Paddington Children's Hospital Complete Collection. Kate Hardy

to be cleared there. We’re all going to be in each other’s lives. But know this—I’ve never felt the way I do about you with anyone else. And I tell you now, I know he wouldn’t but if my brother touched a hair on your head I would kill him.’

      She smiled, because it would never happen, and his voice made her shiver with delight.

      ‘You don’t fight,’ Victoria pointed out.

      ‘My love for you is savage,’ he said, and as he looked at Victoria he decided that she deserved a savage kind of love.

      He made her entire skin tingle, just with the stroke of his finger on her arm.

      She looked deep into his eyes, and yes, he could be crabby at times, but she liked that. She liked that he did not fight and that the man she loved could never hurt another. Even when they had fought over Penny that day, he had still put the patient first.

      She liked his strength and how he fought, not with fists but by holding on to what was right.

      ‘You’ve been sleeping on my side,’ Dominic said, and she smiled, because he made her believe in fairytales after all. ‘I mean it,’ he said, and he knelt up and leant over her. First he turned on the bedside light and then he opened a drawer.

      From there he took out a little, dark, velvet box and offered her a warning. ‘This isn’t a ring.’

      ‘I would hope not, given that we’ve only had one date.’

      ‘Victoria,’ he said in that gorgeous brogue that had her toes curl beneath the sheets. ‘We are going to have many, many more. You’ll be getting a ring but, for now, I want you to have these. I really have been thinking of you all the time and I hope that these will show you how much.’

      He opened the box as Victoria sat up in the bed and when she looked she saw a pair of beautiful earrings. Her heart squeezed and her fingers wanted to touch them but for now she simply looked at a gift from the heart.

      ‘They’re Scottish pearls,’ he told her. ‘I’m lousy at one-night stands and I wanted to get you something. When I was in Scotland I saw these and while I was talking to the jeweller I found out quite a bit about them—pearls are complex things,’ Dominic said. ‘The oyster tries to protect itself from intruders, and from that something very beautiful is formed.’

      They were golden hued and the most beautiful pearls that she had ever seen, but more than that it was the care and thought with which they had been chosen that meant so much to her.

      Yes, diamonds might be for ever, but they didn’t count unless they were given with love.

      Those long fingers were nimble and he carefully put them in for her and, as he did, he asked her a question. ‘Do you know what daunts me when I think about a future with you?’

      Victoria could think of many things that might.

      An unplanned pregnancy from a one-night stand, her job, her independence, to name a few, but then he broke in.

      ‘Nothing daunts me,’ Dominic said. ‘I had sworn off relationships until I met you. I know we agreed to no more than what happened that night but I was always going to ask you out. I made up my mind in Scotland. I decided that once I had properly sorted things out with my family I would see if we could give things a try. If you said no, then these earrings were still for you, because what happened between us was amazing. I never thought I could trust anyone again, but I do. And the thought of a future with you thrills me.’

      She put her fingers to her ears and felt the gorgeous pearls, and then she looked over to Dominic.

      This beautiful, rugged man had offered her his heart and she had never been this close to anyone before.

      And what he had said applied both ways, for as she looked to a future with Dominic, there was nothing that daunted.

      Yes, it thrilled her, in fact.

      And then as they kissed, as they lay with the world at their feet, they heard a noise. Victoria, on hearing the front door opening, pulled away and grimaced.

      The day had run away from them and there were voices from the hallway. This was so not how she wanted to meet his family.

      ‘They won’t come in,’ he said.

      ‘And I can’t go out.’ Victoria groaned, having visions of herself being trapped hiding in his room all night.

      ‘Why ever not?’ he asked.

      ‘What will they think?’ Victoria asked, aghast at the prospect. ‘I can hardly just walk out of your bedroom and meet the family.’

      ‘Well, if you were the type for a one-night stand with a man you barely knew, then I get that it might be awkward...’

      He made her laugh and she knew then that they would tease each other about their torrid tryst for ever.

      He made everything fine.

      Better than fine.

      ‘I’ll tell them that I’ve been seeing you for months,’ Dominic suggested, ‘which I have been.’

      It was no lie. They had noticed each other right from the day they had met.

      It was actually now bliss to lie in bed with him and to hear the sounds of his family outside.

      ‘Lorna’s here.’ It was Dominic who grimaced a bit when he heard her voice, because though he had meant it when he had said that she could come for dinner or stay here, he knew it might be a bit much for Victoria to deal with so soon. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

      ‘None.’ Victoria grinned; after all, she was in his bed. But then she thought about it more seriously for a moment and the answer was still the same, so she shook her head. ‘None.’

      ‘Good,’ Dominic said, and he rolled out of bed and started to pull on some clothes. ‘Though we might keep it to ourselves about the baby for now.’

      ‘I know that it must all feel a bit rushed,’ Victoria said, thinking of how he had said he felt when he found out that Lorna was pregnant.

      ‘Hardly rushed,’ he said. ‘I’m thirty-eight.’

      Dominic was pulling on his jeans and she would remember that moment for ever. The moment she knew, completely, that they were meant to be.

      And then he looked over and smiled as he realised the difference in his feelings between now and the last time that he had thought he was about to become a father. Still there was no need to dwell for they had moved past all that now. ‘I’m just warning you,’ he said, ‘that when they find out they’ll make an awful fuss.’

      ‘I can’t wait for the fuss,’ Victoria said, and she thought of grandparents who would be thrilled at the news, and uncles and aunts and cousins and feuding brothers who had sorted things out. ‘As soon as William is more stable we’ll share the good news.’

      She couldn’t wait to get out there, but was actually quite nervous when they finally did.

      The MacBrides were all in the kitchen. Jamie and Lorna and Dominic’s father were sitting at the table, and his mother, a very small woman, was at the oven.

      ‘Well, hello,’ his mother said when together they walked in, and she looked a bit taken back when she saw that Dominic had company.

      ‘This is Victoria,’ Dominic introduced. ‘She’s been on nights too.’

      ‘You never said that you were seeing anyone!’ his mother scolded, though she smiled to Victoria.

      ‘Well, we haven’t exactly been speaking,’ Dominic reminded her. ‘But Victoria is very much in my life. Victoria, this is my mother, Katie.’

      She met William and Katie, and Jamie and Lorna, who she had, of course, already met, but it was different this time because she was being introduced and integrated into all the main threads of this beautiful man’s life.

      ‘How