He pulled her against him and kissed her then, soothed and excited her with just the expert caress of his lips. Catherine sighed with pleasure and then with slight irritation when he stopped, and opened her eyes to find him looking at her rather sternly.
‘This changes everything, you know.’
‘I know it does. No more sleep, for a start!’
But he shook his head. ‘You know what I’m talking about, Catherine.’
That was just the problem. She didn’t. Or rather, she didn’t dare think about it. Hence her attempt at a joke.
His eyes were burning into her with such intensity—so blue, so beguiling. ‘This baby cements what we have between us. You know that, don’t you?’
It wasn’t the most romantic way he could have put it, but then, whoever said anything about romance? She and Finn were about compatibility and maturity and making the best of a situation they had not chosen. And making the best of things was surely a sound bedrock from which to work?
She recognised, too, that Finn would do all in his power to make sure their relationship flourished—for the sake of Mollie if for nothing else.
She nodded, her eyelids dropping to hide her eyes, afraid that he might see traces of wistful longing there.
‘Catherine,’ he commanded. ‘Look at me.’
She lifted her head and met the soft blue stare.
‘Living with you is so easy,’ he murmured. ‘In so many ways.’ There was a pause. ‘You make me happy,’ he added simply, and he lifted her fingertips to his lips and kissed them.
And if Catherine’s heart ached to hear more then she was just being greedy. She made him happy—he had said so. And he made her happy. Which was more than most people had. Expecting those three lit tle words said more about society’s conventions and expectations than anything else. For how many people said ‘I love you’ and then proceeded to act as if they didn’t? Why, Peter had said it, and then he had run off with someone else!
No, she would count her blessings—and they were legion.
They made each other happy.
Who could ask for anything more than that?
Epilogue
EPILOGUE
CATHERINE sighed a contented sigh. ‘Not exactly a conventional honeymoon, is it?’
Finn glanced up from sleepy eyes. In the distance, the dark blue waters lapped rhythmically onto the sand. ‘Well, it was never a conventional relationship, was it, sweetheart?’ he asked sleepily.
‘Finn Delaney, will you wake up and talk to me properly?’
He rolled over onto his back, screwing his eyes up against the bright sunshine, and gave a lazy smile. ‘It’s all your fault, Mrs Delaney—if you didn’t make such outrageous demands on me every minute of every day, then I might be able to keep my eyes open!’
Catherine rubbed a bit more sun-cream onto her tanned arm. ‘And you honestly think that Mollie will be okay?’
He propped himself up on one elbow. ‘With your mother and Finola looking after her? And Aisling having to be forcibly restrained from dragging her off to the beach every second? Are you kidding, sweetheart? Sounds like bliss for a two-year-old, to me!’
‘Mmm. I guess you’re right.’
‘And anyway—’ he pulled her into his arms, feeling the stickiness of the lotion on her skin and pushing his hips against hers in a decidedly provocative way ‘—I thought we’d decided to do things more conventionally from now on?’
She kissed his neck. ‘Mmm.’ The church wedding had been conventional enough—even though she had balked at wearing full white bridal regalia. But the snazzy silk suit in softest ivory, purchased from a shop in Grafton Street, had certainly won Finn’s approval! And so had the miniature duplicate she had secretly ordered for Mollie!
They had flown out to Pondiki that same afternoon, to discover that Nico had himself found a bride, and was soon to be a father!
Finn gazed at her. ‘Are you happy, Catherine?’
‘It’s a way of travelling, Finn,’ she reminded him. ‘Not a—Finn!’ For he had pulled her onto her back and was lying above her, his gorgeous face only an inch away.