I did make it all about the baby rather than about us. You could even say I used the baby as an excuse. Considering that I wanted you the very first moment I laid eyes on you and never stopped wanting you, I wasn’t being honest with either of us.’

      Her eyes widened at that admission. ‘The very first moment?’

      ‘It was like sticking my finger in an electrical socket,’ Leo quipped. ‘The attraction was instant and very powerful. I had to know you and then I had to have you. When I found myself wanting to hang onto you the morning after our night together, it freaked me out.’

      ‘You did?’ Grace was frowning. ‘But we were only together one night.’

      ‘One night with a very special woman who made me want much more from her than any woman I’d ever met,’ Leo completed huskily. ‘Why do you think I was too impatient to wait to hear from you afterwards? I was obsessed. I couldn’t think of anything but seeing you again. It’s a wonder I wasn’t boiling bunnies...’

      Grace was in shock but hanging onto his every word. ‘Can’t imagine that...but you said—’

      ‘I said I didn’t do love and then you threw me out of that hospital room when I badly needed to be with you and I had to get by without you for a week.’

      ‘During which you suffered some sort of brainstorm?’ Grace framed shakily.

      ‘No, it finally hit me that I was very deeply attached to you and that it had just happened, regardless of all my doubts about such feelings.’

      Grace finally stood up and approached him. ‘Very deeply attached?’

      ‘Hopelessly,’ Leo told her with his irresistible smile. ‘Somewhere along the way I fell in love with you but I didn’t recognise it. I knew I liked you, wanted you close and needed to look after you. I knew I was jealous of your friendship with Matt and very relieved when you didn’t succumb to Bastien’s legendary appeal. But I honestly did think that I was feeling all those things because it was natural for me to feel protective towards you when you were pregnant.’

      ‘Easy mistake to make,’ Grace told him breathlessly, unknotting his tie, yanking it free of his collar before embarking on his shirt buttons. ‘You’ve just told me you love me and, since I love you too, we should be celebrating.’

      ‘You love me? Even after all the mistakes I’ve made?’ Leo pressed, stunning dark golden eyes locked to her flushed face and her huge beaming smile.

      ‘Yes. Unlike you,’ Grace murmured in unashamed one-upmanship, ‘I never expected the man I married to be perfect.’

      ‘But I do think you’re perfect,’ Leo argued heatedly. ‘Absolutely perfect for me. You’re beautiful and clever and warm and loving and you will make an absolutely brilliant mother.’

      ‘Tell me more. My ego loves this,’ Grace urged, laughing. ‘I really should’ve guessed you loved me when you tracked down my father for me and got him out here. Instead I was too busy worrying about you dining out with Marina.’

      Leo tensed. ‘Why on earth would you worry about that?’

      ‘Because you thought she was perfect and you were with her for three years.’

      ‘If she’d been perfect for me I’d still have been with her and my sex drive would have centred on her,’ Leo pointed out levelly. ‘And Marina isn’t perfect. Not only did she once have a one-night stand with my brother...’

      ‘Bastien?’ Grace pressed in surprise.

      ‘Yes. She’s also currently having an affair with a married man, although it is not quite as bad as it sounds,’ Leo conceded reluctantly. ‘His wife has been suffering from early onset dementia for years and is currently in a care home and recognising neither him nor his children. He’s been living in limbo for a long time. You won’t ever have to worry about my relationship with Marina. We’re good friends and would be even better friends had we just settled for that.’

      Grace smiled, accepting his explanation, putting those fears to rest. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you were planning to look up my father?’

      ‘I had to check Tony out first. He could have been hostile to an approach from you. He could have hurt your feelings and I couldn’t have stood by and let that happen to you,’ Leo assured her without apology. ‘As it was I met him, liked him and saw quite a bit of you in him.’

      ‘I did feel very comfortable with him.’ Involuntarily, Grace’s eyes flooded with tears and she rested her head down on Leo’s shoulder with an apologetic sniff as she fought to regain control. Leo was so protective of her and after a lifetime of always having to look out for herself the depth of his caring and kindness meant a great deal to her. Yet once his managing ways had irritated the hell out of her, she acknowledged, marvelling at how much her outlook and his had changed since their first encounter. ‘In the same way I’ve always felt comfortable with you.’

      Leo lowered her back down to sit at the foot of the bed. ‘Now for something very important that I skipped the first time around...’ he husked, dropping down gracefully on one knee and lifting her hand. ‘Grace Donovan...will you marry me?’

      ‘Aren’t we already married?’ Grace breathed, taken aback and utterly mystified as he lifted her hand.

      ‘Are we? Father Benedetto in the chapel in the village quite understands that you don’t feel quite married after a civil ceremony and he has agreed to do the honours for us again,’ Leo explained, deftly threading a ring onto her wedding finger. ‘All we need to do is book our day.’

      Her face the very picture of wonderment, Grace extended her hand, splaying her fingers the better to admire the breathtaking diamond cluster he had given her, and then she glanced down at the startling picture of Leo at her feet in romantic mode. ‘I love the ring. Everything’s happening backwards for us. We’re getting engaged after we got married!’

      ‘Better late than never,’ Leo growled, springing back upright. ‘You still haven’t said yes—’

      ‘Yes...yes...yes!’ Grace carolled without hesitation, her sheer happiness bubbling over. ‘Yes to marrying you, yes to another wedding, yes to loving you for the rest of my life!’

      Leo tugged her gently up the bed and flattened her to the pillows. ‘Do you think you can do that, agapi mou? I’m very far from being perfect.’

      ‘Now that you know that, the sky’s the limit in the improvement stakes,’ Grace teased, wriggling as he skimmed her hair out of his path and claimed a scorching kiss that she felt all the way down to her curling toes. ‘But you definitely don’t need to improve at this...’

      And Leo laughed and thought how shallow and empty his life had been before Grace and how much richer and more interesting it had become with her. As for Grace, she was much too busy getting Leo out of his shirt and admiring his muscular chest to think about anything.

      * * *

      Four years later, Grace stood on the deck of Hellenic Lady’s successor while her daughter Rosie played on deck with the family dog, a fluffy pug called Jonas. Grace was relaxed as she always was on such trips. She worked long hours as a doctor in the paediatrics department of a busy London hospital and cherished every day of her time off.

      ‘Daddy...Daddy!’ Grace spun round to watch her daughter throw herself boisterously at her father as he emerged from the main saloon.

      Leo looked amazing in swim shorts, his lean, powerful body well-honed by exercise, black hair blowing in the breeze. They had enjoyed an incredibly busy four years together. Raising Rosie without a team of nannies would have been impossible with the hours Grace had been working while she trained in various hospitals, but since then, having attained a more settled working day, she had had the time to become a more hands-on mum. Rosie had Grace’s red hair, Leo’s rich dark eyes and