He was going to be a father.
He was going to have a child.
And, no matter what Philly said, he would make sure that child was properly taken care of.
What was her problem, anyway? He’d just offered her a house, a housekeeper, nursing care for her mother and an income. She wouldn’t have to lift a finger. It was a great deal.
So why wouldn’t she accept? What did she want? He’d made her a reasonable offer. More than reasonable. And she’d turned him down flat.
He sighed deeply, his forehead and hands pressed against the glass as he looked down to the street below. It was a long way down. He’d been down there, at rock bottom and lower, not even within cooee of a rung to begin the long, lonely climb up the ladder.
And he’d made it. All the way to the top on his own. No one to help him, no one to turn to for support but a drunken foster mother who had drunk his foster money blind and the faded memory of a family tragedy that had taught him never to get close to anyone.
He lashed out with his foot, slamming his shoe into the reinforced glass and making the entire window shudder before he spun around and tracked a course round his desk.
What the hell was wrong with him? He hadn’t thought so much about his family for years and yet today, in the feel-good hum of some of the best sex he’d had since their encounter in the boardroom—the only sex he’d had since that encounter in the board-room—the mere suggestion of a honeyed voice had dredged it all up.
He paced the carpet, trying not to ignore the pictures that were surfacing in his mind’s eye, the pictures like dusty film clips he’d been avoiding for years. His father, tall and straight, strong featured, with hair swept back much like his own, but greying already at the temples, the white shirt and dark trousers, his standard uniform; even when picking fruit or working in the garden he had always liked to look his best.
His brothers, loud and broad-shouldered like their father and always wrestling in the yard outside when they should have been doing homework.
And his mother, dark and handsome, with eyes that had sparkled with love and pride, scolding her two eldest sons only to toss her thick, dark hair and leave them, laughing as she’d turned back to her cooking.
He sucked in a jagged breath and closed his eyes but the pictures became even sharper and more distinct.
Unrelated snippets of memories exploded into his mind like the coloured contents of a party popper.
These were real people he was remembering, not some cardboard cut-outs that could be neatly filed away in a corner of his mind, buried deeper than the four wooden caskets that had lain side by side in the old church.
They’d been his family and now they were gone. And he’d done his best to leave them behind, moving cities, moving states. Burying them in his mind.
He shivered.
Suddenly he had to get out of there. Had to go somewhere—anywhere. He pulled open the door in time to see Philly placing some papers on Enid’s desk. She jerked around guiltily at his appearance, her face pale but her eyes challenging. Then she frowned and her features softened into something closer to concern. She took a step towards him.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded. ‘I told you to go home.’
She stopped dead, her back stiffening. ‘I’ve just had two weeks leave. I have work to catch up on.’
‘You’re not fit for work.’
‘I’m pregnant,’ she said, forcing herself taller as if that would convince him. ‘I’m not ill.’
‘What do you call what happened this morning then?’
Her chin kicked up even as she coloured.
‘I think most people refer to it as sex.’
‘Not that,’ he snarled. ‘When you fainted.’
‘I’m over it. That won’t happen again.’
‘We’ll see.’ He looked around, settling his gaze on Enid’s empty chair before striding to the lift. ‘Tell Enid I’m going out.’
‘When will you be back?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said as he allowed himself to be swallowed up by the hungry cavern of the lift.
‘I don’t know.’
HE DIDN’T know where he was heading.
Anywhere.
Nowhere.
It didn’t matter. He drove aimlessly with no sense of direction and less sense of time until something drew him towards the coast. It was sunny, the day was fine, the top of his black BMW convertible was down and his passing drew envious looks from the men in cars around him, wishful glances from the women.
Normally he’d get a buzz out of the experience, a fillip to his ego, the successful businessman out enjoying the spoils of his success.
Success.
How did you measure that? In dollars and cents, in bricks and buildings, corporate takeovers and fast cars? Sure, on that score he was as successful as they came, no question.
Or was success measured in more human terms—in connections built between people, in relationships, in families?
The human factor.
On that score, so far all he’d been successful at was avoiding that very thing. But now he was going to be a father and the one thing he’d evaded for so long was happening.
A father. Why did that change things so much? Why should that suddenly make his business success ring so hollow?
Finally he left the highway and crossed the train lines before pulling alongside the kerb, opposite a battered brick veneer house in a post-war building boom suburb.
What was he doing here? He’d never been here before, he’d just snatched a glimpse of the address in some papers on Enid’s desk one day. Amazing he’d even remembered it.
He studied the house. It had seen better days by the look of the shabby brickwork, the flaking window-frames and the tired garden, its leggy native plants wafting listlessly in the warm breeze. Once he was out of the car he could just smell the sea, the tang of seaweed and salt in the air, though the beach was nothing more than a dull promise across the train tracks and beyond the strip of kiosks and mid-rate hotels lining the highway.
He’d never asked her about her home. He’d never asked her how her mother was. It had never occurred to him. But now it seemed important. He wanted to know more about her, about the woman who was to be his child’s mother, about her family.
He knocked on the door. And waited.
The clang of the crossing barriers started up, loud and insistent, as a train surged along the track, all electric whine and squealing metal before gradually the noise died down and quiet resumed. He thought about leaving but had no idea where he’d go. The train was probably already at the next station when he finally heard a sound inside the house, spotted a blurred shape moving through the panel of misted glass.
The door edged open, a security chain clamping in place. Through the gap he could see her wary gaze, in dark-ringed eyes that looked almost too big in her sunken face.
‘Mrs Summers?’
‘Yes,’ came her voice, brittle and shaky and obviously unused to visitors during the day.
‘My name is Damien DeLuca. Philly works—’
‘Oh,