EPILOGUE
‘WHAT’S the A for?’ Helena asked curiously as she watched Annie inscribing the invitations to her six-month-old daughter’s christening.
‘Amnesia,’ Dominic replied for her with a teasing grin. ‘So that we can both remember how she came into being.’
‘Oh, no,’ Helena protested. ‘Surely you aren’t…?’ She stopped as she saw the laughing shake of her head that Annie was giving her husband.
Helena and Bob had called round to see them to discuss the arrangements for the christening.
‘We ought to ring them first,’ Bob had warned her. ‘You know what happened the last time we called unexpectedly. We quite obviously interrupted them in the middle of making love.’
‘Yes, but that was four months ago, when Charlotte was eight weeks old and Annie had been given the all-clear by her gynaecologist.’
‘I don’t care. You only have to see those two to know that it’s damn near impossible for them to keep their hands off one another,’ Bob told her forthrightly.
‘Well, they’ve got five missing years to catch up on,’ Helena had reminded him.
She had never seen a couple so much in love with one another. Annie was practically incandescent with it, and as for Dominic…She wasn’t sure when she had seen him looking more proud—the day he and Annie had renewed their vows to one another, a month before Charlotte’s birth, or the first time he had actually held his newborn daughter.
‘The A is for Alice,’ Annie told Helena, giving Dominic a stern look.
‘Alice. Oh, that’s my middle name.’ Helena beamed.
‘Yes, I know,’ Annie told her lovingly, getting up to go and give her friend a hug as she saw the way Helena’s face pinkened with colour and her eyes sheened over with tears.
‘I’m too old to be her godmother,’ she had protested when Annie had told her of their plans, but Annie and Dominic had overcome all her objections, and the truth was that she was thrilled at the thought of having her as her godchild.
‘Charlotte Alice sounds lovely,’ she approved, when she had her emotions back under control.
‘Charlotte Amnesia sounds better,’ Dominic argued. ‘And we’d never forget it…’
‘Ignore him,’ Annie told her friend, picking up a cushion, which she threw at her husband.
As he caught it Helena heard him whispering to Annie, ‘I’ll make you pay for that…later!’
It was growing dark when Helena and Bob left, and as she turned in her seat to reach for her seat belt, as Bob drove down the drive Helena saw an upstairs bedroom light go on in the house behind them. She knew it was the light to Annie and Dominic’s bedroom.
‘For heaven’s sake, Dominic,’ Annie scolded her husband as he bundled her onto the bed.
‘You’re wearing far too many clothes—do you know that?’ he whispered, mock naughtily.
‘Helena and Bob will have seen the light go on, and they’ll know…’
‘They’ll know what?’ he asked her softly. ‘That I can’t wait to make love to my wife?’ He laughed as he saw the way Annie was blushing. ‘Besides,’ he teased her. ‘Wasn’t it you who said just before they went that you fancied an early night?’
‘An early night,’ Annie agreed. ‘Not—Oh…’ She gave a small gasp as Dominic touched her, and then another, before protesting longingly, ‘Dominic…’
‘Mmm…?’ he encouraged.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Annie breathed as her arms opened to wrap round him. ‘Nothing matters. Only you…only…Mmm…’
‘Mmm…’ he agreed sexily as he nuzzled her skin.
‘Amnesia…’ Annie breathed raggedly. ‘Poor Helena. You shouldn’t tease her…you shouldn’t…’
Her voice faded away into a soft sigh of female pleasure as his touch grew bolder and more intimate and her body responded to him.
In the cot in the nursery the little girl, whose parents’ private secret name for her was always going to be Amnesia, smiled contentedly up at the mobile dancing over her head.
‘No wonder I could never truly forget you,’ Annie sighed sensuously.
‘Your dream lover,’ Dominic told her.
‘The reality is far, far better than my dreams,’ Annie assured him lovingly. ‘The reality…my reality…is you, Dominic…you and Charlotte Alice and our lives together, our future together…The reality is—oh, Dominic!’