Miracle Christmas. Shirley Jump

not,’ Luca said, and grinned again. Modern urine test kits were widely used in all kinds of medical facilities as a reliable, quick, cheap method of confirming pregnancy.

      He wanted to pick her up and twirl her around. The distance between them on such an intimate occasion seemed all wrong. But this was a big event and he didn’t want to put one foot wrong. Especially when she still seemed so disbelieving.

      Rilla shook her head as it slowly sank in. She was pregnant. The baby she’d coveted for the last few years was now a reality. She placed a hand on her belly. She was going to be a mother. Luca’s child was snuggling into her womb and as the news finally permeated she allowed the joy full rein.

      She felt light. Lighter than she’d ever been. And happy. Stupidly, crazily, insanely happy. Despite a hundred reasons to be the complete opposite.

      She reached for the test and took it from him. ‘I don’t believe it.’ She shook her head.

      ‘Believe it,’ Luca whispered.

      She looked at him. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

      Luca grinned at her dazed expression. ‘We need to talk. Why don’t you go and have that shower and I’ll fix us something to eat?’

      Rilla nodded, on autopilot again, her brain utterly preoccupied with the stunning news. The fact that all she’d wanted when she’d walked into the flat fifteen minutes ago had been a shower and bed was completely lost on her. But she went through the motions anyway. Undressing, getting under the spray, applying soap.

      She turned off the taps a few minutes later and found a pair of Luca’s cotton boxers and a T-shirt hanging next to a towel on the rail. Not even the thought that he’d been in the room while she’d showered was enough to shift her focus from the baby.

      She cleared the condensation from the bathroom mirror and inspected her reflection, turning to one side, smoothing her hand against her stomach. Water droplets beaded her skin but all she had to show was the same slight rise that always greeted her in the mirror.

      Soon, though, it would blossom with Luca’s child and she couldn’t wait to see it grow large and full. Or for her breasts to become lush and spill out of her bra as they prepared to nurture Luca’s baby. She pushed out her stomach as far as it would go and grinned stupidly at the woman in the mirror.

      Oh, how different she felt this time round. She flattened her stomach as thoughts of her first pregnancy intruded. She remembered looking at the stick with its two pink lines and feeling a gamut of emotions. She’d been twenty-two and married for just one month.

      And then there’d been the dreadful end just five weeks later. A miscarriage that had not only halted their parental dreams but had been the beginning of the end for their marriage.

      Rilla clutched her stomach, feeling fear break through her joy. The thought of losing another baby, of losing this baby, was too heart-wrenching to bear. She couldn’t go through that again. She just couldn’t. She didn’t know anything about what the next few years would hold or what this baby meant for their impending divorce. She just knew she wanted it more than life itself.

      Suddenly depressed, she dressed in the clothes Luca had put out, tying a knot in the T-shirt at her waist. Then she rummaged around in the bathroom drawer and located a packaged toothbrush. There were tears in her eyes as she watched her reflection. Please, let nothing happen to my baby.

      She found Luca in the kitchen, preparing some food as soft strains of music swirled through the air. She watched him from the doorway, enjoying how he moved. He’d taken his tie off and undone the top two buttons of his shirt, and her fingers, tricked into some renegade sense of déjà vu, itched to push through his hair and bend his head down for a kiss.

      Thinking about the miscarriage had dampened her mood and she could feel her earlier debilitating tiredness returning. Suddenly she didn’t know what to say to him. She needed time to absorb the situation. To think. To be alone.

      ‘I think I’m going to hit the sack,’ she said casually.

      Luca looked up from his chopping. She was wearing the clothes he had put out for her. His shirt was too big, falling off one shoulder and exposing her smooth olive skin to his view, and the way she’d tied it emphasised her waist and pulled across her braless chest. It had never looked so good.

      He swallowed. ‘You need to eat something first.’

      Rilla’s stomach revolted and she placed a hand over it. She shook her head. ‘I can’t.’

      Luca watched the movement and itched to walk over to her and place his hand over hers. Over their baby. ‘You have to eat, Rilla.’

      Rilla was growing wearier by the second. It had been a day of huge climaxes and she was coming down from the high, feeling oddly disconnected. ‘I just feel a little too delicate at the moment. And I’m tired, Luca.’

      ‘It’s only eight. We need to talk.’

      ‘I know,’ she sighed.

      ‘What are we going to do?’

      Good question. Very good question. ‘Tomorrow, OK?’ She knew they had to sit down and discuss things but, early evening or not, she could barely keep her eyes open. ‘I promise.’

      Luca nodded reluctantly. He could see her weariness and he didn’t want to push her in her condition, but there were things he needed to know. He needed a plan. She was having his baby. His baby. And he wasn’t going to mess it up this time.

      ‘The spare room’s made up.’

      Rilla locked gazes with Luca for a brief intense moment, sensing his struggle. ‘Thank you.’

      Less than a minute later her head hit the pillow and she slept instantly.

      CHAPTER SIX

      LUCA woke the next morning to the sound of Rilla retching. He sat bolt upright as he looked at the clock. Six a.m. He was out of bed and striding to the bathroom before any other coherent thought had formed.

      She was kneeling on the cold tiles, her forehead on the toilet seat. ‘Rilla!’

      ‘Go away,’ she groaned as another urge to vomit took hold and she dry-retched into the bowl.

      Luca knelt beside her, feeling helpless, and rubbed the small of her back. He lifted a strand of hair that had fallen forward and tucked it behind her ear. He murmured soothing words in Italian to her as she continued to be sick.

      Rilla heard them through her primal noises and even though she had no idea what they meant, the low rumble of his voice was so comforting she just wanted to crawl onto his lap and feel his arms around her.

      God, she felt awful!

      It was another few minutes before the nausea released her from its grip and she felt hot tears well in her eyes and track down her face as she sat back on her haunches. She couldn’t have stemmed them had her life depended on it. Great. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Luca had to witness her vomiting, now he was being treated to a fit of self-pity.

      ‘Hush,’ he crooned softly as he rose to wet a washcloth and then gently wipe her blotchy face.

      Rilla felt the reviving effects of the cool cloth instantly and her sobs soon died to the odd hiccoughy breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, almost falling into his soft velvet gaze.

      ‘Hey, it’s OK,’ Luca whispered, and drew her head onto his shoulder while he continued to rub her back.

      Rilla became conscious then of what he was wearing. Or rather what he wasn’t wearing. He had on a pair of boxers and that was it. Her head lay against his bare shoulder and she had a bird’s-eye view of his magnificent chest and flat abs. His powerful thighs thrust out before him were a pleasure to look at and she knew what lay beneath those boxers was just as enticing.

      ‘Finished?’ Luca asked.