ily woke up alone in Nate’s colossal bed. She’d never seen a bed so huge in her entire life. It was even bigger than the bed he’d bought her and she thought that was the biggest bed she’d ever seen.

She listened for a moment to the silence in the enormous room and wondered where Nate was. She rolled languorously to her side to see if there was an alarm clock and she saw it was nearly nine thirty.

She blinked at it in surprise. She hadn’t slept that late in years. Lily didn’t even think she had the capacity to sleep later than seven o’clock.

She rolled onto her back and contemplated the ceiling and the softness of Nate’s sheets, which were other-worldly soft.

Nate, she realised, if he was anything like he used to be, must be at work.

She threw the covers back and headed to the bathroom while thinking rather contentedly about the night before and, especially, more-than-contentedly, that morning.

Surprisingly, Nate hadn’t made love to her after they agreed to get married. He’d finally kissed her (after their mortifying exchange about contraception which she did not want to remember, ever).

But that was it.

Well, not it exactly as he kissed her a great deal throughout the evening, held her from behind and nuzzled her neck as she was talking to Fazire (luckily, Fazire knew she was usually disoriented after a migraine and thus didn’t press her as to why she was, all of a sudden, at Nate’s place in London) and linked his fingers in hers while they ate the food he’d had delivered.

Later, they finally went to bed, Lily wearing one of the nightgowns Laura had bought her. Laura didn’t purchase twenty nightgowns, she’d purchased three, four sets of underwear, two outfits, three pairs of shoes and two huge bags full to the brim with toiletries and cosmetics of every size, shape and colour. Laura could shop for England in the Olympics and win the gold medal, hands down.

Once in bed, Nate had pulled her back to his front and wrapped his arm around her waist. Then he’d pressed his face in her hair, just like he used to do and in that moment Lily had given herself the momentary luxury to allow the eight years simply to melt away.

Then, she laid in bed waiting. Nothing.

“Um… Nate?” she’d whispered into the dark room.

“Mm?” The murmur sounded behind her and his arm tightened about her waist.

She didn’t know what to say. So she said, “Never mind.”

She realised she was slightly disappointed. Then she realised she was more-than-slightly disappointed. She hadn’t exactly gone there to throw herself at him just piece her family back together. But they hadjust agreed to pledge their troth. Certainly some sort of celebratory consummation effort was in order.

“You’re not yourself,” Nate said softly.

“What?” Lily asked.

“I’ll make love to you when you’re recovered. Right now, you’re still not yourself.”

“Oh,” she whispered.

Something about that made her heart flutter. She didn’t understand completely why but she felt it was important.

“Go to sleep, darling,” he murmured into her hair.

She decided she liked it when he called her darling. She knew she shouldn’t but that didn’t change the fact that she did.

Exhausted from the day’s events, in fact, the events of the past two weeks and in his comfortable bed with his warmth behind her, she fell into a deep sleep the like of which she had not had for years.

She woke, what seemed a year later, rested, relaxed, contented… and aroused.

“Nate?” she mumbled sleepily.

Apparently Nate had decided she was herself again for, at the sound of her voice, he took his hand away which had been up the hem of her nightgown, cupped at her breast with two fingers not-so-idly fondling her nipple. He flipped her on her back and in an instant he became her entire world. His hands, his mouth, his tongue, they were everywhere and the vague sense of relaxed, contented arousal boiled away in seconds as hot desire flooded through her.

She gloried in it, had been waiting years for it and now she knew it was finally to be hers.

Within minutes he had her meagre clothing off her body and the heat surging through her like a burn. She was moaning his name, her hands in his hair as his mouth was at first tormenting one breast then the other then down, down…

Then he stopped and his head jerked up dislodging her hands. Abruptly his body fell to the side, its weight coming off her and his immense heat leaving her made Lily feel suddenly cold.

Disoriented, she tilted her chin down to see what had stopped him and her body stilled at what she saw.

