Best Friend to Wife and Mother?

The seatbelt light went off with a little ping, and Leo undid his lap strap and swung his seat round slightly as Julie approached them with a smile.

‘Fancy a drink, Amy?’ Leo asked her. ‘Something to eat?’

Amy laughed. ‘Eat? I couldn’t eat another thing! That picnic was absolutely amazing. I’m still stuffed.’

‘Well, let’s just hope everyone enjoyed it. I’ll have a cappuccino, Julie, please. Amy?’

‘That would be lovely, thank you.’

Julie smiled and nodded, disappeared to the galley area behind the cockpit and left Amy to her thoughts. They weren’t comfortable. All those people who’d travelled miles to see her married, and here she was running away with Leo and leaving them all in the lurch when she should have been there apologising to them.

‘I wonder if they’re all still there having a post-mortem on the death of my common sense?’ she murmured absently. ‘At least a lot of them turned up to eat the food. It would have been a shame to waste it.’

‘I imagine most of them will have left by now—and your common sense didn’t die, it just woke up a bit late in the day.’

‘Maybe.’ She sighed, and smiled at him ruefully. ‘The food really was amazing, you know. I’m glad I got to try it. Do you know how long it is since you cooked for me?’ she added wistfully, and he gave a soft huff of laughter.

‘Years.’

‘It is. At least four. Five, probably. You did it a lot when my father died. I used to come and hang out in your restaurant while I was at uni and you’d throw something together for us when you’d finished, or test a recipe out on me. I’ve missed that.’

‘Me, too. I’m sorry. My life’s been a bit chaotic since the television series.’

Well, that was the understatement of the century. ‘So I gather,’ she said mildly. ‘And you’ve opened the new restaurant. That can’t have been easy with a new wife and a baby on the way.’

A shadow flitted through his eyes and he looked away, his smile suddenly strained. ‘No. It took a lot of my time. Too much.’

So much that their marriage had fallen apart? If they’d even had a marriage in the real sense. It didn’t sound like it, but she knew very little more than he’d just told her and the rest was rumours in the gutter press. They’d had a field day, but his parents didn’t talk about it, and until today she’d hardly seen Leo since before his marriage.

All she knew was what had been in the paper, that Lisa had been knocked down by a car late one stormy night and had died of her injuries, and the coroner had returned a verdict of accidental death. Ella had been tiny—two months old? Maybe not even that. And Leo had been left with a motherless baby, a new business venture that demanded his attention and a television contract he’d had to put on hold. Small wonder she hadn’t seen him.

‘Your cappuccino, Miss Driver.’

The drink was set down in front of her, and she flashed a distracted smile at Julie and picked up her spoon, chasing the sprinkled chocolate flakes around in the froth absently.

His hand came out and rested lightly on her arm, stilling it. ‘It’ll be all right, Amy,’ he murmured, which made her smile. Trust Leo to be concerned for her when actually she was worrying about him.

‘I’m fine,’ she assured him. And she was, she realised. A little stunned, a little bemused almost at the turn of events, but Leo was whisking her away from it all so fast she didn’t have time to dwell on it, and that could only be a good thing.

She pulled out her little pocket camera and pointed it at him. ‘Smile for the birdie!’

‘Make sure you get my good side.’

She lowered the camera and cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘You have a good side?’

He rolled his eyes, that lazy grin kicking up his mouth and dimpling his right cheek, and her heart turned over. She clicked the button, turned to get an interior shot while her heart settled, and clicked again.

‘Day one of your Tuscan tour blog,’ she said lightly, and he laughed.

She caught it, grinned at him and put the camera away.

* * *

They landed shortly before five o’clock, and by five thirty they’d picked up the hire car and were on their way to the palazzo. Ella was whingeing a little, so he pulled over in a roadside caffè and ordered them coffee and pastries while he fed her from a pouch of pureed baby food.

It galled him to do it, but it wouldn’t kill her. It was organic, nutritionally balanced, and had the massive advantage that it was easy. He had enough fish to fry at the moment without worrying about Ella.

He glanced up and met Amy’s eyes. She was watching him, a strange expression on her face, and he tipped his head questioningly.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Just—I’ve never really got used to the thought of you as a father, but you seem very comfortable with her.’

He looked back at Ella, his heart filling with love. ‘I am. I didn’t know what it would be like, but I love it—love her, more than I could ever have imagined loving anyone. She’s the most precious thing that’s ever happened to me.’

Amy’s smile grew wistful. ‘It shows,’ she murmured, and he thought of all the plans she’d mentioned that she’d walked away from, all the things she’d sacrificed. Like starting a family. And if he hadn’t interfered...

She might have ended up in the same mess as him, he reminded himself, bringing up a child on her own after the disastrous end of a doomed relationship.

‘Amy, it’ll happen for you, when the time’s right,’ he told her softly, and she gave a wry little smile that twisted his heart.

‘I know. But I have to warn you, I don’t know anything about babies so it won’t hurt to practise on Ella so I can make my mistakes first with someone else’s child.’

He chuckled, ruffling Ella’s dark curls gently. ‘You won’t make mistakes, and even if you do, you won’t break her. She’s pretty resilient.’

Her wry smile turned to a grimace. ‘That’s probably just as well. She might need to be.’

‘Chill, Amy. She’s just a little person. She’ll let you know what she needs.’

‘Yeah, if you can mind-read a ten-month-old baby,’ she said drily, but the smile reached her eyes now and he let his breath out on a quiet sigh of relief. She’d been hanging by a thread ever since she’d turned her back on Nick, and it had taken till now before he’d felt absolutely sure that she’d done the right thing. Having a baby with the wrong person was a disaster, and that’s what she could have done if everything had gone to plan.

Which let him off the hook a bit on the guilt front.

‘Here, you can start practising now. Give her the rest of this so I can drink my coffee, could you, please?’ he asked, handing her the pouch and spoon and sitting back to watch. Amy took it cautiously, offered it to Ella, and the baby obediently sucked the gloop from the spoon, to Amy’s delight and his relief. Contrary to her predictions, they seemed to be getting on fine. ‘There—see?’ he said lightly. ‘Easy.’

She threw him a cheeky grin and put the empty pouch down. ‘Well, this end was easy, but I think she’ll need her daddy for the other one. I can only master one skill at a time and there’ll be plenty of time to learn about that later.’

He laughed, put his cup down and scooped up Ella and the changing bag. ‘I’m sure there’ll be lots of opportunities.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ she said drily, but her wry, affectionate smile warmed his heart and he was suddenly fiercely glad that she’d come with them.

* * *

By the time the sun was getting low on the western horizon, they were turning onto the broad gravelled drive leading up to the Palazzo Valtieri.

The track dipped and wound along the valley floor, and then rose up the hill through an avenue of poplars to a group of stone buildings on the top, flushed rose by the setting sun.

‘I think that’s the palazzo,’ he told her, and Amy felt her jaw drop.