GEORGIA BENNETT HAD believed that the lovemaking she had shared with Matteo Martini on that moonlit night in the Czech Republic had been the best she’d ever experienced.
She had been wrong.
The, oh, so gentle, heartbreakingly tender physical connection they’d inevitably shared when she’d led him to her bed that night had been something so extraordinary she was still stunned a week later.
Maybe it was due to the cathartic effect of talking about her childhood trauma for the first time. Of reliving such painful memories and then to find herself being cradled in arms that made her feel so safe.
She had definitely been about to tell Matteo the truth about her pregnancy right then because she had felt too drained to think about the consequences. She had still had to summon her courage, however, and he must have sensed how difficult it had been because he’d tried to make her feel even safer. He’d told her that she didn’t need to say anything else and she’d let herself believe him. Let herself fall into that safety net of his arms a little further.
Just for that one night, she’d promised herself.
She’d tell him tomorrow.
But tomorrow was always another day. Until today.
Georgia had known it was different from the moment she’d woken up at the sound of the front door of the cottage closing.
Something suddenly seemed urgent.
She was out of bed as fast as it was possible to be these days. Down the stairs faster than she should have, although she kept a firm hand on the bannister to keep her balance. She actually threw the door open, thinking she might have a chance to catch Matteo before he drove away, but she was too late.
‘I’m too late,’ she whispered aloud. ‘What am I going to do?’
She paced the floor of the sitting room. It wasn’t too late. She could tell him tonight. She would make dinner and tell Matteo how much she loved him.
And then she would tell him the truth about her pregnancy.
He was leaving to spend a few days with his family very soon and that might be a good thing because it could give him time to get used to the news.
With the decision definitively made, Georgia felt calmer. Not calm enough to crunch data and start writing up the first conclusions to do with her research project, however. She felt restless. Every time she sat down to try and work, she would think of something else that needed doing. Like putting the rubbish out and wiping down the kitchen bench and then—oddly—taking every single thing out of the fridge so she could simply clean the shelves and put it all back again.
She was nervous, she decided, when she was dusting the top of the bookshelf in the sitting room—a task that hadn’t been done for so long it would have been easy to write her name in the film covering the wood. No. She was impatient. She was finally ready to do the thing she should have done a long time ago and the hours were passing too slowly.
She spent most of the afternoon out in the garage, which was used for storage rather than as shelter for cars. It had a few old pieces of furniture in there. And the chest freezer that there was no room for in the house. Over the last month or more, it had also been used as a place to hide the fact that she was collecting so much baby gear. Two bassinets. Two car seats. A small mountain of baby clothes and nappies.
It needed sorting. To see what else she was missing.
By evening, that big task was completed and the house had never been so clean and tidy. Maybe the smell in the kitchen wasn’t on a par with Matteo’s lasagne but it would be good enough by the time the steaks were sizzling and could add their aroma to the baked potatoes already in the oven.
Georgia’s feet hurt after all the pacing about she had been doing all day.
Her back hurt, too, which was hardly surprising.
Not that it mattered. She forgot about any pain the moment she heard the tyres of Matteo’s car crunching to a halt on the gravel driveway.
Until the moment that the handle of the door turned and he was stepping into the kitchen.
She couldn’t think of anything but the pain then.
Because it had suddenly blossomed into a cramp that made her gasp aloud with its intensity. Made it imperative that she get hold of the back of that chair beside the little table so that she had some support and didn’t crumple to the floor.
‘Georgie?’ She could hear the thump of Matteo’s satchel hitting the floor. ‘Oh...no...’
He must be able to see what she was feeling—the rush of fluid down her legs that warned her that her waters had just broken.
The pain was still blinding her and Matteo was making it worse by making her move. Half-carrying her into the sitting room and then easing her onto the floor.
‘Don’t move,’ he told her.
Georgia covered her eyes with her hand. She couldn’t move even if she wanted to. How could this be happening so fast, with so little warning?
The first contraction had barely begun to fade when another one started.
She heard Matteo’s voice. Sharp, clipped instructions to the control room at the rescue base as he demanded an ambulance.
She had had warning, she realised, groaning aloud.
That restlessness hadn’t been impatience to get her confession to Matteo over with. And that back pain hadn’t been simply due to too much time on her feet.
Her doctor had even warned her last week, when she’d gone in for her antenatal check, that this could happen.
