* * *
His feet pounded the footpath hard, driving out thought, emotion, reason. All he knew was the rhythm of his shoes on the ground, the steady in-out of his breath as he let his legs and his lungs settle in to their pace.
The sun was drying the dew on the grassy verges by the road, and the last few commuters were making their way into the tube station. The morning commute was a small price to pay to live in this quiet, leafy part of London, he guessed.
He noted these things objectively, as he did the admiring looks from a couple of women he passed. But none of it mattered to him. This was the one time of the day when he could just concentrate on something he was completely in control of. So, no music, no stopping for admiring glances—just him and the road. Nothing could spoil the hour he spent shutting out the horrors of the world—great and small—that he had encountered in his work over the years.
Tomorrow he’d be able to find a solitary path through the Richmond Park, but this morning he was dodging café tables and pedestrians as he watched the street names, looking out for the address his sister had texted to him. She’d been taking furniture deliveries for him before he flew home, and had left the keys to his new place with a friend of hers who worked from home.
He turned the corner into a quiet side street, and suddenly the fierce cry of a newborn baby ahead skewed his consciousness and he stumbled, his toe somehow finding a crack in the footpath.
He tried to keep running for a few strides, to ignore the sound, but found it was impossible. Instead he concentrated on counting the house numbers—anything to keep his mind off the wailing infant. But as the numbers climbed he felt a sense of growing inevitability. The closer he drew to the sound of the baby, the more he wished that he could get away—and the more certain he became that he wouldn’t be able to.
The rhythm and focus that had always come as easily as breathing when he pulled on his running shoes was gone. His body fought him, sending awareness of the baby to his ears. Another side street loomed on his left, and for a moment he willed himself to turn away, to run away, but his feet wouldn’t obey. Instead they picked up their pace and carried straight on, towards a dazed-looking woman and the wailing baby standing in the porch of one of the houses ahead.
He glanced at the house number and knew that he’d been right. His sister had sent him to a house with a baby—without a word of warning.
‘Hi,’ he said to the woman, approaching and speaking with caution. Lily, he thought her name was. ‘Is everything okay?’ He couldn’t help but ask—not when she was standing there with a distressed baby and looking as if she’d just been thunderstruck.
Her blonde hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail so shiny that he could almost feel the warmth of the sunlight reflecting off it. Her eyes were blue, clear and wide—but filled with a shock and a panic that stopped him short.
She stared at him blankly and he held out his hands in a show of innocence. ‘I’m Nic,’ he said, realising she had no idea who he was. ‘Dominic—Kate’s brother. She said to drop by and pick up my keys?’
‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘I’d completely forgotten.’
But still she didn’t move. Her eyes did, though, dropping to his vest and running shorts, moving as far down as his ankles before her eyes met his again. There was interest there, he could see, even behind her confusion and distress.
‘Is everything all right?’ he asked again, though everything about her—her posture, her expression—told him that it wasn’t.
‘Oh, fine,’ she said.
He could see the effort it took to pull the muscles of her face into a brave smile, but it wasn’t enough to cover the undercurrents of worry that lay beneath. There was something about that contrast that made him curious—more than curious—to know the layers of this woman.
‘My sister...’ she said, boldly attempting nonchalance. ‘She never gives me much notice when she needs a babysitter.’
Which was about five per cent of the truth, if he had to guess. He found himself looking deep into her eyes, trying to see her truths, all the things that she wasn’t saying. Was there some sort of trick here? Was this something Kate had set up? Surely she’d never be so cruel, never willingly expose him to so much pain? But he wanted to know more about this woman, he acknowledged. Wanted to untangle her mysteries.
Then he could ignore the screams of the baby no longer, and knew that he mustn’t even think it. He should turn and walk away from her and the little bundle of trouble now. Before he got drawn in, before wounds that had taken a decade to become numb were reopened.
But he couldn’t, wouldn’t walk away from someone so obviously in trouble. Couldn’t abandon a child, however much it might hurt him. He’d discovered that on his first trip to India, when he’d seen children used as slave labour, making clothes to be sold on British high streets. He’d not been able to leave without doing something, without working to improve the shattered lives that he’d witnessed.
Now, ten years later, the charity he’d founded had helped hundreds, thousands of children from exploitation or worse. But that didn’t make him any more able to ignore this single child’s cries.
Distressed children needed help—whoever they were, wherever they were living. He finally forced himself to look at the crying baby—and felt the bottom fall out of all his worries. He was in serious trouble, and any thoughts of walking away became an impossibility. That was a newborn baby...as in hours-old new. Completely helpless, completely vulnerable and—by the look on Lily’s face—a complete surprise.
The baby’s crying picked up another notch and Lily bounced it optimistically. But, if he had to guess, she didn’t have what that baby needed.
‘Did your sister leave some milk? Or some formula?’
She looked up and held his gaze, her eyes still a complicated screen of half-truths. There was something dangerously attractive in that expression, something drawing him in against his better judgement. There was a bond growing between himself and Lily—he could feel it. And some connection with this baby’s story was at the heart of it. It was dangerous, and he wanted nothing to do with it, but still he didn’t walk away.
‘She asked me to pick some up,’ she replied, obviously thinking on her feet. ‘Thanks for stopping, but I have to get to the shop.’
He chose his next words carefully, knowing that he mustn’t scare her off, but seeing by the shocked look on her face that she hadn’t quite grasped yet the trouble that this newborn baby might be in. Who left an hours-old baby with a relative who clearly wasn’t expecting her? There was more, much more, to this story, and he suspected that there were layers of complications that neither of them yet understood.
‘That’s quite a noise she’s making. How about to be on the safe side we get her checked by a doctor? I saw that the hospital round the corner has a walk-in clinic.’
At that, Lily physically shook herself, pulled her shoulders back and grabbed the baby a little tighter. There was something about seeing the obvious concern and turmoil in her expression that made him want to wrap his arms around her and promise her that everything would be okay. But he was the last person on earth who could promise her that, who could even believe that it might be true.
‘Maybe you’re right,’ she said, walking away from the open front door and through the garden gate. ‘Kate’s keys are in the top drawer in the hall. Can you pull the door closed on your way out?’
And then she was speed-walking down the street, the baby still clutched tightly to her, still wailing. He glanced at the house and hesitated. He needed his keys, but he could hardly leave Lily’s house with the door wide open—the woman hadn’t even picked up her handbag. Did she have her own keys? Her wallet? So he had no choice but to grab her bag and