Reunited By A Baby Bombshell
Reunited By A Baby Bombshell
Barbara Hannay
A secret he never knew aboutPrima ballerina Eva Hennessey has made her life in Paris – far away from her childhood sweetheart Griffen Fletcher. But when an invitation arrives for her school reunion, she nervously accepts!Griff never imagined he would see Eva again, and now he wants some answers! She may be more beautiful than he remembers, but she also masks a pain only he can see. It’s a secret she’s kept far too long… One that will change their worlds forever!
A secret he never knew about
Prima ballerina Eva Hennessey has made her life in Paris—far away from her childhood sweetheart, Griffin Fletcher. But when an invitation arrives for her school reunion, she nervously accepts!
Griff never imagined he would see Eva again, and now he wants some answers. She may be more beautiful than he remembers, but she also masks a pain only he can see. It’s a secret she’s kept far too long. And when she finally tells him, their worlds change forever...
“How are you, Eva?”
He went through the motions, giving her a casual hug and a peck on the cheek.
Ridiculously, her skin flamed at the contact, and she lost her breath as his big hands touched her shoulders, as his arms brushed, warm and solid, against her bare skin. Then his lips delivered a devastating split-second flash of fire.
She took a moment to recover. “I’m very well, thanks, Griff.” Thank heavens she was able to speak calmly, but she hadn’t told him the truth. She wasn’t feeling well at all. She felt sick. And her hip was in agony. She prayed that she didn’t blush as Griff’s glittering gray gaze remained concentrated on her.
“And how are you?” she remembered to ask.
“Fighting fit, thank you.”
With the conventions over, an awkward silence fell. She wondered if he was about to say something conciliatory. It would be helpful to at least share a few pleasantries to bridge the wide chasm of years. Of silence.
And guilty secrets.
Reunited by a Baby Bombshell
Barbara Hannay
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
BARBARA HANNAY has written over forty romance novels and has won a RITA® Award, an RT Reviewers’ Choice award, as well as Australia’s Romantic Book of the Year.
A city-bred girl with a yen for country life, Barbara lives with her husband on a misty hillside in beautiful Far North Queensland, where they raise pigs and chickens and enjoy an untidy but productive garden.
Contents
Cover (#u8f8bc777-2780-579d-80fc-d76493bdf2c0)
Back Cover Text (#u8c0cae38-7180-5893-abe8-5d71d9b2b7ef)
Introduction (#u3a720d67-e297-5383-8dce-f2251d2bde86)
Title Page (#ua3919968-a584-5920-96ba-8370c9d0c396)
About the Author (#u4dc99a98-ccd8-5da1-88d1-ba1ada97d6e4)
CHAPTER ONE (#u9d89e2f9-1078-52dc-9f9b-09a4aa0b5c58)
CHAPTER TWO (#ub3ef6ef9-635f-5479-92dd-e99d0affebfd)
CHAPTER THREE (#uf8d7ff8a-4c31-5768-b93c-c107e15d4c1f)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#uca0ed753-2e52-5468-ae2f-7840479f1848)
WHEN THE INVITATION arrived Eva Hennessey was away in Prague, dancing the role of Odette in Swan Lake. On her return to Paris a week later, she found her mailbox crammed, mostly with an assortment of bills and dance magazines. She was riding the rickety old lift to her apartment on the fifth floor when the bright sunny Australian stamp caught her eye. Then she read the postmark. Emerald Bay.
The sharp pang in her chest made her gasp. It wasn’t homesickness. Eva’s feelings about the beach town where she’d grown up were far more complicated. These days, she rarely allowed herself to unpack the mixed bag of emotions that accompanied memories from her youth.
She always ended up thinking about Griffin Fletcher...and the other harrowing memory that would never leave her.
She’d worked hard to put that life behind her. She’d had to. Long ago.
Today, as the hum of Parisian traffic reached Eva from the street below, she let herself into the apartment that had been her home for the past ten years. Nanette, the concierge, had already turned on the heating and the apartment was welcoming and warm. Eva had loved this place from the day she’d first found it.
Decorated simply in quiet creamy tones with occasional touches of blue, the main living area was dominated by a far wall of windows that looked out over tiled rooftops, chimneys and church spires to the top of the Eiffel Tower. At night, on the hour, the Tower glittered with beautiful lights. It was a view Eva never tired of.
Stopping for a moment, she smiled to herself as she looked about the space she’d carefully assembled over the years—the beautiful cushion covers she’d picked up on various tours, the collection of blue and white pottery from all over Europe, the wide-brimmed bowl full of shells and stones she’d collected from beaches in Greece and Italy, in Spain and the UK. So many happy memories to counteract the sad ones from her past.
She set down her luggage and dumped the envelope from Australia on the coffee table along with the rest of her mail. Then she went through to the bathroom and had a long hot shower, massaging the nagging pain in her hip under the steady stream of water.
She washed her hair, dried it roughly with a towel, letting the damp dark tresses hang loose past her shoulders as she changed into a comfy pair of stretch slacks and an oversized T-shirt.
Soon she would make her supper. A simple herb omelette would suffice. But first a glass of wine, an indulgence she could allow herself now that the performance tour was behind her.
Curled on the sofa, with the wine within reach and a cushion positioned to support her painful hip, Eva retrieved the envelope from Australia and slit it open. A card depicting an iconic Queensland beach fell out.
Beneath the picture, a message—an invitation to a reunion of her classmates to celebrate twenty years since their last year of high school.
Eva felt sick as she read the details.
Where: Emerald Bay Golf Club
When: Saturday October 20th
The simple wording hit her like a punch to the chest. A thousand long-suppressed images crashed in. The beach in summer and the thrill of riding the rolling green surf. The smooth trunk of a palm tree at her back as she sat at the edge of the sand, eating salty fish and chips wrapped in paper. The smell of sunscreen and citronella.
Her thoughts flashed to hot summer days in classrooms with windows opened wide to catch a sea breeze. And then, despite her best efforts to block them, there were memories of Griffin Fletcher.
Griff, sitting at the desk just behind her in class, all shaggy-haired and wide-shouldered, catching her eye when she turned and sending her a cheeky grin.
Griff on the football field. The flash of his solid thighs as he sped past to score a try.
Griff holding her close in the dark. The surprising gentleness of his lips.
And, flashing between those sweeter memories, the fear and the crushing weight of her terrible secret. The overwhelming heartbreak and pain.
Enough.
Stop it.
Eva knew at once what her response would be. What it must be. Of course she couldn’t possibly go. With deep regret, she would be unable to accept the kind invitation. She was very grateful to be remembered by her old school friends, but her schedule was far too tight.
It wasn’t untrue. She had a new set of rehearsals for The Nutcracker lined up and she couldn’t really afford the time away. And why would she want to go back to the Bay anyway? Her mother no longer lived there. It was many years now since her mum had married and settled in Cairns in the far north of the state. As for Eva’s classmates and the rest of her memories—of necessity, she’d very deliberately left all that behind.
Instead, she’d worked as hard as possible for those twenty years, putting in endless, punishing hours to build the career of her dreams. These days, posters of Eva Hennessey, dancing as Giselle, as Cinderella or as Romeo’s Juliet, were on display in almost every theatre or train station in Europe.
After long years of hard work, this was Eva’s reward. Rave reviews claimed her as ‘technically poised and polished and lyrically perfect’. Wherever she went, audiences cheered Bravo! and gave her standing ovations. Her dressing rooms were crammed with beautiful flowers.
Eva’s world was now different in every way imaginable from the life she’d known in the sleepy seaside town of her youth. She might as well be living on a different planet. If she ever returned to Emerald Bay, she would not only awaken past hurts, she would feel like an alien.
Just the same, she felt sick to the stomach as she tucked the card back into the envelope. She told herself she was simply overtired after the gruelling weeks on tour.
In the morning she would post an ‘inability to accept’ and she would delete all thoughts of Emerald Bay.
* * *
Bees buzzed in the bottlebrush hedge. Small children laughed and squealed as they splashed at the shallow end of the elegant swimming pool, while their mothers watched, dangling their bare legs in the water as they sipped Pimm’s from long glasses. The smell of frying onions floated on the balmiest of breezes. It was a typical Sunday afternoon in suburban Brisbane.
Griff Fletcher was the host on this particular Sunday and his guests were a couple of long-time mates and their families. Griff was repaying their hospitality while his girlfriend, Amanda, was away in Sydney on business. It made sense. Amanda hadn’t known these guys for decades as he had. They weren’t really part of her scene—she was so much younger than their wives—and she didn’t ‘do’ little kids.
As Griff added steaks to the sizzling barbecue plate, the men helped themselves to fresh beers and kept him company.
‘So what do you reckon about the school reunion?’ asked Tim, who, like Griff, had moved from Emerald Bay to live and work in Queensland’s capital city. ‘Are you planning to check it out, Griff?’
Griff shrugged. He’d known that Tim and Barney were bound to talk about the reunion today, but he really wasn’t that interested. ‘I think I might give it a miss,’ he said.
Tim pulled a face, clearly disappointed. ‘But surely you must be curious about your old mates? Wouldn’t you like to catch up with the gang?’
The best Griff could manage was a crooked grin. ‘I see you two often enough.’
Barney gave an awkward smile and Tim scowled and took a long drink of his beer. Griff scowled too, as he began to flip steaks. He knew it wouldn’t be long before one of the guys had another dig at him.
Tim shook his head. ‘I know you’re a hotshot barrister, Griff, but I didn’t take you for a snob.’
Griff gave another shrug as he turned the sausages for the children. ‘I just don’t see the point in revisiting the past. You know what these reunions are like. The only people who turn up are the ones who’ve been successful, or the ones who’ve bred a swag of offspring. Then they swan around feeling smug, gossiping about the ones who stayed away.’
‘That’s a bit harsh,’ Tim said stiffly.
‘I wasn’t talking about you of course, mate.’
His mate wasn’t mollified. ‘Have you ever been to a school reunion?’
‘No, but it’s easy to—’
‘I have,’ cut in Barney. ‘My folks still live in the Bay, so I’m up there pretty regularly and I went to the ten-year reunion.’ He looked a tad defensive. ‘I enjoyed meeting up with everyone again, even after just ten years. There were some who’d really changed and others who looked exactly the same. Not that any of that mattered. We all had plenty of laughs and swapped war stories. It was interesting to hear what everyone’s doing.’
‘See!’ crowed Tim with a triumphant grin.
Griff shrugged again and used the egg flip to shift the browned onions away from the heat. Then he turned to call to the women. ‘Steaks won’t be long.’
‘Right,’ Tim’s wife, Kylie, called back. ‘We’d better get these kids dry then.’
Tim, meanwhile, moved closer to Griff. Out of the corner of his mouth, he said, ‘Eva Hennessey’s not likely to be there.’
Griff stiffened, and was immediately annoyed that the mere mention of Eva could still raise a reaction. It really shouldn’t matter if he ran into a girl he’d known a million years ago.
The reaction didn’t make sense. Sure, Eva had been his first girlfriend, but he’d eventually got over the shock of her leaving town so abruptly. It wasn’t as if he’d been planning to marry her straight out of high school and settle down in the Bay. He’d had big plans for his future.
He’d carried on with his life, with university and his subsequent career. And in the past two decades he’d had more than his fair share of relationships with glamorous, beautiful, passionate women.
He supposed it didn’t really make sense that he wanted to avoid Eva, but he’d moved on, so why ask for trouble?
‘Of course she won’t be there,’ he said, pleased that he managed to sound offhand. He added another nonchalant shrug for good measure, but he bit back the other comment that had sprung to mind—that Eva Hennessey was far too busy and world-famous to come back for such a piddling, unimportant event.