Nate was laying on his side, up on his elbow and his eyes were riveted to her belly.

It had been eight years since anyone had seen her naked and in the heat of the moment, the thrill of the sensations, she’d forgotten all about it. She wasn’t the biggest fan of her body, in fact, she mostly disregarded it, it did what it was told most of the time and that’s all she required of it.

Now, she felt vulnerable and embarrassed, especially that he was looking at her stomach. It wasn’t precisely her favoured area of her body, not that she had a favoured part of her body.

Lily’s flushed face started to burn and she looked down to see what caught his attention and then saw the scar from Tash’s c-section.

It wasn’t hideous but it was a scar and scars were never very attractive. She saw his hand reach out toward it and she grabbed it in embarrassment before he could touch her. She wanted to throw the covers over her but his eyes moved to hers.

The instant they locked on hers, she became mesmerised by them. They were glowing with something she couldn’t read but whatever it was made her forget her embarrassment entirely.

“Tash?” he asked, his voice husky.

She nodded, wondering what he was thinking.

Then to her astonishment, his head bent and his lips touched the scar at one end and slowly ran along the length of it.

“Nate,” she whispered, witnessing his tender gesture, the tears suddenly came, clogging her throat, making her voice croaky.

And then she couldn’t think of crying, couldn’t think of his tenderness because he’d shifted his body and his head was going down even more, his mouth finding her between her legs and all she could think about was what he was doing to her, what he was making her feel and the absolute beauty of it.

He made her climax with his mouth and while she was in the throes of it, the waves of pleasure sliding through her body, he surged up and filled her. She cried out his name as he drove into her, not being gentle in the slightest, his thrusts were sheer, controlled violence. It was a possession, a claiming and his hand came between them, went straight to the highly sensitised core of her even before she’d completed her orgasm, bringing another one instantly.

She was panting, clawing at his back, mindlessly whispering his name between breaths, wrapping her legs around his hips as the glorious sensations tore through her at having him again. She loved the feeling of him slamming into her just like she’d dreamed so many nights and even daydreamed during the light hours.

And finally, when she was certain she’d live for eternity in the heady spasm of a climax, his hand came from between them, both his hands lifted her hips and he drove into her one last time, moaning his release into her mouth.

After, Lily lay there, the weight of Nate pressed against her, his face buried in her neck, her limbs wrapped lovingly around him and she allowed herself the tiniest moment of joy that they finally, after years and years, had the beauty of what they used to share back.

His head lifted and his mouth came to hers.

“Sweeter than I remembered,” he murmured against her lips and she was so intoxicatingly spent she could do nothing but nod.

Lily didn’t remember that he’d told her that he did remember everything. Therefore, she had no idea what his words meant.

It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, she’d just had a multiple orgasm during a coupling with a lover, not just a lover, her dream man who she thought had been dead for eight years.

She was beyond processing the importance of murmured statements after climax.

Instead, she immediately began to drift to sleep. Her eyes were closed and Nate was stroking the hair away from her temple. She thought that felt nice.

“Lily?” She heard his soft, deep voice still rough with desire.

“Just going to rest my eyes a bit,” she mumbled something her grandmother Sarah used to say before napping. She wrapped her arms and legs tighter around him, he was still on top of her, still inside of her and she nuzzled her face in his neck.

On her trip to dreamland, she felt Nate’s body shake with amusement and normally she would have found this irritating but she was, at that moment, way, way beyond irritation.

It had, Lily thought, as she took a shower in his shower cubicle that could have easily fit three (or even more) people, been a little slice of heaven. As she scrubbed the peony scented bath gel that Laura bought her into her skin with the fluffy sponge Laura also bought her, she looked around Nate’s state-of-the-art bathroom (it took her five minutes to figure out how to work the taps in the shower) and distractedly realised it was bigger than Natasha’s bedroom.

This luxuriousness brought other things to mind.