‘It’s twins,’ he’d reminded her. ‘They’re very likely to come a bit early. Things are getting pretty crowded in there.’
Matteo was crouching beside her now, a stack of the towels Georgia had refolded earlier today in his arms.
‘The ambulance is on its way,’ he told her. ‘We’ll probably hear the siren in no time at all.’
‘I don’t think it’s going to get here on time.’ Georgia was frightened now. ‘I can feel something happening. Oh, my God... I have to push...’
‘It’s okay...we’ve got this...’ She could feel Matteo’s hands as she pulled her legs up. Ripping her clothing clear. Pushing back...?
Of course...he was trying to slow a precipitous birth to keep the baby safe.
Georgia tried to pant and slow things down herself but her body wasn’t listening. Another contraction and another overwhelming urge to push so hard that she had red spots dancing on the back of her eyelids and a roaring sound in her ears.
It didn’t drown out the sound of Matteo’s calm voice, though.
‘Almost there... You’re doing great... That’s it...’
And then another sound cut through the noise in her head.
The warbling cry of a newly born infant.
Georgia struggled to push herself up on her elbows.
‘It’s a little girl,’ Matteo told her. ‘And she’s gorgeous. Look...’
He was holding her baby in his bare hands. A tiny, wrinkled red face was screwed up, ready to emit another cry.
‘You’ve done it, Georgie...she’s okay. Everything’s okay...’
‘No...’ Georgia’s head dropped back to the floor. ‘It’s not over... Oh...’ It was her turn to cry aloud as a new contraction built. ‘It’s twins, Matteo...’
‘What? How could you not have told me that?’
What she hadn’t told Matteo was the least of her worries at this moment. This pain was unbelievably intense. Matteo’s voice blurred into the sound of her firstborn crying. Her own cries. The faint background wail of an approaching siren...
* * *
Matteo had never been this afraid in his career.
He’d attended many births but this was so different, he felt like he had no idea of what he was doing.
He could see his hands doing all the things they needed to be doing but it was like watching hands that belonged to someone else.
His brain was detached.
Reeling...
Twins? How could Georgia have kept such important information a secret?
They’d become so close since she’d shared the terrible story behind that scar on her arm.
She’d wanted to tell him something else that night, hadn’t she?
But he’d stopped her.
Why?
Because he’d known that whatever it was she had been about to say was difficult? That maybe she hadn’t really wanted to tell him at all?
Again...why...?
Any baby was a miracle. Twins were something very special. He knew that. His sister had been doubly blessed with little Mita and Lia. It was something to celebrate, not hide...
Unless she had believed that, for some reason, it put her in jeopardy?
Somehow he kept his hands moving. The baby girl was small but looked fine. She was breathing well and nicely pink. He wrapped her in soft, clean towels to keep her warm and then turned his attention back to the arrival of her brother or sister. A breech delivery, this one, which kicked his focus sharply back into place. This one had to happen slowly. Gently.
He heard the sounds of the ambulance crew arriving, the bang of the door and the rattle of stretcher wheels behind him.
‘Don’t push,’ he warned Georgia. ‘It’s very important.’ He turned his head and spoke to the first paramedic to enter the room. ‘Grab some cushions off the couch, please. I need to get her hips higher than her shoulders.’
‘It’s a breech?’
‘Yep.’
‘You’re doing a great job, Georgie,’ the second paramedic said, depositing an oxygen cylinder and pack of gear onto the floor. ‘Couldn’t wait for us, huh? Looks like we’re only going to be a taxi to get you into hospital.’
Georgia wasn’t listening. ‘I have to push,’ she groaned.
‘Okay...we’ve got this...’ Matteo cradled the tiny buttocks that were on the move. A boy this time...and...thank goodness, he was going to be all right. His tiny limbs were twitching as soon as his head was delivered, his chest heaving as he made the immense effort of sucking in his very first breath.
‘I can’t believe it’s twins.’ The paramedic who seemed to know Georgia very well had picked up the baby wrapped in towels. ‘Good grief, champ, you’re good at keeping secrets, aren’t you?’
Matteo was lifting her son in his arms, ready to place him skin to skin with his mother as the other paramedic clamped and cut the cord. His gaze snagged Georgia’s.
Yes...she was good at keeping secrets all right...
