Resisting Nick (Wicked in Wellington) (25 page)

 
“Nick, I can’t.
We
can’t. Not after Monday. Not after I found those panties in your desk.”

He looked puzzled for a moment and then let out a whoop of laughter. “Jesus! No, Sammie. Is that what this is about?”

A huge smile lit up his face and she nearly slapped him.

“No, of course it’s not. You knew I was going. I’d already booked my ticket. But don’t joke about them, Nick.”

“Then don’t look at me like that. They were only Julie’s.”

Even worse. The P.A. before me. Does he sleep with us all?
 

She made a grab for her cabin bag, but he deflected her easily. Simply held her gaze and said, “It was the poker night before last. Julie insisted on joining in, had too much to drink, lost her money, and decided to turn it into strip poker.”

Sammie’s mouth dropped open.

“Yeah, not too appropriate for a work situation. So Rich took her home and I found them behind a chair next day. We never saw her again. What was I supposed to do with them?”

“Post them?” Sammie suggested, mind whirling, trying to keep a straight face and failing. “That’s not the way Tyler explained things.”

“Cam was there. She didn’t need to know her replacement had ripped her panties off in front of her husband.” He reached over and cradled her face in his hand, running his thumb lightly across her lips.
 

Sammie wasn’t letting him off that easily. “You could have thrown them out.”

“If I’d known they’d upset you so much, I would have.”

“Hmmmm…”

Nick quirked a dark eyebrow. “So back to the real stuff. Are you coming to Italy with me? There’s no way I want to end things. The last few weeks have been amazing.”
 

She sniffed away her tears with a noise that would have dismayed Grandma. Half-laugh, half snort. “Yes, they weren’t bad, were they?”

“Even though you thought those stupid panties were...?”

“I didn’t!”

“You did too,” he teased.

“Well what would
you
have thought?” Her smile spread way out of control and her heart threatened to beat its way out through her ribs. He loved every bone in her body? He wanted to travel with her? Maybe her dream had become reality after all?
 

“I choose Italy this time,” he added. “You can choose where we go after that. BodyWork can wait for a while.”
 

She moved aside as though to get out of the way of other people depositing their luggage, but really it was to gain more privacy. Her heart felt ready to explode, and she looked up at him with shining eyes.

Nick set her bags down again and held out his arms. She took the last small step toward him, and he wrapped her in a fierce embrace. “Sammie,” he sighed. “Don’t ever scare me like that again. I’m so sorry for the way things went. My niece is desperately ill. Because of that I found out I was adopted. Tyler left me. Julie left me. Auckland needed launching, Sydney kicked in full-speed. Things were so bad and so busy I think I lost my mind and my sense for a while there.”

She tilted her head up, hoping for a kiss. And Nick obliged with such thoroughness that anyone could have stolen her luggage and she’d never have noticed.

Epilogue

“Via della Repubblica,” Sammie read from the street-sign.

“So we’ve found it.” Nick’s expression sat halfway between expectation and terror.
 

He’d chosen clothes he hoped looked impressive but casual, successful but artlessly put together. After all, it was his previously unacknowledged mother he hoped to meet. Only one chance to make a good first impression—right?

“And we’ll find her too,” Sammie assured him. “Even if she’s not home today, one of the neighbors will know about her. Or the local priest, or someone else.”

“Number sixty-three.” He stared up the steep and pretty incline. “Near the end.”

They walked hand in hand up all the shallow steps, past centuries-old houses, until they reached the final property. It sat close to the street—a double storied stone building with a smoky-mauve front door. Mossy pots crammed with yellow and purple pansies and deep blue trailing lobelia crouched in colorful welcome, and a whimsical topiaried tree sat a little apart from them.

“Here goes nothing.” Nick pressed his lips together and raised his other hand to the iron doorknocker. Sammie gripped his fingers even more tightly.

He rapped twice, and the noise echoed through the house. His heart thumped at least as hard.