Marriage to Nate, Lily thought, might not be that bad. Firstly, Natasha would have her father. Secondly, Natasha would learn how to ride a horse, indeed, at the rate Nate was going, she would likely own one by the end of the week. Thirdly, perhaps, just perhaps he would take care of them.

He certainly dropped everything to take care of Lily yesterday. She’d seen his work spread across his massive, twelve-seat dining room table last night. She could imagine what a penthouse apartment cost not to mention being able to throw around fourteen million pounds in a week, buy her a Mercedes and whatever Nate had arranged for Tash’s trust fund.

Eight years ago, he’d worked relentless twelve hour days and even, sometimes, made business calls to different time zones in the evenings. It likely wasn’t so easy for Nate McAllister to drop everything because the wayward mother of his child happened by for a surprise visit and then had a medical semi-emergency.

She stepped out of the shower and towelled off, wrapping the thick towel around her hair and sorting through Laura’s various tubs and bottles – at least a two year supply for Lily, even if she could have afforded those brands, which she couldn’t.

While Lily lotioned her body and went about putting on her face, she also resolutely set aside how Nate took care of her yesterday. She didn’t think of his soft voice or the intense feeling flowing through it when he spoke. She didn’t think of him carrying her urgently to the car or pressing a flannel to her head or urging her to tell him how he could help. And lastly, she tried not to think of his admission that she scared the hell out of him and what that might mean.

They would be husband and wife so they could be mother and father to Tash, a family whole at last, just as Lily had while growing up. Lily was happy to accept all that came with it, the companionship (if it lasted), the lovemaking (which was very nice and always had been), the security (clearly, Nate could take care of them financially, they most likely would never have to worry again about the fridge breaking down and what that might mean to their grocery budget).

She would let him, indeed, welcome him into her home, her life, her family and her bed.

But she was going to have to guard her heart.

Nate wasn’t going to let her in to his that was clear. She’d practically had to beg him to tell her she’d scared him with her migraine.

Therefore, she wouldn’t, couldn’t let him in to hers. Not again.

They were, she thought as she put on one of Laura’s outfits, strangers that somehow seemed to be closer, have more of a history than they actually did, merely because everything had been so intense, so much compacted into such a short period of time.

But they were strangers and Lily had to remember that.

She combed out her wet hair one last time as Nate had no hair dryer (alas), mussed it with her fingertips and she looked at herself and her new outfit in the mirror.

The skirt was so long it was to her ankles, white, flowy and tiered with a pretty, minty-green, gauzy top that was nearly so sheer you could see through it. It’s wide neckline fell off her shoulder, exposing the strap of the pastel green camisole and matching bra she wore under it. The top was belted at the waist with a piece of wide fabric that matched the blouse.

Laura had exquisite taste. Lily tried not to think of the expense of the clothes, she knew the designer names in the labels and shuddered at what they likely cost. She resolved to find a way to pay Laura back and soon. She really didn’t want to be indebted to the Roberts.

Lily strapped on the gold sandals she wore the day before and walked out of the bedroom and down the hall in search of food to quell the growling in her stomach. She wondered if Nate still had his groceries delivered but figured he likely did, the idea of Nate wandering the aisles of a grocery store was so preposterous, it made her smile.

Lost in her thoughts, the smile still on her lips, she walked into Nate’s gigantic living room and stopped dead as she saw both Nate and Victor standing around the work that was still spread out all over Nate’s dining room table.

Nate’s head jerked around when he saw her enter the room. He was holding a file open, the papers arched for him to read and his face had been blank. The minute his saw her, though, his lips curved into one of his breathtaking smiles that a lone gymnast in her belly liked especially and therefore executed a perfect back hand-spring at the sight.

Lily’s ignored the gymnast and her antics and her eyes flicked to Victor. He was smiling at her too, his far more tentative. She didn’t know what to make of that so she nodded to him silently.

Nate was approaching her, his long legs eating the distance swiftly and she tilted her head back because, within seconds, he was at her side.

