Reunited By The Tycoon's Twins

So why did he feel so nervous?

He didn’t even get nervous before dates. At least he didn’t think that he did. Since he and Caro had decided that their marriage was over, he hadn’t been on one. Until the twins were a couple of months old he had seen Caro almost as much as when they were married—just because he was no longer her husband didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to support her through the pregnancy and take care of her afterwards, until she was ready to take up her new job. But, all that aside, what would be the point in dating when he knew that he would never have a serious relationship again? The last—as amicably as it had ended—had threatened everything that he had worked for over the last decade. Had seen him taking on financial uncertainty that he still wasn’t sure that he was going to survive. He was never going through that again. He just couldn’t take the risk.

Until he had opened the door to Madeleine Everleigh, and his decision to stay permanently single didn’t seem quite so simple.

Which left his love life...where? In the realm of hook-ups and one-night stands and casual flings? And when it came to Madeleine...he couldn’t think of a less appropriate relationship to have with his best friend’s sister. Jake had been best man at his wedding. He couldn’t even think about a casual hook-up with the man’s sister. Except...he was thinking about it.

Oh, was he thinking about it.

And it wasn’t even Madeleine’s body he was thinking about. It was her eyes that he couldn’t get out of his mind. The way that she looked at him and saw the smooth businessman and the frazzled dad and the scared kid all at once. They weren’t separate people to her, the way that they were to everyone else in his life. The circles of his business life and his childhood friends and his social life never crossed. He squeezed himself into those different personas as he put on his suit for work or clipped himself into a baby carrier and headed to a playgroup. But not with Madeleine.

He’d never felt the strangeness of that with Jake. Maybe because he had never looked at Jake and had the instant flash of desire he had with Madeleine. With Madeleine? It was hard to think about anything else. Especially now she was here in his home, settling in with her things, playing with his kids and drinking his coffee. Merging their lives for the next few weeks.

Even with Caro there had been barriers between the different parts of his life. She had accompanied him to work functions. Slipped smoothly through the networking and the business dinners that were expected of her. But she had never slipped so comfortably into his past, the parts of his life that were harder to face. She’d never been comfortable with his mother. He could never have taken her to see the tiny flat where he had grown up.

Absurd, really, given that she was dedicating her life to ending child poverty. She wouldn’t have judged him. But he didn’t want to be a project to her. He didn’t want to be one of the kids she was rescuing.

With Madeleine, nothing had to be said. Or hidden. Or tiptoed around. She knew it all. She knew how bad it had been, and how high he had risen, and she saw that he was the same person wherever he was living. And the thought of that, of the two parts of his life being reconciled, was troubling. And intoxicating.

He showed Madeleine back down to the kitchen and hunted out the pizza menus he kept in a drawer for weekends when he couldn’t be bothered to cook. It wouldn’t be long now before the babies were eating real food and he would actually have to produce something that they could all eat together, rather than just steaming them some carrot sticks. But for a few more weeks, at least, his weekends could be eighty per cent pepperoni. He handed Madeleine a menu and headed to the fridge to find them both a beer.

‘We can take the drinks out on the balcony if you like,’ Finn suggested, glancing over at Madeleine. ‘There’s a nice view of the park.’

‘Sure,’ she replied with a shrug, eyes still on the menu. ‘Sounds like a plan. I’ll bring my phone and we can order from there.’

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