A few seconds later the door swung open and a dark haired woman in a soft grey dress and pearl-drop earrings looked at them enquiringly. Then her serenity crumpled.

“Niccolo?” She gasped, and clutched the bodice of her dress, pressing it against her heart.

“And Sammie,” he said, wondering what to do next.

Silvia’s big eyes darted from him to Sammie, from Sammie back to him. It was almost fifteen years since he’d last seen her. The quiet drab woman he remembered from boyhood had acquired polish and style. Was this really her?

Sammie stepped closer. “I brought your son to meet you.”
 

“Niccolo,” Silvia repeated, leaning on the doorframe for support. “I never think...
entrare, entrare
, come in.”

Her accent was strong, but her English was fine after so many years at the orchard.
 

She reached out a graceful olive-skinned hand with nails painted deep red and laid it on his arm to draw him into the house.

“I never think, expect, see you again.” Tears slipped down her cheeks. “Sammie—hello. You brought my boy.
Grazie, grazie.”
 

Her eyes fastened avidly on his again.
 

“How handsome, you. A mother can say this, yes?” Her hand curled around his arm.

Nick shrugged and grinned—pleased, scared, thrilled, lost, found. “How beautiful, you. A son can say this in return?”

“Niccolo.” She murmured his name and pulled him along a shadowy hallway to a large sunny room filled with books and plants.
 

He gulped a fast breath, suddenly speechless. He’d expected Aunt Felicity’s shy housekeeper to be way over sixty. Remembered her in no detail at all, despite the few photos Sammie had given him. Now, in the lighter room, he saw she was much younger. She must have been pregnant with him while still almost a girl.

Sammie filled the gap by saying, “We didn’t know if we’d find you today, but there was a postcard in one of Grandma’s old diaries with your address.”
 

“She always writing, writing,” Silvia agreed. “Sit. I make you coffee?”

But she sank instead onto a sofa with Nick, still clutching his arm and drinking him in with her big soft eyes.

“I suppose we shocked you,” he finally said.

“Good shock. Nice shock. Ah Niccolo, I wish for this day long time. I never think it come.”

“I didn’t know I was adopted until a few weeks ago. No-one told me. Never knew you were my mother until Sammie did some detective work.”

“Old, old secret,” she agreed. “I wish...I want...tell you why. Keeping my baby,
non e possibile.”

More tears spilled down her soft cheeks, and she buried her head in her hands. Her shoulders shuddered as she wept. Sammie came to his aid, producing a small travel pack of tissues from her bag and placing them on Silvia’s lap.

“All in the past now,” she soothed. “And you must have been very young.”

“Twenty-two,” Silvia murmured
. “Studenti—
me and Dante.”

She blotted her eyes and sighed heavily. Then she stood and walked over to an antique bookcase topped with a collection of silver-framed photos. Her fingers danced across them and stopped. She brought him back a young man straddling a motor cycle, head thrown back laughing. “Your
Papa
. Dante Niccolo Giordano. You are Niccolo Dante for his memory.”

Nick blinked several times so he could focus on the man who looked so like him.
 

I’m not Nicholas David. And my parents were married.

He swallowed hard. Silent seconds ticked by. “Memory?” he croaked.

“
Si
. He love that machine but one day it do not love him.” She shrugged and reached across to touch Nick’s face, brushing at tears he hadn’t registered. “No be sad. Long time ago.”

Nick took the photo from her with trembling hands and just stared. His own dark wavy hair. His own long legs supporting the motor cycle. His own smile.

Sammie had seated herself again, and while he lost himself with the father he’d never meet, he dimly heard her engaging Silvia in quiet conversation about a book on the low marble table between them. A sumptuous big book full of botanical paintings. Finally he glanced up from his father’s photo.

Sammie seemed to know it wasn’t time to pry. “Look, Nick—your Mom’s a painter.”

Relieved, he bent forward to examine the work and saw the artistry of the small butterfly painting Sammie had given him, but multiplied a thousand times.

“All yours?” he asked in a choked voice.

“
Si—
is what I do.”