‘Are they full term?’ the paramedic asked.
It felt as though Georgia was struggling to pull her gaze away from his but couldn’t quite manage it.
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘They’re nearly five weeks early.’
And there it was.
The ground seemed to be slipping away from beneath Matteo’s feet as he found the answer to all those unanswered questions.
This was why Georgia hadn’t told him.
Maybe it was also why he had shied away from allowing her to.
Because, even in the midst of the miracle of new life, it felt as if something important had just died.
* * *
The maternity ward of this old Edinburgh hospital was never really quiet.
Even in the earliest hours of this new day, there were sounds to be heard. The squeak of wheels or soft-soled shoes in the corridor, a phone ringing somewhere or a cry from a hungry baby.
That sound generated an odd tingling sensation in Georgia’s breasts and took her straight back to the miracle of feeding her babies for the first time, less than an hour ago, up in the neonatal intensive care unit.
She wanted to be there now. Had asked that she be allowed to stay beside their incubators all night, but the staff had been kind but firm. She needed to rest. She could come back as soon as she’d had a few hours of sleep and, in the meantime, her babies would have the very best of care.
She didn’t need to worry. Her babies were both healthy—just small enough to need their breathing monitored for a day or two. So she’d left them—those two tiny bundles, one with a soft, woolly blue hat and one with a pink one.
Not that there was any chance of sleeping just yet, despite an exhaustion like nothing she had ever experienced before. Propped up against her pillows, Georgia was floating on the sea of this huge new life, trying to catch and process everything that had happened in the last, tumultuous hours.
The fear that had come with that unexpectedly early and precipitous birth.
The fact that Matteo had delivered his own children.
The bombshell of him having to find that out in what was probably the worst possible way.
But all those things paled in comparison to the knowledge that she was now a mother. That her precious babies were healthy.
Her babies...
This room felt incredibly empty. The need to get up and go back to where they were was so strong that Georgia actually pushed the covers back on her bed and began to move, as she turned her head to look towards the light coming through the open door of her room.
Two things made her freeze.
One was the painful cramping in her belly.
The other was the silhouette of a silent figure standing in her doorway.
For a long, long moment, they simply stared at each other. As her eyes adjusted to the contrast in light, Matteo’s features became clearer and Georgia’s heart sank like a stone as she saw how tight they were.
As frozen as her body felt right now.
He stepped closer. Just as far as the end of the bed. Into the gentle light from her bedside table.
And now she could see his eyes and that made it all so much worse because he looked absolutely...devastated.
His words, when he finally spoke, were quiet. Calm even. He was just announcing a fact.
‘You lied to me.’
‘Not directly...’
A soft snort from Matteo made her ashamed of even going there.
‘You told me you were already pregnant the night that we were first together.’
Georgia swallowed hard. ‘Technically, I was. At the end...’
‘Stop this.’ The flicker of real anger in his eyes sent a chill down Georgia’s spine. ‘I don’t want to hear any more of your half-truths. You lied to me, even if it was just letting me believe something that wasn’t right, and you know it. Unless...’ He was closing his eyes as he spoke. ‘Unless there was someone else at Rakovi? And you didn’t know for sure who the father was? Is that what this cover-up was all about?’
‘No.’ That he could even think that was astonishingly painful. ‘There was no one else, Matteo. It was only you. It could only have been you.’
And she wasn’t only referring to the fathering of her babies. Matteo was the only man she could ever feel like this about. Love this much...
His eyes snapped open. ‘So these babies are mine, then.’
It had been painful enough when he’d been speaking with his eyes closed. This was way harder, being unable to look away from him and having to absorb his pain on top of her own.
‘Yes, Matteo. They’re yours.’
‘You’ve been lying to me every minute of every day that I’ve been with you, then, haven’t you?’
How could she even begin to try and explain why? Or to tell him that she’d just been waiting for the combination of the right moment and enough courage? That she loved him...
He wouldn’t want to hear any of it. Not now.
It was too late.
‘I’m...sorry,’ she whispered.
Another huff of sound came from Matteo. The note of something like despair in it took her down to a new low.
‘You’ve stolen something from me that I can never, ever get back.’ There was a moment’s silence where she could see that Matteo was fighting for control. ‘The knowledge that my first baby was being born. My first children...’ His control slipped and his voice cracked. ‘I held those babies as they took their first breaths and...and I didn’t know that...that they were mine...’