‘Well, Barney’s already put his name down, haven’t you, Barnes?’ Tim called to their mate, who was retrieving an inflatable ball that had bounced out of the pool.
Barney sent them a thumbs up.
‘And I reckon it’d be a blast for the three of us to go back to the Bay,’ Tim persisted. ‘You know, just the Three Amigos, without the women and billy-lids. Like the good old days.’
Griff was about to respond in the negative, but Tim stopped him with a raised hand.
‘Just think about it, Griff. We could stay at a pub on the beachfront, catch a few waves, even do a little snorkelling and diving on the reef.’
Well, yeah.
Griff couldn’t deny the great times he and these mates had enjoyed as teenagers, lapping up the free and easy outdoor lifestyle of a bayside country town.
Griff’s family had moved back to the city as soon as he’d finished school, and he could barely remember the last time he’d donned goggles and flippers to dive into the secret underwater world of coral and fish.
But there’d been a time when he’d lived and breathed diving...and surfing. Throughout his teenage years, he’d spent a part of every single day at the beach, in the sea. And every night, in bed, he’d listened to the sound of the surf pounding on the sand. The rhythm of the sea had been as familiar and essential to him as the beating of his heart.
By contrast, these days, the only water he saw was when he was rowing on the Brisbane River, which was usually flat and brown and still.
But the sea was different. And the Bay was special.
More to the point, these two mates were important to Griff. Amanda wasn’t especially fond of them, but she did have a tendency to be slightly snooty. She preferred mixing with Griff’s barrister colleagues and their partners, whereas Griff knew that these guys kept him grounded. Tim worked in a bank and Barney was an electrician and, between them, they provided a good balance to the eminent judges and silks who filled Griff’s working life.
He’d be crazy to let the haunting memory of one slim, dark-haired girl with astonishing aqua eyes spoil the chance to go back and recapture a little of the camaraderie and magic he’d enjoyed in his youth.
‘I’ll think about it,’ he said cautiously.
He was rewarded with a hearty and enthusiastic back-slap.
* * *
Eva stared at the doctor in dismay as two words echoed in her head like a tolling funeral bell... Hip replacement...hip replacement...
It was the worst possible news. She couldn’t take it in. She didn’t want to believe it.
A few days earlier, during a rehearsal of The Nutcracker, she’d landed awkwardly after performing a grand jeté, a demanding movement that involved propelling herself gracefully into the air and doing the splits while above the ground. Eva had performed the move thousands of times, of course, but this time, when she’d landed, the pain in her hip had been agonising.
Since then, the hip hadn’t improved. She’d stayed away from rehearsals, claiming a heavy cold, which was something she’d never done before. Normally, Eva danced through every painful mishap. She’d danced on broken toes, through colds and flu, had even performed for weeks with a torn ligament in her shoulder.
Such stoicism wasn’t unusual in ballet circles. A culture of secrecy about injury was a given. Every dancer was terrified of being branded as fragile. They all understood it was a euphemism for on the way out—the end of a career.
This time, however, Eva found it too difficult to keep hiding her pain. Even if she faked her way through class and rehearsals, by the time she got home she could barely walk. So she’d seen an osteopath. But now, to her horror, the doctor had shown her disturbing results from her MRI scan.
She’d never dreamed the damage could be so bad.
‘You’ve torn the labrum,’ the doctor told her solemnly as he pointed to the scan. ‘That’s the ring of cartilage around your left hip joint. Normally, the labrum helps with shock absorption and lubrication of the joint, but now—’ He shook his head. ‘The tear on its own wouldn’t be such a great problem, but there are other degenerative changes as well.’ He waved his hand over the scan. ‘Extensive arthritic inflammation of the whole joint.’
Arthritis? A chill washed over Eva. Wasn’t that something that happened to elderly people?
‘I strongly recommend a complete hip replacement. Otherwise—’ the doctor sighed expressively ‘—I don’t really see how you can avoid it.’
No, please no.
On a page from his writing pad, he wrote the names of two consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeons. He handed the paper to Eva.
Sweat broke out on her skin and she swayed a little dizzily in her chair. A hip replacement was a death knell, the end of her career. The prospect filled her with such desolation that it didn’t bear imagining.
It would be the end of my life.
‘Aren’t there other things I can try?’ she asked in desperation. ‘Besides surgery?’
The doctor gave a shrug. ‘We can talk about physiotherapy and painkillers and diet. And rest,’ he added, giving her a dark look. ‘But I think you’ll find that the pain will still be too severe, certainly if you want to continue dancing. Ballet requires movements that are very unnatural.’
Eva knew this all too well, of course. She’d spent a lifetime perfecting the demanding movements most people never even tried. Pirouettes and adagios and grand allegros en pointe all made exacting demands on her limbs and joints, and she knew she was only human. She was at the wrong end of her thirties and there was a limit to what she could expect from her body. But she couldn’t give up dancing.
Not yet! She’d worked too hard, had sacrificed too much. Sure, she’d known that her career couldn’t last for ever, but she’d hoped for at least five more years.
Dancing was her life. Without it, she would drown, would completely lose her identity.
She was in no way ready for this.
The osteopath was staring at her a little impatiently now. He had no more advice to offer.
In a daze, Eva rose from her chair, thanked him and bade him goodbye. As the door to his office closed behind her, she walked through reception without seeing anyone, trying not to limp, to prove to herself that the doctor must have been wrong, but even walking was painful.
Glass doors led to a long empty corridor. What could she do now?
She tried to think clearly, but her mind kept spinning. If she gave in and had the surgery, she was sure the company wouldn’t want her back—certainly not as their prima ballerina—and she couldn’t conscience the idea of going back into the corps de ballet.
The worst of it was, this wasn’t a problem she dared discuss with her colleagues. She didn’t want anyone in the dancing world to know. The news would spread like wildfire. It would be in the press by lunchtime. By supper time, her career would be over.
As she made her way carefully down a short flight of stairs and onto the Parisian pavement outside, Eva, who had always been strong and independent, valuing her privacy, had never felt more vulnerable and alone. On the wrong side of the world.
* * *
‘Hello, this is Jane. How can I help you?’
Griff grimaced. He couldn’t believe he was tense about speaking to Jane Simpson. In their school days, Jane had been the Emerald Bay baker’s daughter. Since then she’d married a cane farmer and was now convening the class reunion.
‘Hi, there, Jane.’ He cleared his throat nervously and was immediately annoyed with himself. ‘Griff Fletcher, here. I’m ringing about the school reunion weekend.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Jane sounded excited. ‘It’s great to hear from you after all this time, Griff. I hope you’ll be able to come.’
‘Well, I’m still trying to see if I can...er...fit it into my schedule. But I was curious—how are the...er...numbers shaping up?’
‘They’re great, actually. We have about thirty-five coming so far—and that’s not counting partners. It’s really exciting,’ Jane enthused. ‘I do hope you can make it.’
‘Yeah, thanks.’
Since the barbecue with Tim and Barney, Griff had been warming to the idea of going back to the Bay. But he wanted to ask about Eva. The thought of running into her in front of everyone from their school days completely ruined the picture. There was too much unfinished business between them. There was bound to be tension. And friction. It would be unavoidable.
If Eva was going to be there—which Griff very much doubted—he would stay well clear of the place.
The simple question should have been easy to put to Jane. Griff couldn’t believe he was uptight.
It wasn’t as if he’d spent the past twenty years pining for his high school sweetheart. Many of the relationships he’d enjoyed since then had been fabulously passionate and borderline serious.
Admittedly, Griff’s relationships did have a habit of petering out. While almost all of his friends and colleagues had tied the knot and were starting families, Griff didn’t seem to have the staying power. He either tired of his girlfriends, or they got tired of waiting for him to commit to something more permanent.
At least he and Amanda were still hanging together. So far.
Now, he braced himself to get to the point of this phone call. Every day in court he faced criminals, judges and juries, and he prided himself on posing the most searching and intimate of questions. It should be a cinch to ask Jane Simpson a quick, straightforward question about Eva.
‘I don’t suppose...’ Griff began and stopped, as memories of Eva’s smile flashed before him. The view of her pale neck as she’d leaned over her books in class. The fresh taste of her kisses. Her slim, lithe body pressing temptingly close.
‘Have you heard from Eva?’ Jane asked, mercifully cutting into his thoughts.
Jane had been one of Eva’s closest friends at school, so she knew that he and Eva had once been an item.
Griff grabbed the opening now offered. ‘No, I haven’t heard from her in ages. We’re...not in contact these days. Has she been in touch with you?’
‘Yes, and I’m afraid she’s not coming,’ Jane said. ‘It’s such a pity she can’t make it.’
OK. So now he knew without having to ask. Relief and disappointment slugged Griff in equal parts.
‘I’m not at all surprised,’ he said.
‘No, I’m sure Eva’s incredibly busy with her dancing. It’s wonderful how amazingly well she’s done, though, isn’t it?’
‘Yes—amazing.’
‘Anyway, Griff, let me know if you do decide you can come. It should be a fun get-together. Do you have my email address?’
Jane dictated the address while Griff jotted it down. He would leave it a few days before he emailed her. In the meantime, he would swing by Tim’s favourite lunching hangout and let him know he was free to join him and Barney on a nostalgic trip back to their schoolboy haunts. And if he did happen to see Eva again, of course he wouldn’t lose his cool.
* * *
Eva sat beneath the red awning of a pavement café, clutching a cup of blissfully decadent hot chocolate as she watched the rainy Paris streetscape. Beyond the awning’s protection, raindrops danced in little splashes in the gutter. Across the street, the lights of another café glowed, yellow beacons of warmth in the bleak grey day.
Even in the rain Paris looked beautiful but, for the first time in ages, Eva felt like a tourist rather than a resident. She could no longer dance here and everything had changed.
She’d come to Paris to work, to further her career. Until now she’d been a professional with a full and busy life. Her days had a rhythm—limbering and stretching, promotions and interviews, rehearsals and performances.
If she lost all that, what would she do?
She hadn’t felt this low since she’d broken up with Vasily, her Russian boyfriend, who had left her for a lovely blonde dancer from the Netherlands.
Such a dreadful blow that had been.
For eight years, Eva had loved good-looking Vasily Stepanov and his sinfully magnificent body. They had danced together and lived and loved together, and she had looked on him as her partner in every sense. Her dancing had never been more assured, more sensitive. Her life had never been happier.
She’d learned to cook Vasily’s favourite Russian dishes—borsch and blini and potato salad with crunchy pickles, and she’d put up with his outbursts of temper. She’d even taken classes to learn his language, and she’d hoped they would marry, have a baby or two.
Getting over him had been the second hardest lesson of her life—after that other terrible lesson in her distant past. But now the devastating news about her hip was an even worse blow for Eva.
Sipping her rich, thick chocolat chaud, watching car tyres swish past on the shiny wet street, she found herself longing for sunshine and she remembered how easily the sun was taken for granted in Australia. A beat later, she was remembering the beach at Emerald Bay, the smooth curve of sand and the frothy blue and white surf.
And, out of nowhere, came the sudden suggestion that it made perfect sense to go back home to Australia for her surgery.
She could ask for leave from the company. Pierre was already rehearsing a new Clara for The Nutcracker, and the understudy was shaping up well. Eva was, to all intents and purposes, free. She found herself smiling at the prospect of going home.
She would make up some excuse about needing to see her mother. It wasn’t a total lie. It was years since she’d taken extended leave and it was at least two years since she’d been home, and her mum wasn’t getting any younger. If she had the surgery in an Australian city hospital, she’d have a much better chance of flying under the radar than she would here in ballet-mad Paris.