“So I have a famous mother?”

Silvia sent him a shaky smile and a ‘maybe/maybe not’ waggle of her hand.

“A very clever one, for sure,” Sammie said.

“Better than when I paint with your grandmother,” she agreed. “I had plant degree so I could stay in New Zealand. Help her. Learn my painting. See my boy.”

Somewhere deep inside, Nick felt steel bands unhinging, and the desperate grip they’d had on his soul starting to relax. So he truly hadn’t been deserted? His mother had watched over him as best she could, never giving in to the no-doubt terrible temptation to reveal who she really was and disrupt his life. How much strength must that have taken?
 

He passed the silver-framed photo across to Sammie. She examined it intently for a few seconds, then smiled at him as she set it down beside his mother’s book.
 

“You’re so like your Dad, Nick. This could be you. Now by some miracle, you’ve solved two mysteries—found
both
your parents. That’s more than we expected.”

 
Something in Sammie’s tone must have turned Silvia’s maternal radar on, because her eyes brightened with enquiry and a mischievous smile tweaked at her lips. She’d detected something stronger than friendship between him and his childhood friend.
 

“You and my little Sammie?” she teased, looking from one to the other of them.

“Me and Sammie—and now you—against the whole damn world,” he agreed, stretching his arms across the table and reaching for the hands of both his women.

The End

Reviews on Amazon are always welcome. Authors write because we want to share our stories, so please help to get the word out by leaving your comments on the page where you brought this book.

Presenting Kris Pearson’s
Wicked in Wellington
series:

Romances, set in New Zealand’s capital city, that sizzle with love, life and laughter

—Wicked in Wellington—

The Boat Builder’s Bed

Seduction on the Cards

The Wrong Sister

Out of Bounds

Resisting Nick

***

The Boat Builder’s Bed

A windy day...a flyaway signboard...a hideous crunch. Sophie Calhoun can’t imagine how she’ll pay for the damage to the luxurious car.

Already cash-strapped, she’s struggling to launch her new interior design studio and make a home for her daughter. She’s only days away from disaster.

Out of the sleek black Jaguar storms super-yacht tycoon Rafe Severino. Steaming mad. Totally gorgeous. And desperately in need of a top-line decorator for his spectacular new harbor-side mansion.

Sophie fears her dream contract comes with strings that tie her to the boat-builder’s bed. No matter how she tries to escape, he’s always there - implacable and irresistible.

She knows he doesn’t want a preoccupied single mother, but concealing her daughter’s existence from the man she’s falling in love with is getting harder and harder. If he discovers her lies, she’ll instantly lose everything.

Warning: contains one determined golden-skinned man who knows his way around boats, bodies and bed-sheets.

Praise for
The Boat Builder’s Bed

Reading this was a vacation to New Zealand. It was
well written, fast paced, and a total joy
… A classic romance written with style. I’ll be reading more from this author.
(Amazon)

I was after a relaxing, laid-back romance with a touch of whimsy and enough steam to make my Sunday afternoon interesting. I certainly got it. In fact,
it’s one of the best contemporary romances I’ve read
.
(Amazon)

Excerpt
:

Rafe Severino pounded his fist on the steering wheel in time with the old Rolling Stones anthem. The Stones weren’t getting any ‘satisfaction’ and neither was he. His company, Severino Superyachts New Zealand, seemed unstoppable. Personally though, Rafe was lost in the desert.
 

And he knew it.
 

He hated that his marriage had been a mess. Hated being the last son to establish his own family. Hated the way his parents fawned over his younger brothers and their kids—and barely acknowledged his existence.
 

He hated even more that he let it matter.

Ahead of him a truck swung out across the road prior to reversing into an alley. Rafe slowed and then stopped to give the driver space.

 
The wind from the sea had risen. A flag flapped and rattled on a nearby pole. An empty Coke can tumbled along the gutter. Inside his Jaguar with the volume up high, Rafe saw both but heard neither. ‘Satisfaction’ seemed a long way off.