There was nothing that she could say. He was right. She had stolen something so huge it was unforgiveable. It made no difference at all now that she hadn’t intended to. That even a few hours more would have changed everything.
The silence was unnerving.
‘Have...have you been to see them?’
‘Not yet. I had to come here first. To find out the truth.’
Not to find out how she was?
Did that mean he didn’t care any more?
Had this revelation changed everything between them to that extent?
The emotion of everything that had happened today and what was happening now were becoming too much. A heavy weight that was pressing down on Georgia and making it hard to breathe. The fear that she was losing Matteo was the final straw and she had no resources left to fight the painful prickling behind her eyes.
She never cried.
But right now a huge, fat tear was slowly trickling down the side of her nose. She should be caring for those babies.
With Matteo by her side.
It was never going to happen, though, was it?
‘I can’t trust you.’ The words were weighted with sadness. Disappointment. Heartache. ‘You’re the mother of my children and the woman I love but...but I can’t trust you. You told me that you loved me... But maybe you lied about that, too.’
Georgia rolled her head from side to side, denying his assumption, but Matteo wasn’t looking at her now. He was turning away.
And then she rewound the words she had just heard a little further. He could still say he loved her? A tiny flare of something like hope flickered in the darkness of her fear.
‘Please don’t go... Stay...’
Matteo shook his head. A single, sharp movement. ‘I can’t. I need time to think.’ He stepped towards the door. ‘And...I need to go and meet my children.’
Georgia nodded slowly. ‘Of course.’ She rubbed at the unfamiliar moisture on her face and started to slide off the bed. ‘I’ll come with you.’
She needed to be there when Matteo was with their babies. To share his first moment with them knowing he was their father.
Because it was huge. As big as their first moments in the world.
‘No.’ The single word was like a physical blow. ‘I don’t want you to come with me. I... I can’t think straight when I’m near you. I need to do this on my own.’
She pulled in a shaky breath. ‘Will you come back...later?’
The question seemed to surprise Matteo. He paused but didn’t turn around as he reached the door.
‘I don’t know.’
The room had felt empty before, because her babies weren’t with her.
It felt infinitely more empty after their father had left.
Another tear rolled down Georgia’s face. And then another.
Maybe he would never come back...
She sank back onto her pillows, wrapping her arms around one of them because she really, really needed something to hold.
Exhaustion was bleeding into the darkness of this empty room and softening the edges of the awful aching in her heart.
She could escape all of it, couldn’t she? At least for a little while. She just needed to give in to this crippling tiredness. And maybe...when she woke up...she might even find it had all just been a nightmare.
* * *
They knew who Matteo was as soon as he arrived at the neonatal intensive care unit and introduced himself.
Somehow, that astonished him.
Georgia had been lying to him for so long and yet she’d announced the truth to the world by officially naming him as the father of these children? That she had was confirmed by the labels on the incubators he was led towards.
Bennett/Martini: Twin One and Twin Two.
Not that this public confession made any difference.
Not when she’d had a million opportunities to tell him and she had chosen not to. Matteo was still reeling. Trapped in the darkness of what felt like an ultimate betrayal.
‘You can hold them,’ the nurse told him. ‘They’re only in the incubators to make use of the apnoea alarms. Sit here and I’ll take them out for you.’
Matteo sat in the comfortable armchair and the nurse lifted one tiny bundle and then the other, to place the twins in his arms.
‘I’ll leave you alone to get to know each other for a bit.’ She smiled. ‘But do you want me to take a photo first?’
‘Not yet...’
He knew he wouldn’t be able to smile. He might even have tears rolling down his face if the wash of emotion he was feeling right now was anything to go by.
This was...
Like nothing he could identify.
He could relate to it, of course. Like when he’d held Arlo shortly after his birth and had experienced that wave of love and pride for the new member of the Martini clan.
But this was so different.
These were his very own children.
He had just stepped into his long-held dream of being a father.
No. He hadn’t stepped. He’d been pushed in such a dramatic fashion it felt like he’d been hit by a truck he hadn’t seen coming.
But that didn’t seem to be making any difference right now. He was here and...and it was...amazing...