There might even be a chance—just a minuscule chance—that she could come back here to Paris as good as new. She’d been researching on the Internet and had read about a leading dancer in America who was performing again after a hip replacement. The girl was younger than Eva, but still, the story had given her hope.
And, Eva thought, as she drained the last of the creamy rich chocolate, if she was returning to Australia, she might as well go to that school reunion. She’d had an email from Jane Simpson telling her that Griff was undecided so, if she went, she was unlikely to have the ordeal of facing him.
She would love to catch up with everyone else. It felt suddenly important to her to chat with people who lived ‘normal’ lives.
Yes, she decided. She would go.
As soon as this thought was born, Eva was hit by a burst of exhilaration. This was swiftly followed by a shiver of fear when she thought about Griff, but she shook it off.
It was time to be positive and brave about her future. Perhaps it was also time to lay to rest the ghosts of her past.
CHAPTER TWO (#uca0ed753-2e52-5468-ae2f-7840479f1848)
THE BAY HAD changed a great deal. Griff and Tim were surprised and impressed by the new suburbs and shopping centres that had sprung up in their home town. The school was almost unrecognisable, with a host of extra buildings, including a big new gymnasium and performing arts centre.
At least the fish and chip shop looked much the same, painted white with a blue trim and with big blue pots spilling with red geraniums. And the natural features of sea, sky and beach were as alluring as ever. Now, though, smart cafés graced the prime spots along the seafront, and there were neatly mown parks with landscaped gardens.
The guys remembered paddocks of prickly bindi-eye weeds that they’d had to run across to get to the beach, but now there were very civilised paved walking paths, and carefully planted vines crawled over the sand dunes to hold them in place.
Nevertheless, the three friends had a great afternoon trying to recapture the fun of their youth, falling off surfboards, getting sunburnt, donning snorkels, goggles and flippers to explore the striped and colourful fish and coral on the inshore reefs that rimmed the headland.
Griff was certainly glad that he’d come. It was refreshing to spend some quality time with friends whose links stretched way back. Despite his high-powered job, or perhaps because of it, he’d lately found himself going to too many dinner parties and concerts with the same snooty circle, rehashing the same old conversations, the same narrow views of politics, the same tired jokes.
Now, as the sun slid towards the west, washing the sky with a bright pink blush that lent gold tints to the sea, the trio returned to their hotel to shower and change for the reunion.
Griff, changed into pale chinos and a white open-necked shirt with long sleeves rolled back to the elbows, checked his phone, half expecting a message from Amanda, even though they’d broken up. He was sure she would be still keeping tabs on him. She’d had plenty to say about his ‘boys’ weekend’.
They’d had another row, of course. He’d accused her of not trusting him. She’d claimed she would trust him if he put a ring on her finger.
In the end, she’d walked out and the next day she’d sent a taxi to collect her belongings.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t the first girlfriend to leave in this manner, but his love life was a hassle Griff didn’t want to think about now. After an afternoon of sun, sea and mateship, he was feeling more relaxed than he had in ages. He wanted to keep it that way.
* * *
The trio were crossing the wide stretch of mown lawn in front the Emerald Bay Golf Club when Griff came to a sudden halt, as if he’d slammed into an invisible glass wall.
He’d caught just the merest glimpse of a slim, dark-haired woman on the side balcony overlooking the golf course and he’d known immediately that it was Eva.
Hell, she wasn’t supposed to be here.
But here she was—wearing a sleeveless white dress, and laughing and chatting with a group. Even at a distance, Griff recognised her. No other woman was so slim and toned and poised. No one else had such perfect deportment, was so naturally elegant.
Hell. Now Griff knew he’d been fooling himself. His confidence that he could see Eva again and remain indifferent was shattered.
He was back in the past, remembering it all—helping her to adjust a pair of goggles and then teaching her to skin dive, helping her with her maths homework, dancing with her at the school formal. She’d worn a long silky dress in an aqua colour that exactly matched her eyes, and she’d made him feel like a prince.
He’d been saving for a surfboard, but he’d spent all his carefully hoarded pocket money on Eva’s birthday, buying her an aquamarine pendant on a silver chain.
‘What’s the matter, Griff?’ Barney’s voice intruded his thoughts.
Both Tim and Barney were staring at him.
‘Nothing,’ Griff responded quickly.
The guys frowned at him, then shrugged and walked on. Griff, grim-faced, kept pace with them.
Hell. He gave himself a mental shakedown. Of course he could do this. He was used to hiding his feelings. He did it every day in court. Sure, he could play the role of an old friend, who’d barely given his high school sweetheart a second thought during the past twenty years. Sure, he could grit his teeth and sweat this scene out. For an entire weekend.
* * *
Jane had only warned Eva at the very last minute that Griff was coming. Actually, Jane hadn’t couched the news as a warning. She had passed it on in high excitement, certain that Eva would be totally delighted.
By then, Eva had already arrived in the Bay and was settled into a pleasant motel room with ocean views, so it had been too late to change her mind. Just the same, when Jane shared this news, Eva found it devilish hard to grin and pretend to be pleased.
‘He’s not bringing his girlfriend, though,’ Jane had added.
The existence of a girlfriend was good news at least. The possibility that Griff was still single and at a loose end had bothered Eva for all sorts of ridiculous reasons. Instead, he was safely in a relationship, which meant there were no loose ends.
Great. Their past was a closed door and that was how it would remain.
Eva had told herself she was stupid to fret. After all these years, Griff would have forgotten all about her. There was absolutely no reason he’d still be interested. After she’d left town, he’d studied for years at university and since then he’d been fighting the good fight in the justice system. Griffin Fletcher was a top drawer barrister these days, totally brilliant. Such a lofty and noble pursuit.
No doubt he would look down on a ballerina who spent her days pirouetting and leaping about, and see her as someone fluffy and inconsequential.
At least Eva was used to keeping her emotions under wraps and remaining composed in public, and now, with the reunion well underway, she tried to ignore any stirrings of tension as she chatted with old school friends. Everyone was eager to hear all about her dancing career and her life in Europe, but she tried to keep her story low-key.
She was keen to hear about their lives as accountants and teachers, as nurses and farmers, and she was more than happy to look at their photographs of their adorable kids.
She was exclaiming over a photo of Rose Gardner’s six-month-old identical twins when she heard Jane’s voice lift with excitement.
‘Oh, hi, Barney and Tim. Hi, Griff.’
Griff.
Despite her calming self-talk, Eva’s heart took off like a runaway thief. Unhelpfully, she turned Griff’s way, which wasn’t wise, but the instinct was too powerful to resist.
She thought she was well prepared for her first sight of him, but in a moment she knew that was nonsense. She was trembling like the last leaf on an autumn branch.
There he was. A man who would stand out in any crowd. Probably no taller than before, but certainly broader across the shoulders and chest. Still with the same shaggy brown hair, the same rugged cheekbones, the slightly crooked nose and square, shadowed jaw. The same intelligent grey eyes that missed nothing.
Not quite handsome, Griff Fletcher was undeniably masculine. There were perpendicular grooves down his cheeks that hadn’t been there at eighteen, and he’d lost his easy, boyish smile. Now he had the air of a gladiator about to do battle, and Eva felt as if she might burst into flames.
‘Griff,’ Jane was gushing, ‘how lovely to see you again.’ A beat later, too soon, ‘Isn’t it wonderful that Eva was able to join us after all?’
With a beaming smile, Jane turned to Eva and beckoned. ‘I told Griff that you weren’t coming.’ She giggled, as if this were an enormous joke.
Eva saw the fierce blaze in Griff’s eyes. It wasn’t a glare, exactly, but she got the distinct impression that he would definitely have stayed away if he’d known she would be here.
Thud.
She desperately wanted to flee, but she forced herself to stand her ground and to dredge up a smile. This became easier when she shifted her gaze from Griff to his old schoolmates, Tim and Barney.
Barney had grown round and was losing his hair, but his blue eyes twinkled and his smile was genuine and welcoming. ‘Hey, Eva,’ he said. ‘Great to see you again.’ He clasped her hand and gave her a friendly kiss on her cheek. ‘I’m going to have to get your autograph for my daughter, Sophie. She’s just started to learn ballet.’
‘How lovely. Good for Sophie.’ Eva gave Barney her smiling, super-focused attention. ‘How many children do you have now?’
‘Two and a half. A boy and a girl, with another on the way.’
‘Barney’s working on having enough kids to field a football team,’ commented Tim as he shot his mate a cheeky grin.
Eva laughed. ‘I hope your wife’s in on that plan, Barney.’
Tim gave her a kiss, too. He told her that he worked in a bank and that he and his wife had just one child at this point, a little boy of two called Sam.
All too soon, it was Griff’s turn to greet Eva and the light-hearted atmosphere noticeably chilled, as if someone had flicked a switch. The sudden tension was palpable—in everyone—in Tim and Barney and herself. Eva’s heart was beating so loudly she feared they must hear it.
Griff smiled at her. It was a tilted, lopsided effort, but to the bystanders it probably passed as affable and casual. Eva, however, saw the expression in his eyes. Cold. Unfathomable. Cutting.
‘How are you, Eva?’ He went through the motions, giving her a casual hug and a peck on the cheek.
Ridiculously, her skin flamed at the contact, and she lost her breath as his big hands touched her shoulders, as his arms brushed, warm and solid, against her bare skin. Then his lips delivered a devastating, split-second flash of fire.
She took a moment to recover, to remember that she was supposed to answer his simple question. How are you, Eva?
‘I’m very well, thanks, Griff.’ Thank heavens she was able to speak calmly, but she hadn’t told him the truth. She wasn’t feeling well at all. She felt sick and scared—scared about the secrets she’d never shared with this man, that she’d hoped she would never have to share.
And her hip was agony. She’d foolishly, in a fit of vanity, worn high heels, and now she was paying the price. She prayed that she didn’t blush as Griff’s glittering grey gaze remained concentrated on her.
‘And how are you?’ she remembered to ask.
‘Fighting fit, thank you.’
With the conventions over, an awkward silence fell. Tim and Barney looked at their shoes, and then at each other.
‘We should grab a drink,’ Tim said.
‘Sure,’ Barney agreed with obvious enthusiasm. They both turned to head for the bar, seeming keen to get away. ‘Catch you two later.’
Griff remained still, watching Eva in stony silence and making her feel like one of his guilty criminals in the dock. This time her face flamed and she knew he could see it.
‘You haven’t changed,’ he said quietly.
She shook her head. Of course she’d changed. They’d all changed in so many ways, both on the outside and, undoubtedly, within. But she played the game. ‘Neither have you, Griff. Not really.’
At this, his smile almost reached his eyes.
She wondered if he was about to say something conciliatory. It would be helpful to at least share a few pleasantries to bridge the wide chasm of years. Of silence.
And guilty secrets.
‘I hear you’ve been very successful,’ he said. ‘You’re world-famous now. Congratulations.’
Receiving this praise from Griff, delivered in such a chilling tone, she wanted to cry.
But she swallowed the burning lump in her throat, squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. ‘You’ve been very successful, too.’
He responded with the merest nod and only the very faintest trace of a smile. ‘I imagine we’ve both worked hard.’
‘Yes.’
People all around them were chatting and laughing, waving and calling greetings, sharing hugs, enjoying themselves immensely, but Eva couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Griff said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, Eva, I’ll head over to the bar and grab a drink, too.’
‘Of course.’
‘I’m sure we’ll run into each other again during the weekend.’
‘I...I...yes, I’m sure.’
With another nod, he dismissed her. As he moved away, she felt horribly deserted, as if she’d been left alone on a stage with a spotlight shining on her so everyone could see her. She could almost hear the music that accompanied The Dying Swan, the sad notes of a lone cello.
