God—she breathed in deep—did he have to remind her with every word, with every sentence? But he was right. ‘That’s a good idea. What did you get?’
He flicked through some of the titles. Most she recognised as classics. She stopped him when he got to Possum Magic. The Mem Fox book had been a favourite of hers when she was a child. She remembered her mother reading it to her at bed time. ‘That one,’ she said. ‘Maybe you should start with that one.’
He looked a little uncertain, as if wondering if his idea was a mistake, so she just stared out of the windows so he wouldn’t feel self-conscious and left it up to him.
‘Once upon a time,’ she heard, and already she was smiling. She knew the book practically by heart. She loved the story of Grandma Poss and Hush and the bush magic that made Hush invisible and the quest to make him visible again. She’d loved it when her mother had read it at bed time. And now, hearing the story come to life in Dominic’s deep tones, she loved it even more.
This baby would so love bed times, she was sure. All too soon it was over. He finished the story, closed the book. ‘Do you think it would be all right to do another one?’
She smiled and sat back in her chair and listened to him read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Time for Bed, thinking she’d been so very wrong about Mr Dominic Pirelli and about how he cared about nothing except money, and how he might make an excellent father indeed.
And how this child might end up being so very, very lucky…
She felt the brush of something soft against her forehead. She felt the sway of movement. She stirred, wondering where she was, wondering why she felt so warm and safe when the ground was shifting below her.
And then she came to, to find herself in his arms. He smiled down at her. ‘You fell asleep. Apparently, I tell a pretty effective bed time story.’
Half-asleep, she smiled back up at him, trying not to think too hard about how warm his body felt against her and how good it felt to be in his arms. ‘You’ll make one hell of a father.’
‘You missed the last story,’ he told her as he entered her suite.
‘Which one was that?’ She was sure she’d heard all of Time for Bed.
He laid her amongst the cloud-soft covers of her bed, kissed her softly on her brow. ‘Tucking Mummy In.’
They settled into somewhat of a routine after that. Dominic would leave early in the morning for the office. Angelina would walk along the cliff tops or swim in the pool and then she’d read or help Rosa during the day. And after dinner Dominic would sit with Angelina and read to his baby. Sometimes picture books, sometimes longer chapter books, and she would sit and get lulled to sleep herself by the sound of his deep voice.
What she wouldn’t give to be there to see this child listening to its father’s voice, to see its tiny eyelids droop before it drifted into sleep.
But before she could get maudlin about what she would miss, the delivery van from the baby shop arrived, a truckload of purchases unloaded, including all the paint and paper she’d need to decorate the nursery.
And Angie put on overalls and headed for the nursery, amused by her own cunning. He wouldn’t let her get a real job? Too bad. She’d make this one real in that case.
Rosa had arranged for the furniture to be removed from a small room nearest the master suite. The rest of it was up to Angie. It was the perfect room, with its own sitting room that would make a great play room, they’d all decided. Angie tried her hardest to stifle a concern that it was too far away from Rosa’s room in case the baby cried, but Rosa calmly reminded her of the baby monitors they’d ordered and said it would all work out fine, so who was she to argue? Her job was to create the child a nursery.
Which was exactly what she was doing.
She spent the days cleaning the walls; she scrubbed the skirtings free of dust where they’d been hidden behind furniture. And then she prepped and painted.
The guaranteed toxic-free baby-safe paint went on like a dream. The colours were superb and with each layer she felt she was creating something special. This baby would have the best nursery ever.
By the time Dominic came home each night, she would usually be found helping Rosa in the kitchen, baking bread or running fresh sheets of pasta through a machine to make fettucine.