He could feel the weight of each baby nestled in the crook of each arm. He could see their little button noses and wisps of dark hair from beneath the blue and pink hats. He could hear the adorable snuffling sounds and soft squeaks of tiny humans who were getting used to their new existence of living and breathing on their own.
They were only a couple of hours old.
And it didn’t seem to matter so much now that he hadn’t known he was their father as they’d entered the world. A lot of fathers missed the actual delivery of their children, especially when they arrived unexpectedly early. He could have known and then missed the moment by something as simple as being caught in a traffic jam. Georgia hadn’t stolen something irrevocable from him because it wasn’t making any difference to this bonding process. To this genesis of being someone totally new.
A father...
The love he felt for these tiny beings was swamping him.
It was the most beautiful thing in the world but...but there was a fear there as well.
The fear of something bad happening to them.
Matteo had always been protective of the people he loved but this new determination to guarantee safety was so fierce it was painful.
Did Georgia feel like this, too?
Of course she did.
She had probably felt like this from the moment she’d known she was carrying these babies.
He’d seen the fear in her eyes that night, hadn’t he? When he’d surprised her by arriving to be Luke’s best man at his wedding.
She hadn’t wanted him to know the truth because...
Because she’d lived her whole life being afraid of her own father.
Would he break his own iron-clad rules of not being dishonest if he thought it could be the guarantee that would keep these precious babies safe?
Yes. In a heartbeat.
And Georgia had been right, hadn’t she? Technically, she hadn’t told a lie. She had done what he might have done himself, if he’d believed he was protecting these babies.
She had been prepared to walk away from the love they had found for each other, if that had been what it took to keep her babies safe.
Did that mean he could forgive her?
Did he love her that much? As much as the love he was feeling for his first-born children?
An image of Georgia filled his mind. Sitting on that bed looking so pale and exhausted.
Looking as afraid as she’d been when he’d first arrived back in her life.
Crying...
She never cried. He should have taken her into his arms as soon as he’d seen that tear trickling down her face but, instead, he’d only been thinking of himself.
Of how hurt he was by the deception. How angry he was that he’d had the most important moment in his life stolen from him.
Matteo bent his head, to place the softest kiss ever on the forehead of his son. And another one for his daughter.
Nothing had been stolen from him. He had, in fact, received the biggest gift he could ever get.
He turned his head to catch the glance of the nurse.
He was ready to have that photograph taken now.
Then he was going to take the image back down to the maternity ward and show it to Georgia.
And he was going to tell her that he understood. That he had already forgiven her.
He just had to hope that she loved him enough to forgive him for his selfishness now. That there was a way they could get past it all and make this brand-new family what it could be.
Perfect...
They knew who he was on the maternity ward, too, but the nurse who intercepted him wasn’t about to make things easy.
‘Georgia’s finally asleep,’ she told him. ‘Please don’t disturb her. It’s really important that she gets some rest.’
‘I won’t disturb her,’ he promised. ‘Let me just sit in her room with her so I can be there when she wakes up.’
But the nurse shook her head. ‘Go home. Get some rest yourself and come back in the morning. It’s not that long to wait.’
It felt too long.
Matteo stood in the corridor of the ward, reluctant to leave by pushing his way through the swing doors. Not that he intended to go home. He would wait in the seating area near the elevators.
He still had his phone in his hand and it was a comfort to look at that image that had just been recorded of him holding those bundles that were his babies. His smile said all that needed to be said about how he felt. About how much love he had to give.
He could send the image to Georgia, couldn’t he? Even if he wasn’t here the moment she woke up, she could see that image and she would know that he was coming back.
Maybe she would even believe that he had already forgiven her.
But the text wouldn’t send.
Oh...of course. He’d put his phone on airplane mode so that it couldn’t interfere with any hospital equipment like IV pumps.
He flicked it back, but before he could try sending the image again he heard the sound of an incoming text. And a buzz that indicated a missed call.
Two missed calls...no, make that four...five?
What on earth was going on?
He went to voicemail and waited. Had his family somehow known what he hadn’t known? That he’d become a father?
No. His sister’s voice was anything but happy.
‘Matti? Where are you? Why aren’t you answering your phone?’
The stifled sob he could hear sent a chill down Matteo’s spine.
‘You need to come home. Mama’s in hospital...we think that she’s had a heart attack...’
It was easy to push those swing doors open now.
Not just to leave the maternity ward but to do so at a run.