“Good morning,” she said as she gazed up at him.

“Morning.” His low voice rumbled and his head came down to give her a brief but hard kiss. His strong hand settled at her waist and flexed there and her hand went up to flatten on his shoulder to push back, not wishing to engage in a Nate-style public display of affection in front of his father.

His head came up and he completely ignored the pressure of her hand.

“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked.

“Better.” She watched his black eyes flare and instantly took his meaning. “Good,” she whispered for his ears only and felt the blush creep up her cheeks just like she was a twenty-two year old virgin and not the mother of a seven year old girl.

“Good?” His voice had a faint teasing tone that the lone gymnast also liked, very much, and the corners of his lips tipped up in a lazy grin.

She leaned into him conspiratorially, her eyes shifting around his shoulder to Victor then back to him.

“Your father,” she said, sotto voce, reminding him they had company.

For some reason, this made him snatch her into his arms and he buried his face in her hair as he chuckled against her neck.

And somehow, making him chuckle, Lily felt that she’d just reached the top of Mount Everest even to the point of having trouble breathing as she’d reach such altitude.

He let her go, though she felt it was somehow with reluctance, when the mobile phone on the dining room table started ringing. Nate strode back to the table and she watched him go, thinking he had such a powerful gait that it was beautiful, like the trained power of an athlete.

Then her eyes fell on Victor.

She felt funny around Victor. He’d hurt her in more ways than putting his hands on her in violence to the point of bruising her. He’d broken her trust by doing it.

She thought of him, when she first met him, as a kind of father-figure in absence of Will. Now Will was gone and both Tash and Lily were left with Victor and Lily didn’t know what to think of that.

He’d done what he’d done out of love and loyalty for Nate but it still didn’t change the fact that he’d lost his temper to the point of manhandling her.

“Lily,” Victor greeted softly as she walked toward him cautiously. Her eyes moved to Nate who had answered his phone. He was talking on the mobile but also watching her, watching them, and not missing a thing. He was not, this time, inspecting a bug under a microscope. Nate’s dark eyes were active, engaged and aware.

“Do you want some coffee?” Victor pointed to a silver service and Lily nodded.

“I’d kill for some coffee,” she answered and Victor moved to get her a cup. “Two sugars and milk,” she told him.

“I’m not surprised you like it sweet,” Victor mumbled to himself as he poured her a cup. “Laura made it, so you don’t have to worry, it tastes good. You just missed her. She left not five minutes ago.”

He offered her the cup and Lily took it.

“Please thank her for me, for what she did yesterday, for the clothes.” She put her arm out to show him her outfit. “If she gets me the receipts, I’ll pay –”

“Rubbish,” he snapped and she tensed immediately, her eyes flying to Nate who, she noted, regardless that he was on the phone, was watching her so closely she couldn’t imagine he heard a word that was said by the person on the line.

She moved her gaze back to Victor and she just stopped herself from taking a step back at the intensity she saw in his eyes.

“We owe you more than a pretty skirt,” he was saying.

“I’m sorry?”

“Jeff, Danielle… me. We owe you more than some bits of fabric.” Lily held her breath at his words and he lifted his hands in a gesture of agitated frustration then he spoke with surprising bluntness. “How do you go about paying a girl back for eight years of her life, marking her with bruises?” He was still intense but seemed, underneath it, lost and uncertain.

She was shocked at his honesty, shocked and touched.

“Victor…” She moved toward him, responding to the “lost and uncertain” bit and without taking a sip, she set her coffee back on the table.

She was only feet away from him when Victor announced, “I disowned them.”

At these words, Lily froze. Then she breathed, “What?”

“Jeff and Danielle, cut them off without a penny. The wills are already changed, Nate, you and Natasha inherit everything.”

Lily blinked. “But they’re your children,” she protested, forgetting, for that moment, how truly hideous they both had acted, taking her note, not telling Nate her parents had died, telling Lily Nate was dead. This was not the behaviour of kind, good people.