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
Eva blinked and looked around her. The reunion was gathering steam. The balcony and the large dining room inside the clubhouse were almost full now with chattering, happy people and no one was staring at her.
She drifted, clutching her warming glass of champagne. She looked at the corkboard covered with old photographs. There were class photos, sporting teams, the senior formal, the school camp on Fraser Island. She saw a photo of herself in the netball team, Griff and his mates in striped football jerseys and shorts. Another photo showed her in a ballet tutu and pointe shoes, performing a solo for the school concert.
The old photographs conjured memories—the school disco when she and Griff danced together for the very first time, the dates when he’d taken her to the movies and they’d snogged each other senseless in the popcorn-scented dark, the barbecue for his eighteenth, the bonfire on the beach. And afterwards...
The memories were beyond painful and the urge to cry wouldn’t go away.
‘Would you like something to eat?’
Eva turned. A young girl was offering her a tray laden with canapés.
‘Prosciutto crostini with dried cherries and goats’ cheese,’ the girl said. ‘Or potato cakes with smoked salmon.’
Eva wasn’t hungry, but she took a potato cake. Anything was better than staring miserably at those photos. She even managed to smile at the girl, who was rather interesting-looking, with dark hair cut into a trendy asymmetrical style. She had a silver nose stud as well, and there were purple streaks in the long fringe of hair that hung low, framing one side of her pretty heart-shaped face.
The girl returned Eva’s smile. ‘You might like a napkin.’ She nodded to the small pile on one side of her tray.
‘Thanks,’ Eva said.
The girl was staring at Eva and there was something intriguing, almost familiar, about her clear grey eyes. ‘You’re Eva Hennessey,’ the girl said. ‘The ballet dancer.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
The girl’s eyes widened. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘You live in Paris, don’t you? How amazing to meet you.’
Eva smiled, feeling calmer. This was familiar ground. ‘It’s great to be back in Australia,’ she said. ‘Are you from the Bay?’
The girl gave a small laugh that might have been nervous. ‘Kinda. But I’m studying at university in Brisbane now.’ Then she must have realised she was spending too long in one place. ‘Better get going,’ she said, and she hurried away to offer the platter to a nearby group.
Before long, Eva was absorbed into another group of schoolmates and was once again fielding friendly questions or listening to their stories about their old teachers, about their jobs, their kids or their holidays in New Zealand or Bali.
It was easy enough to avoid Griff and she was beginning to relax a little and to enjoy herself once more. If she and Griff kept apart by mutual agreement, the evening might be manageable after all.
* * *
Griff was feeling calmer as he stood in a group by the bar. Half his old rugby league team were gathered there and the guys were having a great old time sharing memories—the game when Tony King broke his leg while scoring a try, or the year they won the regional premiership by a whisker, when Jonno Briggs kicked a freakish field goal.
The whole time, though, Griff was all too aware of Eva’s presence, even though she was at the far end of the room with her back to him. He did his damnedest to stop looking her way, but it was as if he had special radar beaming back sensory messages about her every move.
‘Would you like something to eat, sir?’
A girl arrived, offering canapés.
‘Thanks.’ The savouries looked appetising. Griff smiled. ‘I might take two.’
The girl laughed and there was a flash in her eyes, a tilt to her smile—something that felt uncannily familiar. For a moment longer than was necessary, the girl’s gaze stayed on Griff, almost as if she were studying him. Fine hairs lifted on the back of his neck.
The feeling was unsettling and he might have said something, but then she turned and began serving the others. She didn’t look Griff’s way again and he decided he must have been more on edge about the whole Eva business than he’d realised.
He would be glad when this night was over.
* * *
Dinner was about to be served and everyone settled at long tables. Eva sat with some old girlfriends and their husbands. Griff was two tables away, almost out of sight, and she did her best to stop her gaze from stealing in his direction. She was relatively successful, but twice he caught her sending a furtive glance his way. Both times he looked angry and she felt her cheeks heat brightly.
‘Are you all right, Eva?’ asked Jane, who was sitting opposite her.
‘Yes, of course.’ Eva knew she must look flushed and she reached for her water glass. ‘Just feeling the heat.’
Jane nodded sympathetically. ‘It must be hard for you, coming back from a lovely cool autumn in Europe to the start of a sweltering summer in Queensland.’
‘Yes,’ Eva said. ‘You tend to forget about the heat and just remember the lovely sunshine.’
Others around her nodded in agreement or laughed politely.
As they finished their main course, speeches were made. Jonno Briggs, who’d gone on after school to become a professional footballer, told a funny story about running into Barney in a pub in Glasgow. Jane gave a touching speech about one of their classmates who had died.
There were tributes to a couple of their old teachers who had also returned for the reunion. Then someone decided to point out their most successful classmates and Eva, among others, was asked to stand. As she did so, somewhat reluctantly, there was a burst of loud applause.
‘Give us a pirouette, Eva!’ called Barney.
She winced inwardly, remembering the way she’d liked to show off when she was still at school. So many times she’d performed arabesques and grand jetés on the beach.
‘I couldn’t possibly,’ she told them now.
‘Oh, come on!’ called a jocular fellow at the back.
‘Sorry. My dress is too tight.’
This was accepted with good-natured laughter.
At least she didn’t have to mention the flaring pain in her hip. She would prefer no one knew about that.
The desserts arrived. Eva was served by the girl with the purple-streaked hair who had chatted to her earlier. She gave Eva an especially bright smile and a sly wink, as if they were great mates.
Eva usually avoided desserts and she only ate half of her crème brulée. With the speeches over, people were rising from their seats and starting to mingle again. There was self-serve coffee at one end of the bar and Eva crossed the room to collect a cup.
‘We should talk,’ a deep voice said at her elbow.
Griff’s voice. Eva almost spilled her coffee.
His expression was serious. Determined. Eva supposed he was going to grill her, ply her with questions. She was rather afraid of that clever lawyer’s mind of his. Would he try to uncover her secret?
A flood of terror made her tremble. When she turned his way, she did so slowly, hoping to appear unruffled. ‘What would you like to talk about?’
Griff’s cool smile warned her not to play games. ‘I suspect we’d both benefit from laying a few ghosts.’
She couldn’t think how to respond to this. ‘I...guess.’
‘Let’s go outside. You can bring your coffee with you.’
Eva was struggling with her hip and the high heels and she didn’t trust herself to carry a cup of hot liquid. ‘I’d prefer to drink it here.’
His expression remained unruffled. ‘As you wish. There’s no rush.’
‘Well, no, I guess not.’ In an attempt to banish her nervousness, she tried for lightness. ‘Not after twenty years.’
But with Griff standing there, waiting for their ‘talk’, she was suddenly so tense the coffee curdled in her stomach. After three sips she set the cup down.
He frowned. ‘You’re finished?’
‘Yes, thanks. Where would you like to go?’
He nodded towards a pair of glass doors that led to another, smaller, balcony. ‘We should have more privacy out there.’
Privacy with this man. Great. Just what she didn’t need, but she knew she shouldn’t refuse him. From the moment she’d decided to come back to the Bay, she’d been aware that this encounter was a possibility.
Perhaps it was time.
If only she felt ready.
As Griff opened the door for her to precede him, the only light on the balcony came from an almost full moon. They were facing the sea now and a breeze brought a flurry of salty spray. The moon shone over the surf, highlighting the silvery curl of the waves and the white froth of foam as it crashed on the pale sand.
Eva gripped the balcony railing, grateful for its support. Now, in the moonlit darkness, Griff seemed to loom larger than ever.
‘So,’ she said, turning bravely to face him. ‘What would you like to discuss?’
‘I’m sure you must know, Eva. Perhaps you’re hoping that after twenty years I’d simply overlook the way we broke up, but I’m afraid I’d like to know why you took off like that.’
She nodded, drew a deep breath. Of course she’d guessed this would be Griff’s question and she knew she must tell him the truth. If only it wasn’t so difficult, after all this time. When they were young they’d been able to talk endlessly, with an easy, trusting intimacy that would be impossible now. They’d shared everything.
Well, almost everything.
Now, they were virtually strangers.
She was tempted to use her mother as her excuse, but that would be cowardly. Although it had been her mum’s idea to take off, leaving no word.
‘I know you, Eva,’ her mother had said on that fateful night before they’d left Emerald Bay under cover of darkness, as Eva had wept and begged to go to Griff. ‘Be sensible, darling. If you try to explain what we’re doing, you’ll end up telling him everything. He might make demands and it will become way too complicated.’
Eva had tried to protest, but her mother had insisted. ‘You need to make a clean break now. You have to think of your dancing career. You have so much promise, darling. Everybody says so—your teacher, the examiners, the Eisteddfod judges. You can’t throw that away. I won’t let you.’
There had been tears in her mother’s eyes. Eva’s potential career was incredibly important to her. She’d started dressing Eva in ballet tutus when she was three years old. By the time she was eighteen, Eva’s ballet career had probably been more important to Lizzie Hennessey than it had been to Eva.
It was only much later, with the benefit of distance and maturity, that Eva had understood that her struggling single mother had been desperate to ensure that her daughter wasn’t trapped and held back, as she had been.
Eva hadn’t allowed herself to question whether she’d been wrong to listen to her mother. Of necessity, she’d clung to the belief that she had done the right thing. And her career had repaid her a thousandfold.
The wind swept her hair over her face. With shaking fingers, she brushed it away. ‘I know it was bad of us to take off like that,’ she told Griff. ‘I’ve always felt guilty about it.’
‘You were my first girlfriend,’ he said. ‘But you were also the first girl to dump me.’ He sounded less aggressive, closer to the friendly Griff of old. ‘I admit my ego took a blow.’
He stepped up to the railing, standing beside her now, with his hands deep in his trouser pockets as he looked out to sea. Eva could see his profile: his broad, intelligent forehead, his strong nose, his lips that she’d once explored with such excitement and daring.
‘I thought I must have upset you,’ he said quietly. ‘We were both virgins. At the time, you seemed keen. I know you were keen, but I’ve often wondered if... I don’t know...if I’d scared you.’
Oh, Griff, never. Tears stung Eva’s eyes. ‘That wasn’t the problem, honestly. It was—’
‘Excuse me.’
A voice brought them both swinging round. It was a girl—the waitress with the purple streaks in her hair.
Had she been sent to summon them inside? Eva wasn’t sure if she was annoyed or relieved by the interruption.
‘What is it?’ Griff snapped, making his own reaction quite clear.
‘I was hoping to speak to you both,’ the girl said, but she seemed less confident now. She was wearing a white shirt and black skirt and she fiddled with the buckle at her waist.
Eva glanced Griff’s way and saw his eyes narrow as he frowned at the girl. ‘Well?’ he demanded impatiently.
‘I wanted to introduce myself.’ Her grey eyes were huge with an emotion that might have been overwhelming excitement or fear. ‘You see,’ she added, lifting her hands from her sides, palms facing up in a gesture that was both nervous and helpless, ‘I’m your daughter.’
CHAPTER THREE (#uca0ed753-2e52-5468-ae2f-7840479f1848)
GRIFF FELT AS if he’d been king-hit, knocked to the ground, left in a gutter, bruised and battered. He stared at the girl in appalled disbelief. Surely he hadn’t heard her correctly.
Their daughter?
Impossible.
And yet, as he slowly gathered his wits, he had to ask himself if this wasn’t also entirely possible. He’d used precautions back then, but heaven knew he’d been inexperienced and overexcited at the time. Hell. There was evidence enough in what had followed—Eva’s rapid departure and silence.
And now, twenty years later, this creature, this attractive young woman, tall and dark-haired, with clear pale skin and shiny grey eyes and an air of familiarity that had nagged at Griff from the moment he’d seen her.
