‘Unfortunately,’ she said, ‘life isn’t that simple.’
‘Maybe men just have it too easy these days. All of the comforts with none of the responsibility.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Well, it wasn’t for lack of choice, was it? You appeared to be dating someone different every time I came home.’
‘Not every time, surely?’ Her well-schooled, careless tone was, she knew, ruined by a blush.
‘You don’t remember?’
She remembered.
Given a few days warning of his arrival, it hadn’t been difficult to drum up some hungry man from the crafts centre who was glad of a home-cooked meal. Camouflage so that it wouldn’t look as if she was living in limbo, just waiting for Josh to come home and sweep her up into his arms, tell her that he’d been a fool. Pick up where they’d left off.
These days, only Toby was left. He’d been brighter than most, quickly cottoning on to what she was doing and apparently happy to play the possessive suitor whenever Josh came home.
Why she’d still been going through the motions after so long she couldn’t say. Unless it was because she still wanted it so badly. That it was herself she was fooling rather than him….
Whatever, she could hardly get indignant if he’d been fooled by her deception. Assumed that she’d fallen into bed with every one of them as easily as she’d fallen into his.
‘Maybe they could sense the desperation,’ she said, burying her hot cheeks in Posie’s downy head, before holding her out to Josh. ‘Here,’ she said, placing the baby in his arms. ‘Say hello to Phoebe Grace Kingsley. Better known as Posie.’
Josh held her awkwardly and Posie waved her arms nervously.
‘Hold her closer to you,’ she said, settling her against Josh’s broad chest, taking his arm, moving it, so that it was firmly beneath the baby. ‘Like this. So that she feels safe.’
She was desperately anxious for him to bond with this little girl who would never know her real father. For whom Josh, no matter how reluctantly, would have to be the male role model.
‘She has a look of Michael, don’t you think?’ she suggested. ‘Around her eyes?’
‘Her eyes are blue. Michael has… had brown eyes.’
‘All babies have blue eyes, Josh, but it’s not the colour.’ The tip of her finger brushed the little tuck in Posie’s eyelid. ‘It’s something about the shape. See?’
She looked up to see if Josh was following her and found herself looking at the same familiar feature, deeper, stronger in the man. Remembered the still, perfect moment ten years ago when, after a long, lingering kiss, a promise that all her dreams were about to come true, she’d opened her eyes and that tuck had been the first thing she’d seen.
Josh felt as if he were carrying a parcel of eggs. Just one wrong move and they’d be crushed. Maybe Grace was just as anxious because she’d kept her arm beneath his, laid her long, slender fingers over his hand, as if to steady him.
This was so far from anything he’d imagined himself doing. He’d never wanted children. Had never wanted to be responsible for putting children through the kind of misery he’d endured. The rows. The affairs. The day his father had walked out and his mother had become someone he didn’t know.
After a while, as he became more confident, Grace stepped back, leaving him holding this totally unexpected baby, who bore not the slightest resemblance to his brother.
If she looked like anyone, it was Grace, which was strange since she didn’t much resemble her sister. He’d always assumed that they were half-sisters, although Michael had said not. The little tuck in the eyelid was familiar though, and he said, ‘So long as she hasn’t got Michael’s nose.’
Grace laughed at that and the sound wrapped itself around his heart, warming him, and he looked up.
‘I wish…’ he began, then stopped, not entirely sure what he was wishing for.
‘Michael never gave up hoping you’d turn up for the christening,’ she said. ‘He so wanted you to stand as her godfather.’
‘He knew why I couldn’t be there.’
‘Too busy conquering the world?’ Then, when he didn’t answer, didn’t say anything, ‘Here, let me take her,’ she said, rescuing him. ‘I’ll change her and put her to bed while you have a shower. Then we’ll eat.’
He lifted his head and, glad of a change of subject, said, ‘Actually, something does smell good. How long have I got?’
‘Oh, half an hour should do it,’ she said, not waiting to see whether he took her advice, but heading for the stairs and the nursery.
Josh let the shower pummel him, lowering the temperature gradually until it was cold enough to put the life back into his body, wake up his brain.
Doing his best to forget the moment when he’d come so close to breaking the promise he’d made to his brother. A promise he’d refused to free him from. Would never be able to free him from.
To forget the look on Grace’s face as she’d looked up, and for just an instant he could have sworn that she’d seen the truth for herself.
He stared in the mirror. He favoured Michael—no one would have doubted they were brothers—but there were not by any means identical. Still he could have sworn she’d seen something.
He tugged on an old grey bathrobe that had been hanging behind the bathroom door for as long as he could remember, waiting for him whenever he was passing through London and could spare a little time to visit Maybridge, see his family.
He tied the belt and crossed to the alcove that still contained the desk he’d used when he was at school. Where he’d plotted out the future. Where he’d go. What he’d do.
His old computer was long gone, but the corkboard was still there. He reached over and pulled free a picture, curling with age, that Phoebe had taken of Michael and him building a barbecue in the garden years ago, when his brother had been about the same age he was now.
The likeness was striking, but Michael had more of their mother, her brown eyes.
He tossed the photograph on the desk and, turning to the wardrobe, hunted out a pair of jeans that weren’t too tight, a sweatshirt that didn’t betray his adolescent taste in music.
Then he checked his new BlackBerry for messages, replied to a couple that wouldn’t wait. By then it was time to go back upstairs—to Grace, and to the miracle and disaster that was Posie.
Grace took her time putting Posie to bed.
She hadn’t been so close, so intimate with Josh in years and she needed to put a little time and space between them. Get her breathing, her heart rate back under control.
She didn’t hurry over changing her, washing her hands and face, feeding her little arms and legs into a clean sleep suit, all the time talking to her, tickling her tummy, kissing her toes. Telling her that she was the most beautiful baby in the world, just as Phoebe would have done.
Using the sweet little smiles to distract herself from vivid memories of Josh, naked in the shadowy light from a single lamp. His grey eyes turning molten as that first kiss had turned into hot, feverish, desperate need.
He’d been so beautiful. So perfect…
Posie waved a foot at her and she caught it, kissed it, peered into her eyes. Did all babies really have blue eyes? People said that, but was it true? Weren’t Posie’s a little bit grey? Then she saw the tiny flecks of brown and smiled.
‘You’re