Thinking of close eyes brought Sebastian’s gaze back to Ruby. Lord, but she had one lush figure, even more so now that she was expecting. A smile spread across his face at the thought that they were going to have a child together. It was an amazing thought, really, considering that before he met Ruby he hadn’t even wanted to get married again. She’d changed him, that was for sure. For the better, according to Zack. Then again, she’d changed Zack too, made him see that he too could commit to one woman and be happy. Apparently, he and Susan were very serious about each other, which pleased Sebastian no end. Zack deserved to be happy.
‘You’re looking very pleased with yourself,’ Ruby whispered after her brothers had unhanded her and returned to their seats.
‘I am. I was just thinking what a lucky man I am to be marrying a girl as gorgeous as you. By the way, I love that dress.’
Ruby smiled. ‘Oliver and Liam said you’d like it.’
He grinned at her. ‘Did they now?’
The celebrant clearing his throat brought them back to the present moment.
‘Shall we begin?’ he asked quietly.
‘Fire away,’ Ruby said, loud enough for some of the guests to hear, since they laughed.
It was a happy ceremony. And a quick one. Zack produced the rings on cue and all was over within minutes, and Sebastian kissed her enthusiastically and passionately. Everyone stood up and clapped, with more photos being taken than at Sydney’s opening ceremony.
Guests said afterwards it was the best wedding they’d ever been to.
Ava Frieda Marshall made her entrance into the world by Caesarean section three weeks early, weighing just over two kilos. Despite being small, she was extremely healthy. Jack Henry Marshall followed his sister by only a minute. He was a more robust three kilos, screaming his head off and making his presence known as only boys could. Sebastian and Ruby had known they were expecting twins but they could not have anticipated, however, the rush of love that overwhelmed them both at the actual arrival of their son and daughter. Sebastian cried as he videoed everything, Ruby in tears herself. Frieda blubbered away on a chair in the corner, having almost fainted at one stage. But she recovered quickly when Sebastian put Ava into her arms.
‘Oh, what a precious little darling she is.’
Ruby never relented on hiring a nanny but Frieda came to stay for the first couple of months. And she was a great help. After that, Frieda came often. Jack, surprisingly, developed into a cruisy baby, despite his noisy arrival at the hospital. Ava fretted a little with colic for the first few weeks and often would not settle until her father came home to rock her to sleep in his arms. Zack and Susan were godparents at their christening, stunning Sebastian and Ruby when they announced they were expecting a little bundle of their own. They married just before their daughter Delvine, named after Zack’s mother, was born. Naturally, Sebastian and Ruby were her godparents. In the years to come, the four adults and three children would often go on holidays together.
Battle at the Bar went on to be the most successful show on Australian TV for a decade, watched all over the world. It was also the winner of many awards, which Ruby displayed around the house along with a plethora of family photos. Ruby eventually achieved her ambition to get a degree in social science, working part-time as a high-school counsellor after her own precious twins started school.
The principal said she was the best counsellor they’d ever had.
Coming next month
HIS STOLEN INNOCENT’S VOW
Marcella Bell
“I can’t,” she repeated, her voice low and earnest. “I can’t, because when I went to him as he lay dying, I looked him in his eye and swore to him that the d’Tierrza line would end with me, that there would be no d’Tierrza children to inherit the lands or title and that I would see to it that the family name was wiped from the face of the earth so that everything he had ever worked for, or cared about, was lost to history, the legacy he cared so much about nothing but dust. I swore to him that I would never marry and never have children, that not a trace of his legacy would be left on this planet.”
For a moment, there was a pause, as if the room itself had sucked in a hiss of irritation. The muscles in his neck tensed, then flexed, though he remained otherwise motionless. He blinked as if in slow motion, the movement a sigh, carrying something much deeper than frustration, though no sound came out. Hel’s chest squeezed as she merely observed him. She felt like she’d let him down in some monumental way though they’d only just become reacquainted. She struggled to understand why the sensation was so familiar until she recognized the experience of being in the presence of her father.
Then he opened his eyes again, and instead of the cold green disdain her heart expected, they still burned that fascinating warm brown—a heat that was a steady home fire, as comforting as the imaginary family she’d dreamed up as a child—and all of the taut disappointment in the air was gone.
Her vow was a hiccup in his plans. That he had a low tolerance for hiccups was becoming clear. How she knew any of this when he had revealed so little in his reaction, and her mind only now offered up hazy memories of him as a young man, she didn’t know.
She offered a shrug and an airy laugh in consolation, mildly embarrassed about the whole thing though she was simultaneously unsure as to exactly why. “Otherwise, you know, I’d be all in. Despite the whole abduction…” Her cheeks were hot, likely bright pink, but it couldn’t be helped so she made the joke, anyway, despite the risk that it might bring his eyes to her face, that it might mean their eyes locked again and he stole her breath again.
Of course, that is what happened. And then there was that smile again, the one that said he knew all about the strange mesmerizing power he had over her, and it pleased him.loz!
Whether he was the kind of man who used his power for good or evil had yet to be determined.
Either way, beneath that infuriating smile, deep in his endless brown eyes, was the sharp attunement of a predator locked on its target. “Give me a week.” His face may not have changed, but his voice gave him away, a trace of hoarseness, as if his sails had been slashed and the wind slipped through them, threaded it, a strange hint of something Hel might have described as desperation…if it had come from anyone other than him.
“What?” she asked.
“Give me a week to change your mind.”
Continue reading
HIS STOLEN INNOCENT’S VOW
Marcella Bell
Available next month
Copyright ©2021 by Marcella Bell
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