Their daughter?
Emotions tumbled through him like the pounding surf. Shock. Anger. Sadness. Regret. And then another thumping wave of anger.
All this time, all these years—Eva had kept their child a secret? His first impulse now was to round on her, to demand a full explanation.
A quick glance Eva’s way, however, showed her sagged against the railing, white and trembling, possibly even more shocked than he was. Unfortunately, she wasn’t denying the girl’s claim.
‘I’m sorry,’ the girl said. ‘I know this must be a huge surprise. A shock, I expect. But I was so anxious to meet you both. That’s why I took this waitressing job as soon as I heard about the reunion. I was so excited when I saw the list of names and realised that you were both going to be here.’
Dazed, Griff rubbed at his temple. Could this girl, this unique, vibrant being, really be an amalgam of his and Eva’s genes? A life they’d created?
He still couldn’t quite believe he was a father. He didn’t want to believe he’d been a father all this time. Bloody hell.
A thousand questions demanded answers, but he wasn’t prepared to expose his total ignorance in front of the girl. At this point, there was no way of verifying her outrageous claim.
‘What’s your name?’ Eva asked in a whisper, while she kept a white-knuckled grip on the railing, as if it were the only thing keeping her upright.
‘Laine,’ the girl said. ‘That’s the name you gave me, isn’t it? Laine Elizabeth?’
Tears shone in Eva’s eyes as she gave a sad, slow nod. ‘Yes,’ she said and, with a single syllable, she answered Griff’s biggest question.
‘I’m Laine Templeton now,’ the girl said. ‘Or sometimes Lettie to my closest friends, because my initials are L.E.T. The people who adopted me—the Templetons—live in Brisbane.’
‘And they told you about me?’ Eva sent a frightened glance Griff’s way. ‘About...us?’
Laine shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t want to upset them, so I went straight to the adoption agency. I’m over eighteen, so I was perfectly entitled to find out the names of my birth parents.’ Her gaze met Griff’s. ‘I’m studying law at UQ. I was intrigued to look you up on the Internet and discover you’re a barrister.’
Griff felt as if he’d swallowed glass. He supposed he should feel some kind of fatherly connection to this girl. He wanted to feel sympathy for Eva, but he was too busy dealing with his own roiling emotions.
Eva shouldn’t have kept this from him. She shouldn’t have carried this burden alone. Damn it, she should have shared the news of her pregnancy.
Sure, they’d been young at the time, only just out of school, and both of them with big career dreams with absolutely no plans to start a family. He hadn’t been anywhere near ready for parenthood, but it cut deep to realise he’d been denied the chance to face up to this challenge, to at least be part of the decision-making.
‘Look, I know this is a bolt out of the blue,’ Laine said, and she was already taking a step backwards as she looked carefully from Griff to Eva. ‘I just wanted to introduce myself initially, but I guess you need time to...adjust.’
‘Yes, we do,’ Griff told her more sternly than he’d meant to.
She smiled shyly, awkwardly.
‘I’m sorry,’ Eva said through trembling lips. ‘I...I...’
Clearly, Eva was struggling to say anything coherent.
Laine lifted her hand then and gave a shy, shining-eyed smile and a stiff wave. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I dare say my timing hasn’t been great.’
Griff felt torn. This was his daughter, after all. It felt totally inadequate to just greet her with Hi and ’bye. But he was too shocked to think straight. ‘Look, this really is a shock,’ he said. Maybe—’
Eva spoke up. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’
‘Yes, sure,’ said Laine. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I...I...’
‘We can at least exchange contact details tomorrow,’ Griff suggested. That would be a start, and about all they could manage under the circumstances. Eva looked as if she was about to collapse.
‘Thanks,’ said Laine. ‘I’ll see you then.’
She backed away quickly and as she left via the glass doors Eva opened her mouth as if she wanted to say goodbye, but no sound emerged and she looked as if she was about to collapse.
Griff stepped towards Eva again, torn between wanting to tear strips off her and feeling desperately sorry for her. What must it be like for a mother to be reunited with her baby after nineteen long years?
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
Eva shook her head. ‘Not really.’
She was still clinging to the railing as if it were a life raft. Clearly, she needed to sit down and Griff was wondering where he could take her so that they could be private.
‘Would you mind walking me back to my motel?’ Eva asked, as if her mind had been on a similar track.
It was the perfect option. ‘No, of course not.’
Griff slipped his arm around Eva’s shoulders. He felt the softness of her bare skin, sensed the supple strength of her slender frame, toned by years of dancing. But now he knew that her magnificent career had come with a huge price tag. He wasn’t sure he could forgive her.
* * *
It was a relief to lean into Griff’s massive shoulder and to have his strong arm firmly around her as they walked the short distance across the lawn to the beachfront motel where Eva was staying.
She should have been terribly self-conscious about this sudden proximity to the man she’d avoided for so many years, but now her thoughts were filled to the brim with Laine. For so long, that beautiful girl had lived in Eva’s head and heart as a tiny newborn.
Such a shock to see her baby now. Out of the blue. So astonishingly alive and grown-up and beautiful, and wanting to get to know her and Griff.
And Griff. She still hadn’t come to terms with seeing him again. In one night, the love of her life and the daughter she had given up were both suddenly back in her life. It was too much. Too unreal. Too overwhelming.
Eva couldn’t quite take it all in. She’d never felt such see-sawing emotions, teetering between joy and sorrow and guilt. Huge guilt.
‘There hasn’t been a day when I haven’t thought about her, haven’t wondered.’ She only realised she’d spoken this out loud when she felt Griff’s arm tighten around her.
He didn’t say anything, however, and Eva couldn’t imagine what he must be thinking. He would be terribly angry with her of course.
Keeping secrets was dangerous. They were usually exposed sooner or later, and the longer the secret was kept in the dark, the more likely it was that people would be hurt. Deeply hurt.
Would Griff ever forgive her?
* * *
It wasn’t long before they reached the motel. Griff dropped his arm from Eva’s shoulders and she fished in her bag for the room key.
‘Would you like to come in?’ she asked him, knowing she couldn’t reasonably send him away like this, with so many unasked and unanswered questions.
‘Yes, of course. We need to talk.’
Eva nodded, pushed the door open and slipped the key-card into the slot that turned on the lights. The motel room was large and comfortable, with a small sitting area comprising a couple of armchairs, a coffee table and a shaded table lamp.
She quickly switched off the lamps by the king-sized bed. A silly reaction, no doubt, but she didn’t want to draw attention to the seductive banks of pillows, the soft throw rug arranged artistically across the grey silk quilt. She kicked off her shoes. Her hip was screaming and for a moment she had no choice but to stand there with her eyes closed, massaging the inflamed joint with her thumb.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/barbara-hannay/reunited-by-a-baby-bombshell/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Barbara Hannay
A secret he never knew aboutPrima ballerina Eva Hennessey has made her life in Paris – far away from her childhood sweetheart Griffen Fletcher. But when an invitation arrives for her school reunion, she nervously accepts!Griff never imagined he would see Eva again, and now he wants some answers! She may be more beautiful than he remembers, but she also masks a pain only he can see. It’s a secret she’s kept far too long… One that will change their worlds forever!
A secret he never knew about
Prima ballerina Eva Hennessey has made her life in Paris—far away from her childhood sweetheart, Griffin Fletcher. But when an invitation arrives for her school reunion, she nervously accepts!
Griff never imagined he would see Eva again, and now he wants some answers. She may be more beautiful than he remembers, but she also masks a pain only he can see. It’s a secret she’s kept far too long. And when she finally tells him, their worlds change forever...
“How are you, Eva?”
He went through the motions, giving her a casual hug and a peck on the cheek.
Ridiculously, her skin flamed at the contact, and she lost her breath as his big hands touched her shoulders, as his arms brushed, warm and solid, against her bare skin. Then his lips delivered a devastating split-second flash of fire.
She took a moment to recover. “I’m very well, thanks, Griff.” Thank heavens she was able to speak calmly, but she hadn’t told him the truth. She wasn’t feeling well at all. She felt sick. And her hip was in agony. She prayed that she didn’t blush as Griff’s glittering gray gaze remained concentrated on her.
“And how are you?” she remembered to ask.
“Fighting fit, thank you.”
With the conventions over, an awkward silence fell. She wondered if he was about to say something conciliatory. It would be helpful to at least share a few pleasantries to bridge the wide chasm of years. Of silence.
And guilty secrets.
Reunited by a Baby Bombshell
Barbara Hannay
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
BARBARA HANNAY has written over forty romance novels and has won a RITA® Award, an RT Reviewers’ Choice award, as well as Australia’s Romantic Book of the Year.
A city-bred girl with a yen for country life, Barbara lives with her husband on a misty hillside in beautiful Far North Queensland, where they raise pigs and chickens and enjoy an untidy but productive garden.
Contents
Cover (#u8f8bc777-2780-579d-80fc-d76493bdf2c0)
Back Cover Text (#u8c0cae38-7180-5893-abe8-5d71d9b2b7ef)
Introduction (#u3a720d67-e297-5383-8dce-f2251d2bde86)
Title Page (#ua3919968-a584-5920-96ba-8370c9d0c396)
About the Author (#u4dc99a98-ccd8-5da1-88d1-ba1ada97d6e4)
CHAPTER ONE (#u9d89e2f9-1078-52dc-9f9b-09a4aa0b5c58)
CHAPTER TWO (#ub3ef6ef9-635f-5479-92dd-e99d0affebfd)
CHAPTER THREE (#uf8d7ff8a-4c31-5768-b93c-c107e15d4c1f)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#uca0ed753-2e52-5468-ae2f-7840479f1848)
WHEN THE INVITATION arrived Eva Hennessey was away in Prague, dancing the role of Odette in Swan Lake. On her return to Paris a week later, she found her mailbox crammed, mostly with an assortment of bills and dance magazines. She was riding the rickety old lift to her apartment on the fifth floor when the bright sunny Australian stamp caught her eye. Then she read the postmark. Emerald Bay.
The sharp pang in her chest made her gasp. It wasn’t homesickness. Eva’s feelings about the beach town where she’d grown up were far more complicated. These days, she rarely allowed herself to unpack the mixed bag of emotions that accompanied memories from her youth.
She always ended up thinking about Griffin Fletcher...and the other harrowing memory that would never leave her.
She’d worked hard to put that life behind her. She’d had to. Long ago.
Today, as the hum of Parisian traffic reached Eva from the street below, she let herself into the apartment that had been her home for the past ten years. Nanette, the concierge, had already turned on the heating and the apartment was welcoming and warm. Eva had loved this place from the day she’d first found it.
Decorated simply in quiet creamy tones with occasional touches of blue, the main living area was dominated by a far wall of windows that looked out over tiled rooftops, chimneys and church spires to the top of the Eiffel Tower. At night, on the hour, the Tower glittered with beautiful lights. It was a view Eva never tired of.
Stopping for a moment, she smiled to herself as she looked about the space she’d carefully assembled over the years—the beautiful cushion covers she’d picked up on various tours, the collection of blue and white pottery from all over Europe, the wide-brimmed bowl full of shells and stones she’d collected from beaches in Greece and Italy, in Spain and the UK. So many happy memories to counteract the sad ones from her past.
She set down her luggage and dumped the envelope from Australia on the coffee table along with the rest of her mail. Then she went through to the bathroom and had a long hot shower, massaging the nagging pain in her hip under the steady stream of water.
She washed her hair, dried it roughly with a towel, letting the damp dark tresses hang loose past her shoulders as she changed into a comfy pair of stretch slacks and an oversized T-shirt.