But disowning them?

Sarah had always threatened to disown Lily or Becky or Will, depending on who angered her but it was always an empty threat and she didn’t have much to give anyway, not like the Roberts did.

But to go so far as do it?

“Yes,” Victor replied firmly, “they are my children and for that reason they have whatever’s left in their trust funds and I’ve left them to their lives each with a good education to make something of themselves, finally.”

Lily took another step forward. “I hope you left the door open, just a crack, in case they’re sorry and they come back,” she said softly and hesitantly she put her hand lightly on his arm.

He looked at his arm where her hand rested and then at her. The intensity drained from his eyes and the Victor she knew replaced it.

“You have a kind heart, Lily,” he told her quietly. “I’ll take them back only if they convince you and Nathaniel to forgive them. Not before and if you don’t, not ever.”

She squeezed his arm and moved into him another several inches. “Laura?”

Victor put his hand over hers on his arm. “She agrees.”

Lily closed her eyes as the pain of another mother ran through her.

She opened them again and said, “It had to cost her.”

Then he said something strange, something that made Lily immensely curious, scared her out of her wits and, most importantly, it rocked her to her core. He said it in a low, quiet voice that was meant not to be heard outside their tête-à-tête.

“Nathaniel had suffered enough in his life. He didn’t need to suffer the last eight years. Laura knew that and I know it too. He’s our son, they hurt him, what were we meant to do?”

For the briefest second she thought it was a statement in the guise of a question but then she realised he expected her to answer. To tell him she approved, to give him other guidance or show him another way.

She shook her head and because her answer was unworthy, she turned into him and closed her arms around his shoulders, enfolding him in a hug.

She closed her eyes tightly and whispered in his ear, “I don’t know what to say.”

His arms came around to embrace her and there was violence in it, an affection so strong, it took her breath away.

An affection and intensity that was just like her father’s.

“Just be happy,” he mumbled into her ear, his voice shaking with emotion and at the sound of it, the feel of his embrace, she burst out crying. She wished she hadn’t but it was all too much, she couldn’t help herself.

So lost was she in her emotion, she barely registered it when Victor turned her into Nate’s arms and she cried into the hard wall of his chest. Cried for her gullibility, cried that she’d believed Jeff and Danielle, cried for what they all lost, including Laura and Victor, cried for what it cost them and cried for, well, everything.

Finally, when she’d spent her tears, she arched back against Nate’s arm and she saw him take something from Victor and then he handed her a handkerchief. She wiped her eyes but he still lifted a hand to slide his thumb along her cheekbone.

“All right now?” he asked in a gentle voice and she nodded.

After nodding, she contradictorily shook her head and his dark eyes flickered with worry.

“I’m hungry,” she admitted on a trembling smile.

She watched as he grinned, the concern in his eyes fled and he bent his head and brushed his beautiful, smiling lips against hers.

“I’ll take you to get something to eat and then to the neurologist,” he told her and broke away.

“Let me fix my face.” She began to turn from them but stopped, hesitated and then leaned in to kiss Victor on the cheek. This startled a smile from the older man and it was not in any way tentative.

Lily felt, inexplicably, like an important piece of her life, thought lost and left gaping, had been put back, snug and comforting, into place.

Then she hurried from the room as she heard Nate ask, “Are you okay here?”

Victor replied, “Yes.”

“You know what to do?”

And then Lily was out of earshot, but she wasn’t listening anyway.

The words, Nathaniel had suffered enough, were ringing in her ears.

“Do you still have a motorcycle?” Lily asked.

“Yes,” Nate answered.

“Then I have another condition.”

Lily watched Nate smile.

They were in his Aston Martin, headed back to Somerset. It was after their delicious brunch at a posh patisserie in Kensington, her neurologist’s appointment (complete with an unnecessary and costly MRI) and the GP appointment (she was now in possession of birth control pills but, as it took a month for them to be fully effective, she was also fitted with a diaphragm). After all of this, she hoped she didn’t have to see another doctor for at least twenty years.

