The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights: 6 Book Romance Collection. Zara StoneleyЧитать онлайн книгу.

been transformed into a temporary photo studio. At the heart of the craziness were tiny twins Horatio Alexander Wells and Phoebe Rose Wells.

“We chose names from Shakespeare,” Maggie explained to the journalist. “And Rose was my grandmother’s name.”

The babies had arrived three weeks early while Alex was in London to discuss a future directing project and Maggie was by herself in Cornwall. Her waters had broken at half past six on a beautiful May morning and the first thing she’d done was call Alex. Then she’d called the duty midwife, who’d reassured her that since she hadn’t had any contractions it might be hours before anything happened but advised her to come straight in. Luckily Layla was next door and she’d driven her to the hospital.

The midwife was right. It was a bit of an anti-climax at first because nothing happened at all. Left to her own devices, she and Layla read all the magazines, punctuated by cups of tea, pacing up and down the corridor, and the occasional check-up to make sure that everything was alright.

When it all kicked off without any sign of Alex her heart sank. She was in the middle of a contraction when news came via a student nurse that a helicopter had been given permission to land on the emergency helipad.

Shortly after, Alex’s voice boomed through the maternity unit as if he was speaking to the back of a large theater without a microphone. He caused quite a commotion bypassing Reception and heading straight to the labor ward.

“I’m the dad!” She couldn’t see his face, but she’d have recognized that dark, rumbling voice anywhere.

He’d arrived in the nick of time. Horatio was born first and little Phoebe Rose followed twenty minutes later.

Exhausted, elated, Maggie had never been happier.

And now she was showing the Wells babies off to the world.

With the babies dressed in colorful teeny outfits from her first babywear collection, Maggie sat next to Alex on the cream-leather sofa that she’d slept on all those months ago. With a backdrop of London and the River Thames spread out behind them through the wall of windows, Alex cradled Phoebe and Maggie cuddled Horatio.

Maggie smiled. She’d been apprehensive about her first in-front-of-the-camera photo shoot. She needn’t have worried. She turned her head slightly as the camera clicked. Grinning from ear to ear, Alex’s gorgeous smile said everything she needed to know.

The journalist was another story. “So tell me, guys,” she probed. “Plans to extend the family?”

Maggie breathed an inward sigh of relief when Alex didn’t tell her to get lost. His finger tightly held in Phoebe’s grasp, he switched his gaze back and forth between his baby daughter and son with comedic timing.

“We need to get a bigger place.”

“It sounds like you’re planning on a full house,” the journalist hinted.

Maggie smiled at Alex’s careful answer and supplied one of her own, “A home full of love.” With her husband at her side, she felt no need to hide, or avoid the direction of the question. “No plans just yet,” she informed the journalist, “But I’m sure we’d like a brother or sister for the twins in the future.”

Wherever they might live, whatever shape their only-just-started family might eventually take, it was their love for each other she counted on – far more than four walls and a roof. She’d never give up her tiny Cornish cottage, no matter how big her family got. Visits there might become a squeeze, but it would be the love inside that mattered more than anything.

A whole lot later, when the magazine team had gone, and the babies had had a flying visit from Uncle Nick and were tucked up cozily asleep in their cribs, Alex kissed Maggie, deeply, passionately. With one hand he tangled his fingers in her hair, with the other he circled the pad of a thumb on her cheek. Crushed so close against him that he felt like a part of her, she smiled against his kiss.

“I’m more in love with you than I ever could have believed possible,” she whispered.

“I love you, Magenta Wells.” His lovely drawl made her float on air. “Always and forever.”