Their Very Special Marriage (23 page)

She kissed him back. ‘Definitely.'

‘You know, I really fancy some pineapple.'

‘What? Oliver, if you really want pineapple, we can call room service.'

‘Not the same.' He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘And we ought to use your present, don't you think?'

‘Another day, maybe.'

‘Now.'

She frowned. ‘Oliver, what...?'

He handed her a tin-opener.

‘But this is a hotel!' What was he doing with a tin-opener in a hotel—a posh hotel at that?

‘So?'

She sighed. ‘All right, all right. If you insist, I'll open the pineapple. But if I get juice all over the carpet and we get slapped with a cleaning bill, it's your fault.' She took the lid off the can, then stopped. ‘What?' It was full of shredded tissue paper, not pineapple. ‘How...?'

‘You know Wayne Groves became an apprentice at Hollybridge Garage when he left school. Well, he was doing a welding course the other week,' Oliver explained. ‘He, um, needed to do a bit of practising. And he thought he owed us a favour, since you spotted he had Weil's disease last summer.'

‘You got Wayne to weld a tin of pineapple back together?'

‘After I'd emptied it and washed it up. The kids helped.'

‘They knew about this? No way. Sophie would've told me.' Sophie couldn't keep secrets—if she went to the supermarket with Oliver, she'd run in to Rachel to announce that Daddy had bought her some flowers.

‘No, they just scoffed the pineapple.' Oliver grinned. ‘I told Wayne what I wanted to do, so he put some metal in the bottom to make the tin feel the right weight.'

‘You devious...' But she was smiling as she took out the tissue paper and discovered the tiny velvet-covered box. ‘Oliver, it's beautiful,' she said, taking the diamond eternity ring out of the box, a band of flat-cut diamonds encircled by gold.

‘And so are you, Rachel Bedingfield. I just wanted to say happy anniversary. And that I'll love you for ever.'

‘Ditto,' she said. And she kissed him.

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ISBN: 978-1-474-03450-0

THEIR VERY SPECIAL MARRIAGE

© 2015 Kate Hardy

Published in Great Britain 2015
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

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