Soon she would make her supper. A simple herb omelette would suffice. But first a glass of wine, an indulgence she could allow herself now that the performance tour was behind her.
Curled on the sofa, with the wine within reach and a cushion positioned to support her painful hip, Eva retrieved the envelope from Australia and slit it open. A card depicting an iconic Queensland beach fell out.
Beneath the picture, a message—an invitation to a reunion of her classmates to celebrate twenty years since their last year of high school.
Eva felt sick as she read the details.
Where: Emerald Bay Golf Club
When: Saturday October 20th
The simple wording hit her like a punch to the chest. A thousand long-suppressed images crashed in. The beach in summer and the thrill of riding the rolling green surf. The smooth trunk of a palm tree at her back as she sat at the edge of the sand, eating salty fish and chips wrapped in paper. The smell of sunscreen and citronella.
Her thoughts flashed to hot summer days in classrooms with windows opened wide to catch a sea breeze. And then, despite her best efforts to block them, there were memories of Griffin Fletcher.
Griff, sitting at the desk just behind her in class, all shaggy-haired and wide-shouldered, catching her eye when she turned and sending her a cheeky grin.
Griff on the football field. The flash of his solid thighs as he sped past to score a try.
Griff holding her close in the dark. The surprising gentleness of his lips.
And, flashing between those sweeter memories, the fear and the crushing weight of her terrible secret. The overwhelming heartbreak and pain.
Enough.
Stop it.
Eva knew at once what her response would be. What it must be. Of course she couldn’t possibly go. With deep regret, she would be unable to accept the kind invitation. She was very grateful to be remembered by her old school friends, but her schedule was far too tight.
It wasn’t untrue. She had a new set of rehearsals for The Nutcracker lined up and she couldn’t really afford the time away. And why would she want to go back to the Bay anyway? Her mother no longer lived there. It was many years now since her mum had married and settled in Cairns in the far north of the state. As for Eva’s classmates and the rest of her memories—of necessity, she’d very deliberately left all that behind.
Instead, she’d worked as hard as possible for those twenty years, putting in endless, punishing hours to build the career of her dreams. These days, posters of Eva Hennessey, dancing as Giselle, as Cinderella or as Romeo’s Juliet, were on display in almost every theatre or train station in Europe.
After long years of hard work, this was Eva’s reward. Rave reviews claimed her as ‘technically poised and polished and lyrically perfect’. Wherever she went, audiences cheered Bravo! and gave her standing ovations. Her dressing rooms were crammed with beautiful flowers.
Eva’s world was now different in every way imaginable from the life she’d known in the sleepy seaside town of her youth. She might as well be living on a different planet. If she ever returned to Emerald Bay, she would not only awaken past hurts, she would feel like an alien.
Just the same, she felt sick to the stomach as she tucked the card back into the envelope. She told herself she was simply overtired after the gruelling weeks on tour.
In the morning she would post an ‘inability to accept’ and she would delete all thoughts of Emerald Bay.
* * *
Bees buzzed in the bottlebrush hedge. Small children laughed and squealed as they splashed at the shallow end of the elegant swimming pool, while their mothers watched, dangling their bare legs in the water as they sipped Pimm’s from long glasses. The smell of frying onions floated on the balmiest of breezes. It was a typical Sunday afternoon in suburban Brisbane.
Griff Fletcher was the host on this particular Sunday and his guests were a couple of long-time mates and their families. Griff was repaying their hospitality while his girlfriend, Amanda, was away in Sydney on business. It made sense. Amanda hadn’t known these guys for decades as he had. They weren’t really part of her scene—she was so much younger than their wives—and she didn’t ‘do’ little kids.
As Griff added steaks to the sizzling barbecue plate, the men helped themselves to fresh beers and kept him company.
‘So what do you reckon about the school reunion?’ asked Tim, who, like Griff, had moved from Emerald Bay to live and work in Queensland’s capital city. ‘Are you planning to check it out, Griff?’
Griff shrugged. He’d known that Tim and Barney were bound to talk about the reunion today, but he really wasn’t that interested. ‘I think I might give it a miss,’ he said.
Tim pulled a face, clearly disappointed. ‘But surely you must be curious about your old mates? Wouldn’t you like to catch up with the gang?’
The best Griff could manage was a crooked grin. ‘I see you two often enough.’
Barney gave an awkward smile and Tim scowled and took a long drink of his beer. Griff scowled too, as he began to flip steaks. He knew it wouldn’t be long before one of the guys had another dig at him.
Tim shook his head. ‘I know you’re a hotshot barrister, Griff, but I didn’t take you for a snob.’
Griff gave another shrug as he turned the sausages for the children. ‘I just don’t see the point in revisiting the past. You know what these reunions are like. The only people who turn up are the ones who’ve been successful, or the ones who’ve bred a swag of offspring. Then they swan around feeling smug, gossiping about the ones who stayed away.’
‘That’s a bit harsh,’ Tim said stiffly.
‘I wasn’t talking about you of course, mate.’
His mate wasn’t mollified. ‘Have you ever been to a school reunion?’
‘No, but it’s easy to—’
‘I have,’ cut in Barney. ‘My folks still live in the Bay, so I’m up there pretty regularly and I went to the ten-year reunion.’ He looked a tad defensive. ‘I enjoyed meeting up with everyone again, even after just ten years. There were some who’d really changed and others who looked exactly the same. Not that any of that mattered. We all had plenty of laughs and swapped war stories. It was interesting to hear what everyone’s doing.’
‘See!’ crowed Tim with a triumphant grin.
Griff shrugged again and used the egg flip to shift the browned onions away from the heat. Then he turned to call to the women. ‘Steaks won’t be long.’
‘Right,’ Tim’s wife, Kylie, called back. ‘We’d better get these kids dry then.’
Tim, meanwhile, moved closer to Griff. Out of the corner of his mouth, he said, ‘Eva Hennessey’s not likely to be there.’
Griff stiffened, and was immediately annoyed that the mere mention of Eva could still raise a reaction. It really shouldn’t matter if he ran into a girl he’d known a million years ago.
The reaction didn’t make sense. Sure, Eva had been his first girlfriend, but he’d eventually got over the shock of her leaving town so abruptly. It wasn’t as if he’d been planning to marry her straight out of high school and settle down in the Bay. He’d had big plans for his future.
He’d carried on with his life, with university and his subsequent career. And in the past two decades he’d had more than his fair share of relationships with glamorous, beautiful, passionate women.
He supposed it didn’t really make sense that he wanted to avoid Eva, but he’d moved on, so why ask for trouble?
‘Of course she won’t be there,’ he said, pleased that he managed to sound offhand. He added another nonchalant shrug for good measure, but he bit back the other comment that had sprung to mind—that Eva Hennessey was far too busy and world-famous to come back for such a piddling, unimportant event.
‘Well, Barney’s already put his name down, haven’t you, Barnes?’ Tim called to their mate, who was retrieving an inflatable ball that had bounced out of the pool.
Barney sent them a thumbs up.
‘And I reckon it’d be a blast for the three of us to go back to the Bay,’ Tim persisted. ‘You know, just the Three Amigos, without the women and billy-lids. Like the good old days.’
Griff was about to respond in the negative, but Tim stopped him with a raised hand.
‘Just think about it, Griff. We could stay at a pub on the beachfront, catch a few waves, even do a little snorkelling and diving on the reef.’
Well, yeah.
Griff couldn’t deny the great times he and these mates had enjoyed as teenagers, lapping up the free and easy outdoor lifestyle of a bayside country town.
Griff’s family had moved back to the city as soon as he’d finished school, and he could barely remember the last time he’d donned goggles and flippers to dive into the secret underwater world of coral and fish.
But there’d been a time when he’d lived and breathed diving...and surfing. Throughout his teenage years, he’d spent a part of every single day at the beach, in the sea. And every night, in bed, he’d listened to the sound of the surf pounding on the sand. The rhythm of the sea had been as familiar and essential to him as the beating of his heart.
By contrast, these days, the only water he saw was when he was rowing on the Brisbane River, which was usually flat and brown and still.
But the sea was different. And the Bay was special.
More to the point, these two mates were important to Griff. Amanda wasn’t especially fond of them, but she did have a tendency to be slightly snooty. She preferred mixing with Griff’s barrister colleagues and their partners, whereas Griff knew that these guys kept him grounded. Tim worked in a bank and Barney was an electrician and, between them, they provided a good balance to the eminent judges and silks who filled Griff’s working life.
He’d be crazy to let the haunting memory of one slim, dark-haired girl with astonishing aqua eyes spoil the chance to go back and recapture a little of the camaraderie and magic he’d enjoyed in his youth.
‘I’ll think about it,’ he said cautiously.
He was rewarded with a hearty and enthusiastic back-slap.
* * *
Eva stared at the doctor in dismay as two words echoed in her head like a tolling funeral bell... Hip replacement...hip replacement...
It was the worst possible news. She couldn’t take it in. She didn’t want to believe it.
A few days earlier, during a rehearsal of The Nutcracker, she’d landed awkwardly after performing a grand jeté, a demanding movement that involved propelling herself gracefully into the air and doing the splits while above the ground. Eva had performed the move thousands of times, of course, but this time, when she’d landed, the pain in her hip had been agonising.
Since then, the hip hadn’t improved. She’d stayed away from rehearsals, claiming a heavy cold, which was something she’d never done before. Normally, Eva danced through every painful mishap. She’d danced on broken toes, through colds and flu, had even performed for weeks with a torn ligament in her shoulder.
Such stoicism wasn’t unusual in ballet circles. A culture of secrecy about injury was a given. Every dancer was terrified of being branded as fragile. They all understood it was a euphemism for on the way out—the end of a career.
This time, however, Eva found it too difficult to keep hiding her pain. Even if she faked her way through class and rehearsals, by the time she got home she could barely walk. So she’d seen an osteopath. But now, to her horror, the doctor had shown her disturbing results from her MRI scan.
She’d never dreamed the damage could be so bad.
‘You’ve torn the labrum,’ the doctor told her solemnly as he pointed to the scan. ‘That’s the ring of cartilage around your left hip joint. Normally, the labrum helps with shock absorption and lubrication of the joint, but now—’ He shook his head. ‘The tear on its own wouldn’t be such a great problem, but there are other degenerative changes as well.’ He waved his hand over the scan. ‘Extensive arthritic inflammation of the whole joint.’
Arthritis? A chill washed over Eva. Wasn’t that something that happened to elderly people?
‘I strongly recommend a complete hip replacement. Otherwise—’ the doctor sighed expressively ‘—I don’t really see how you can avoid it.’
No, please no.
On a page from his writing pad, he wrote the names of two consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeons. He handed the paper to Eva.
Sweat broke out on her skin and she swayed a little dizzily in her chair. A hip replacement was a death knell, the end of her career. The prospect filled her with such desolation that it didn’t bear imagining.
It would be the end of my life.
‘Aren’t there other things I can try?’ she asked in desperation. ‘Besides surgery?’
The doctor gave a shrug. ‘We can talk about physiotherapy and painkillers and diet. And rest,’ he added, giving her a dark look. ‘But I think you’ll find that the pain will still be too severe, certainly if you want to continue dancing. Ballet requires movements that are very unnatural.’
Eva knew this all too well, of course. She’d spent a lifetime perfecting the demanding movements most people never even tried. Pirouettes and adagios and grand allegros en pointe all made exacting demands on her limbs and joints, and she knew she was only human. She was at the wrong end of her thirties and there was a limit to what she could expect from her body. But she couldn’t give up dancing.
Not yet! She’d worked too hard, had sacrificed too much. Sure, she’d known that her career couldn’t last for ever, but she’d hoped for at least five more years.