Although she had to admit to one highlight of her medical experience.

Upon leaving the GP’s examination room, she saw Nate sitting and waiting for her. The ankle of one of his long legs resting atop the knee of the other, his dark, handsome head bent to study a pile of papers in his lap. He was completely oblivious to every single woman in the room staring at him with longing, surreptitious glances.

And then, as if sensing she was there, his head came up and he watched her coming toward him, his eyes moving lazily from the top of her hair to the tips of her toes. His face registered a sort of triumphant satisfaction, communicated such a smug possession that she could swear that he, rich, powerful, tall, lean, urbane, gorgeous Nathaniel McAllister was proud to be with her, sheltered, plain, naive, Indiana-girl Lily Jacobs. The very thought of it made her nearly trip on her fancy high-heeled sandals and fall flat on her face.

Luckily she did not for that would have ruined the moment and he rose when she came closer. Again, as was becoming his custom, his hand moved to rest on her waist, his fingers pressing into her there as if he wished to brand her.

“All set?” he murmured, his eyes and voice warm.

She nodded and, she couldn’t help herself, she did it happily.

She could also swear, as they left, Nate’s hand at the small of her back, guiding her through the waiting room, that she saw one mother of a sick, snot-nosed child lean to another sitting beside her, jerk her head frustratedly in their direction and mutter, “Figures.”

They’d gone to the car and started straight away to Clevedon.

Lily had been surprised at this and wanted to go back to the penthouse to get her things but Nate assured her it was “being seen to”.

“What’s your condition?” Nate asked pulling her out of her reverie and her reaction to his smile.

“If you take Tash on the cycle, you can’t drive it the way you drove it when we were together. You have to be more careful,” she told him.

“Agreed,” he replied instantly then went on, “but what about when I take you on the bike?”

“Oh, I’m too old for bikes,” Lily responded airily, her body thrilling a little bit at the thought of being on a motorcycle again, especially with Nate. This thrill she tamped down with firm resolution.

At her words, he let out a sharp bark of laughter that filled the car and she smiled to herself at the sound of it.

“You already broke your own condition anyway.” She was letting their easy banter relax her even further. She hadn’t felt this carefree in, well, since she last was with Nate.

“I beg your pardon?”

“This morning when we, when you…” She broke off and thought how to put it delicately. “We didn’t use any protection,” she informed him.

“Yes we did.”

She was watching the scenery but, at his words, her head snapped around to stare at him.

“We did?”

“I did,” he amended.

“You did?” she queried in wonder.

“Obviously, I did it right,” he muttered to himself.

“How…?” she mumbled then went on. “Forget it, I don’t want to know.”

His answer was to take her hand from her lap and lift it to his mouth, brushing her knuckles with his lips all the while his eyes never left the road.

The lone gymnast in her belly liked it when he did that too.

Later, Nate expertly parallel parked in front of Lily’s house and before he’d fully helped her alight, Natasha had flung the front door open to the house and was rushing to them.

“Mummeeeeee,” she cried and Lily had just stepped on the sidewalk when Tash’s body slammed into her and her thin arms closed around Lily’s hips.

“Hey baby doll.” Lily bent to kiss the top of her shining, black hair, the blue gleaming in it from the still-strong sun.

“Daddy!” She disengaged and threw herself at Nate to give him one of her fabulous hugs.

He bent as well but to pick her up. He swung her in front of him and her legs closed around his waist and linked at the ankles behind his back as her arms rested around his shoulders.

“Natasha,” Nate murmured.

“Your things arrived,” Tash informed him cheerfully and Lily’s once-contented, now-startled gaze moved from her daughter to Nate.

“Good.” He was smiling at Tash.

“What things?” Lily asked, vaguely realising Fazire had also come out of the house and was emanating genie-rage all the way down their front walk.

Nate didn’t answer but his eyes moved to Lily’s.

“What things?” she repeated.

She’d asked Nate but Tash answered, “About a million suitcases and some boxes. There’s a few things for you in some glossy bags but not nearly as much stuff as for Daddy.”

At her daughter’s words, Lily crossed her arms in front of her, started to tap her toe and she glared at Nate.

He put Natasha down and Lily’s eyes cut to her daughter. “Go inside a sec, Tash, I need to speak to your father.”

Tash presented her with a child-scowl. “You’re always needing to speak to my father.”

Lily raised her eyebrows and Tash read the meaning swiftly after years of seeing her mother give her that look, she had lots of practice reading the meaning, unfortunately, Lily hadn’t learned about the eyebrow raise tactic until it was almost too late. Tash ran inside and Fazire, with a jerk, followed and slammed the door behind them.

Lily whirled to Nate.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” she snapped.

“Are we going to have this conversation on the pavement?” he enquired blandly, even in asking the question, he sounded like it was all the same to him.

Her hackles rose. There was simply nothing that penetrated his armour.

“Yes, we are.”

“You told me to move to Somerset,” he reminded her.

“I didn’t mean today!”

“When did you mean?”

She closed her mouth and glowered at him because she thought that was her safest bet considering she didn’t have an answer to his question.

His eyes changed, they became hard and glittering and she felt a thrill of fear at the sight.

“I’ve lost eight years. Eight years of you and seven years of my daughter. If it’s within my power not to lose another day, I’ll not lose it,” he told her, the force behind his deep voice almost like a physical thing, “and it’s within my power.”

She had to admit, he had a point, although she wasn’t going to admit that to him.

“It seems everything is within your power,” she grumbled perhaps a little unconvincingly.

Nate didn’t respond.

“So that’s it then, one day you live in London, the next you live in Somerset. Easy as that?” Lily asked.

“You did it for me,” he stated matter-of-factly.

“I didn’t have a penthouse and a multi-gazillion-pound company to run!” she retorted.

He took a step toward her and one of his steps brought him within an inch of her. His hand went to her jaw and she tilted her head back to look at him. His eyes had lost their steel and were glittering with something altogether different.

“Are you worried about me?” he asked softly.

“Well, what are you going to do?” she flared. “You can’t exactly commute two and a half hours one way. You’ll be on the road five hours a day. You’ll be home in time to kiss Tash’s forehead while she sleeps.”

“I’ll figure it out.”

His hand was at her waist again, his fingers biting into her there.

She turned her head and looked at her house. Perhaps she hadn’t thought this through.

He was right. They might as well start this family thing right away, no use delaying it if they didn’t have to, except, Nate was the one who’d be paying the price. She’d had Tash all this time, Fazire and Maxine were always an enormous help, she hadn’t been alone.

He hadn’t been nearly as lucky as her. He’d had Jeff and Danielle (and Victor and Laura but that was beside the point).

And she couldn’t get Victor’s words out of her head. They’d been bedevilling her all day.

Nathaniel had suffered enough.

What, exactly, had he suffered?

“Maybe we should move to London,” Lily mumbled, staring at his chest.

“Natasha is settled here,” Nate replied instantly, “eventually I’ll move some of my staff to Bristol offices. It’ll work, Lily.”

She wasn’t convinced. “We should talk about this.”

Her eyes lifted to his face as his arm slid around her waist. “You’re not giving up anything else for me and certainly Natasha isn’t,” he declared then promised, “It’ll work.”

Lily sighed then she warned, “I’m not sure how Fazire is going to cope with you being here.”

Nate’s lips twitched. “He’ll adjust.”

She sighed again. “I suppose.”

He drew her into his body and looked at her with an intensity that caused all the gymnasts to wake from a wee nap and start to tumble.

“This is going to work,” Nate vowed, that vein of steel going through his words.

Lily lifted her hands, rested them on his chest, leaned into him and relented, “Okay.”

Because there was really nothing else to say.