Dancing was her life. Without it, she would drown, would completely lose her identity.
She was in no way ready for this.
The osteopath was staring at her a little impatiently now. He had no more advice to offer.
In a daze, Eva rose from her chair, thanked him and bade him goodbye. As the door to his office closed behind her, she walked through reception without seeing anyone, trying not to limp, to prove to herself that the doctor must have been wrong, but even walking was painful.
Glass doors led to a long empty corridor. What could she do now?
She tried to think clearly, but her mind kept spinning. If she gave in and had the surgery, she was sure the company wouldn’t want her back—certainly not as their prima ballerina—and she couldn’t conscience the idea of going back into the corps de ballet.
The worst of it was, this wasn’t a problem she dared discuss with her colleagues. She didn’t want anyone in the dancing world to know. The news would spread like wildfire. It would be in the press by lunchtime. By supper time, her career would be over.
As she made her way carefully down a short flight of stairs and onto the Parisian pavement outside, Eva, who had always been strong and independent, valuing her privacy, had never felt more vulnerable and alone. On the wrong side of the world.
* * *
‘Hello, this is Jane. How can I help you?’
Griff grimaced. He couldn’t believe he was tense about speaking to Jane Simpson. In their school days, Jane had been the Emerald Bay baker’s daughter. Since then she’d married a cane farmer and was now convening the class reunion.
‘Hi, there, Jane.’ He cleared his throat nervously and was immediately annoyed with himself. ‘Griff Fletcher, here. I’m ringing about the school reunion weekend.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Jane sounded excited. ‘It’s great to hear from you after all this time, Griff. I hope you’ll be able to come.’
‘Well, I’m still trying to see if I can...er...fit it into my schedule. But I was curious—how are the...er...numbers shaping up?’
‘They’re great, actually. We have about thirty-five coming so far—and that’s not counting partners. It’s really exciting,’ Jane enthused. ‘I do hope you can make it.’
‘Yeah, thanks.’
Since the barbecue with Tim and Barney, Griff had been warming to the idea of going back to the Bay. But he wanted to ask about Eva. The thought of running into her in front of everyone from their school days completely ruined the picture. There was too much unfinished business between them. There was bound to be tension. And friction. It would be unavoidable.
If Eva was going to be there—which Griff very much doubted—he would stay well clear of the place.
The simple question should have been easy to put to Jane. Griff couldn’t believe he was uptight.
It wasn’t as if he’d spent the past twenty years pining for his high school sweetheart. Many of the relationships he’d enjoyed since then had been fabulously passionate and borderline serious.
Admittedly, Griff’s relationships did have a habit of petering out. While almost all of his friends and colleagues had tied the knot and were starting families, Griff didn’t seem to have the staying power. He either tired of his girlfriends, or they got tired of waiting for him to commit to something more permanent.
At least he and Amanda were still hanging together. So far.
Now, he braced himself to get to the point of this phone call. Every day in court he faced criminals, judges and juries, and he prided himself on posing the most searching and intimate of questions. It should be a cinch to ask Jane Simpson a quick, straightforward question about Eva.
‘I don’t suppose...’ Griff began and stopped, as memories of Eva’s smile flashed before him. The view of her pale neck as she’d leaned over her books in class. The fresh taste of her kisses. Her slim, lithe body pressing temptingly close.
‘Have you heard from Eva?’ Jane asked, mercifully cutting into his thoughts.
Jane had been one of Eva’s closest friends at school, so she knew that he and Eva had once been an item.
Griff grabbed the opening now offered. ‘No, I haven’t heard from her in ages. We’re...not in contact these days. Has she been in touch with you?’
‘Yes, and I’m afraid she’s not coming,’ Jane said. ‘It’s such a pity she can’t make it.’
OK. So now he knew without having to ask. Relief and disappointment slugged Griff in equal parts.
‘I’m not at all surprised,’ he said.
‘No, I’m sure Eva’s incredibly busy with her dancing. It’s wonderful how amazingly well she’s done, though, isn’t it?’
‘Yes—amazing.’
‘Anyway, Griff, let me know if you do decide you can come. It should be a fun get-together. Do you have my email address?’
Jane dictated the address while Griff jotted it down. He would leave it a few days before he emailed her. In the meantime, he would swing by Tim’s favourite lunching hangout and let him know he was free to join him and Barney on a nostalgic trip back to their schoolboy haunts. And if he did happen to see Eva again, of course he wouldn’t lose his cool.
* * *
Eva sat beneath the red awning of a pavement café, clutching a cup of blissfully decadent hot chocolate as she watched the rainy Paris streetscape. Beyond the awning’s protection, raindrops danced in little splashes in the gutter. Across the street, the lights of another café glowed, yellow beacons of warmth in the bleak grey day.
Even in the rain Paris looked beautiful but, for the first time in ages, Eva felt like a tourist rather than a resident. She could no longer dance here and everything had changed.
She’d come to Paris to work, to further her career. Until now she’d been a professional with a full and busy life. Her days had a rhythm—limbering and stretching, promotions and interviews, rehearsals and performances.
If she lost all that, what would she do?
She hadn’t felt this low since she’d broken up with Vasily, her Russian boyfriend, who had left her for a lovely blonde dancer from the Netherlands.
Such a dreadful blow that had been.
For eight years, Eva had loved good-looking Vasily Stepanov and his sinfully magnificent body. They had danced together and lived and loved together, and she had looked on him as her partner in every sense. Her dancing had never been more assured, more sensitive. Her life had never been happier.
She’d learned to cook Vasily’s favourite Russian dishes—borsch and blini and potato salad with crunchy pickles, and she’d put up with his outbursts of temper. She’d even taken classes to learn his language, and she’d hoped they would marry, have a baby or two.
Getting over him had been the second hardest lesson of her life—after that other terrible lesson in her distant past. But now the devastating news about her hip was an even worse blow for Eva.
Sipping her rich, thick chocolat chaud, watching car tyres swish past on the shiny wet street, she found herself longing for sunshine and she remembered how easily the sun was taken for granted in Australia. A beat later, she was remembering the beach at Emerald Bay, the smooth curve of sand and the frothy blue and white surf.
And, out of nowhere, came the sudden suggestion that it made perfect sense to go back home to Australia for her surgery.
She could ask for leave from the company. Pierre was already rehearsing a new Clara for The Nutcracker, and the understudy was shaping up well. Eva was, to all intents and purposes, free. She found herself smiling at the prospect of going home.
She would make up some excuse about needing to see her mother. It wasn’t a total lie. It was years since she’d taken extended leave and it was at least two years since she’d been home, and her mum wasn’t getting any younger. If she had the surgery in an Australian city hospital, she’d have a much better chance of flying under the radar than she would here in ballet-mad Paris.
There might even be a chance—just a minuscule chance—that she could come back here to Paris as good as new. She’d been researching on the Internet and had read about a leading dancer in America who was performing again after a hip replacement. The girl was younger than Eva, but still, the story had given her hope.
And, Eva thought, as she drained the last of the creamy rich chocolate, if she was returning to Australia, she might as well go to that school reunion. She’d had an email from Jane Simpson telling her that Griff was undecided so, if she went, she was unlikely to have the ordeal of facing him.
She would love to catch up with everyone else. It felt suddenly important to her to chat with people who lived ‘normal’ lives.
Yes, she decided. She would go.
As soon as this thought was born, Eva was hit by a burst of exhilaration. This was swiftly followed by a shiver of fear when she thought about Griff, but she shook it off.
It was time to be positive and brave about her future. Perhaps it was also time to lay to rest the ghosts of her past.
CHAPTER TWO (#uca0ed753-2e52-5468-ae2f-7840479f1848)
THE BAY HAD changed a great deal. Griff and Tim were surprised and impressed by the new suburbs and shopping centres that had sprung up in their home town. The school was almost unrecognisable, with a host of extra buildings, including a big new gymnasium and performing arts centre.
At least the fish and chip shop looked much the same, painted white with a blue trim and with big blue pots spilling with red geraniums. And the natural features of sea, sky and beach were as alluring as ever. Now, though, smart cafés graced the prime spots along the seafront, and there were neatly mown parks with landscaped gardens.
The guys remembered paddocks of prickly bindi-eye weeds that they’d had to run across to get to the beach, but now there were very civilised paved walking paths, and carefully planted vines crawled over the sand dunes to hold them in place.
Nevertheless, the three friends had a great afternoon trying to recapture the fun of their youth, falling off surfboards, getting sunburnt, donning snorkels, goggles and flippers to explore the striped and colourful fish and coral on the inshore reefs that rimmed the headland.
Griff was certainly glad that he’d come. It was refreshing to spend some quality time with friends whose links stretched way back. Despite his high-powered job, or perhaps because of it, he’d lately found himself going to too many dinner parties and concerts with the same snooty circle, rehashing the same old conversations, the same narrow views of politics, the same tired jokes.
Now, as the sun slid towards the west, washing the sky with a bright pink blush that lent gold tints to the sea, the trio returned to their hotel to shower and change for the reunion.
Griff, changed into pale chinos and a white open-necked shirt with long sleeves rolled back to the elbows, checked his phone, half expecting a message from Amanda, even though they’d broken up. He was sure she would be still keeping tabs on him. She’d had plenty to say about his ‘boys’ weekend’.
They’d had another row, of course. He’d accused her of not trusting him. She’d claimed she would trust him if he put a ring on her finger.
In the end, she’d walked out and the next day she’d sent a taxi to collect her belongings.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t the first girlfriend to leave in this manner, but his love life was a hassle Griff didn’t want to think about now. After an afternoon of sun, sea and mateship, he was feeling more relaxed than he had in ages. He wanted to keep it that way.
* * *
The trio were crossing the wide stretch of mown lawn in front the Emerald Bay Golf Club when Griff came to a sudden halt, as if he’d slammed into an invisible glass wall.
He’d caught just the merest glimpse of a slim, dark-haired woman on the side balcony overlooking the golf course and he’d known immediately that it was Eva.
Hell, she wasn’t supposed to be here.
But here she was—wearing a sleeveless white dress, and laughing and chatting with a group. Even at a distance, Griff recognised her. No other woman was so slim and toned and poised. No one else had such perfect deportment, was so naturally elegant.
Hell. Now Griff knew he’d been fooling himself. His confidence that he could see Eva again and remain indifferent was shattered.
He was back in the past, remembering it all—helping her to adjust a pair of goggles and then teaching her to skin dive, helping her with her maths homework, dancing with her at the school formal. She’d worn a long silky dress in an aqua colour that exactly matched her eyes, and she’d made him feel like a prince.
He’d been saving for a surfboard, but he’d spent all his carefully hoarded pocket money on Eva’s birthday, buying her an aquamarine pendant on a silver chain.
‘What’s the matter, Griff?’ Barney’s voice intruded his thoughts.
Both Tim and Barney were staring at him.
‘Nothing,’ Griff responded quickly.
The guys frowned at him, then shrugged and walked on. Griff, grim-faced, kept pace with them.
Hell. He gave himself a mental shakedown. Of course he could do this. He was used to hiding his feelings. He did it every day in court. Sure, he could play the role of an old friend, who’d barely given his high school sweetheart a second thought during the past twenty years. Sure, he could grit his teeth and sweat this scene out. For an entire weekend.
* * *
Jane had only warned Eva at the very last minute that Griff was coming. Actually, Jane hadn’t couched the news as a warning. She had passed it on in high excitement, certain that Eva would be totally delighted.
By then, Eva had already arrived in the Bay and was settled into a pleasant motel room with ocean views, so it had been too late to change her mind. Just the same, when Jane shared this news, Eva found it devilish hard to grin and pretend to be pleased.
‘He’s not bringing his girlfriend, though,’ Jane had added.
The existence of a girlfriend was good news at least. The possibility that Griff was still single and at a loose end had bothered Eva for all sorts of ridiculous reasons. Instead, he was safely in a relationship, which meant there were no loose ends.
Great. Their past was a closed door and that was how it would remain.
Eva had told herself she was stupid to fret. After all these years, Griff would have forgotten all about her. There was absolutely no reason he’d still be interested. After she’d left town, he’d studied for years at university and since then he’d been fighting the good fight in the justice system. Griffin Fletcher was a top drawer barrister these days, totally brilliant. Such a lofty and noble pursuit.
No doubt he would look down on a ballerina who spent her days pirouetting and leaping about, and see her as someone fluffy and inconsequential.
At least Eva was used to keeping her emotions under wraps and remaining composed in public, and now, with the reunion well underway, she tried to ignore any stirrings of tension as she chatted with old school friends. Everyone was eager to hear all about her dancing career and her life in Europe, but she tried to keep her story low-key.
She was keen to hear about their lives as accountants and teachers, as nurses and farmers, and she was more than happy to look at their photographs of their adorable kids.
She was exclaiming over a photo of Rose Gardner’s six-month-old identical twins when she heard Jane’s voice lift with excitement.
‘Oh, hi, Barney and Tim. Hi, Griff.’
Griff.
Despite her calming self-talk, Eva’s heart took off like a runaway thief. Unhelpfully, she turned Griff’s way, which wasn’t wise, but the instinct was too powerful to resist.
She thought she was well prepared for her first sight of him, but in a moment she knew that was nonsense. She was trembling like the last leaf on an autumn branch.
There he was. A man who would stand out in any crowd. Probably no taller than before, but certainly broader across the shoulders and chest. Still with the same shaggy brown hair, the same rugged cheekbones, the slightly crooked nose and square, shadowed jaw. The same intelligent grey eyes that missed nothing.
Not quite handsome, Griff Fletcher was undeniably masculine. There were perpendicular grooves down his cheeks that hadn’t been there at eighteen, and he’d lost his easy, boyish smile. Now he had the air of a gladiator about to do battle, and Eva felt as if she might burst into flames.
‘Griff,’ Jane was gushing, ‘how lovely to see you again.’ A beat later, too soon, ‘Isn’t it wonderful that Eva was able to join us after all?’
With a beaming smile, Jane turned to Eva and beckoned. ‘I told Griff that you weren’t coming.’ She giggled, as if this were an enormous joke.
Eva saw the fierce blaze in Griff’s eyes. It wasn’t a glare, exactly, but she got the distinct impression that he would definitely have stayed away if he’d known she would be here.
Thud.
She desperately wanted to flee, but she forced herself to stand her ground and to dredge up a smile. This became easier when she shifted her gaze from Griff to his old schoolmates, Tim and Barney.
Barney had grown round and was losing his hair, but his blue eyes twinkled and his smile was genuine and welcoming. ‘Hey, Eva,’ he said. ‘Great to see you again.’ He clasped her hand and gave her a friendly kiss on her cheek. ‘I’m going to have to get your autograph for my daughter, Sophie. She’s just started to learn ballet.’
‘How lovely. Good for Sophie.’ Eva gave Barney her smiling, super-focused attention. ‘How many children do you have now?’
‘Two and a half. A boy and a girl, with another on the way.’
‘Barney’s working on having enough kids to field a football team,’ commented Tim as he shot his mate a cheeky grin.
Eva laughed. ‘I hope your wife’s in on that plan, Barney.’
Tim gave her a kiss, too. He told her that he worked in a bank and that he and his wife had just one child at this point, a little boy of two called Sam.
All too soon, it was Griff’s turn to greet Eva and the light-hearted atmosphere noticeably chilled, as if someone had flicked a switch. The sudden tension was palpable—in everyone—in Tim and Barney and herself. Eva’s heart was beating so loudly she feared they must hear it.
Griff smiled at her. It was a tilted, lopsided effort, but to the bystanders it probably passed as affable and casual. Eva, however, saw the expression in his eyes. Cold. Unfathomable. Cutting.
‘How are you, Eva?’ He went through the motions, giving her a casual hug and a peck on the cheek.
Ridiculously, her skin flamed at the contact, and she lost her breath as his big hands touched her shoulders, as his arms brushed, warm and solid, against her bare skin. Then his lips delivered a devastating, split-second flash of fire.
She took a moment to recover, to remember that she was supposed to answer his simple question. How are you, Eva?
‘I’m very well, thanks, Griff.’ Thank heavens she was able to speak calmly, but she hadn’t told him the truth. She wasn’t feeling well at all. She felt sick and scared—scared about the secrets she’d never shared with this man, that she’d hoped she would never have to share.
And her hip was agony. She’d foolishly, in a fit of vanity, worn high heels, and now she was paying the price. She prayed that she didn’t blush as Griff’s glittering grey gaze remained concentrated on her.
‘And how are you?’ she remembered to ask.
‘Fighting fit, thank you.’
With the conventions over, an awkward silence fell. Tim and Barney looked at their shoes, and then at each other.
‘We should grab a drink,’ Tim said.
‘Sure,’ Barney agreed with obvious enthusiasm. They both turned to head for the bar, seeming keen to get away. ‘Catch you two later.’
Griff remained still, watching Eva in stony silence and making her feel like one of his guilty criminals in the dock. This time her face flamed and she knew he could see it.
‘You haven’t changed,’ he said quietly.
She shook her head. Of course she’d changed. They’d all changed in so many ways, both on the outside and, undoubtedly, within. But she played the game. ‘Neither have you, Griff. Not really.’
At this, his smile almost reached his eyes.
She wondered if he was about to say something conciliatory. It would be helpful to at least share a few pleasantries to bridge the wide chasm of years. Of silence.
And guilty secrets.
‘I hear you’ve been very successful,’ he said. ‘You’re world-famous now. Congratulations.’
Receiving this praise from Griff, delivered in such a chilling tone, she wanted to cry.
But she swallowed the burning lump in her throat, squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. ‘You’ve been very successful, too.’
He responded with the merest nod and only the very faintest trace of a smile. ‘I imagine we’ve both worked hard.’
‘Yes.’
People all around them were chatting and laughing, waving and calling greetings, sharing hugs, enjoying themselves immensely, but Eva couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Griff said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, Eva, I’ll head over to the bar and grab a drink, too.’
‘Of course.’
‘I’m sure we’ll run into each other again during the weekend.’
‘I...I...yes, I’m sure.’
With another nod, he dismissed her. As he moved away, she felt horribly deserted, as if she’d been left alone on a stage with a spotlight shining on her so everyone could see her. She could almost hear the music that accompanied The Dying Swan, the sad notes of a lone cello.
Oh, for heaven’s sake.
Eva blinked and looked around her. The reunion was gathering steam. The balcony and the large dining room inside the clubhouse were almost full now with chattering, happy people and no one was staring at her.
She drifted, clutching her warming glass of champagne. She looked at the corkboard covered with old photographs. There were class photos, sporting teams, the senior formal, the school camp on Fraser Island. She saw a photo of herself in the netball team, Griff and his mates in striped football jerseys and shorts. Another photo showed her in a ballet tutu and pointe shoes, performing a solo for the school concert.
The old photographs conjured memories—the school disco when she and Griff danced together for the very first time, the dates when he’d taken her to the movies and they’d snogged each other senseless in the popcorn-scented dark, the barbecue for his eighteenth, the bonfire on the beach. And afterwards...
The memories were beyond painful and the urge to cry wouldn’t go away.
‘Would you like something to eat?’
Eva turned. A young girl was offering her a tray laden with canapés.
‘Prosciutto crostini with dried cherries and goats’ cheese,’ the girl said. ‘Or potato cakes with smoked salmon.’
Eva wasn’t hungry, but she took a potato cake. Anything was better than staring miserably at those photos. She even managed to smile at the girl, who was rather interesting-looking, with dark hair cut into a trendy asymmetrical style. She had a silver nose stud as well, and there were purple streaks in the long fringe of hair that hung low, framing one side of her pretty heart-shaped face.
The girl returned Eva’s smile. ‘You might like a napkin.’ She nodded to the small pile on one side of her tray.
‘Thanks,’ Eva said.
The girl was staring at Eva and there was something intriguing, almost familiar, about her clear grey eyes. ‘You’re Eva Hennessey,’ the girl said. ‘The ballet dancer.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
The girl’s eyes widened. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘You live in Paris, don’t you? How amazing to meet you.’
Eva smiled, feeling calmer. This was familiar ground. ‘It’s great to be back in Australia,’ she said. ‘Are you from the Bay?’
The girl gave a small laugh that might have been nervous. ‘Kinda. But I’m studying at university in Brisbane now.’ Then she must have realised she was spending too long in one place. ‘Better get going,’ she said, and she hurried away to offer the platter to a nearby group.
Before long, Eva was absorbed into another group of schoolmates and was once again fielding friendly questions or listening to their stories about their old teachers, about their jobs, their kids or their holidays in New Zealand or Bali.
It was easy enough to avoid Griff and she was beginning to relax a little and to enjoy herself once more. If she and Griff kept apart by mutual agreement, the evening might be manageable after all.
* * *
Griff was feeling calmer as he stood in a group by the bar. Half his old rugby league team were gathered there and the guys were having a great old time sharing memories—the game when Tony King broke his leg while scoring a try, or the year they won the regional premiership by a whisker, when Jonno Briggs kicked a freakish field goal.
The whole time, though, Griff was all too aware of Eva’s presence, even though she was at the far end of the room with her back to him. He did his damnedest to stop looking her way, but it was as if he had special radar beaming back sensory messages about her every move.
‘Would you like something to eat, sir?’
A girl arrived, offering canapés.
‘Thanks.’ The savouries looked appetising. Griff smiled. ‘I might take two.’
The girl laughed and there was a flash in her eyes, a tilt to her smile—something that felt uncannily familiar. For a moment longer than was necessary, the girl’s gaze stayed on Griff, almost as if she were studying him. Fine hairs lifted on the back of his neck.
The feeling was unsettling and he might have said something, but then she turned and began serving the others. She didn’t look Griff’s way again and he decided he must have been more on edge about the whole Eva business than he’d realised.
He would be glad when this night was over.
* * *
Dinner was about to be served and everyone settled at long tables. Eva sat with some old girlfriends and their husbands. Griff was two tables away, almost out of sight, and she did her best to stop her gaze from stealing in his direction. She was relatively successful, but twice he caught her sending a furtive glance his way. Both times he looked angry and she felt her cheeks heat brightly.
‘Are you all right, Eva?’ asked Jane, who was sitting opposite her.
‘Yes, of course.’ Eva knew she must look flushed and she reached for her water glass. ‘Just feeling the heat.’
Jane nodded sympathetically. ‘It must be hard for you, coming back from a lovely cool autumn in Europe to the start of a sweltering summer in Queensland.’
‘Yes,’ Eva said. ‘You tend to forget about the heat and just remember the lovely sunshine.’
Others around her nodded in agreement or laughed politely.
As they finished their main course, speeches were made. Jonno Briggs, who’d gone on after school to become a professional footballer, told a funny story about running into Barney in a pub in Glasgow. Jane gave a touching speech about one of their classmates who had died.
There were tributes to a couple of their old teachers who had also returned for the reunion. Then someone decided to point out their most successful classmates and Eva, among others, was asked to stand. As she did so, somewhat reluctantly, there was a burst of loud applause.
‘Give us a pirouette, Eva!’ called Barney.
She winced inwardly, remembering the way she’d liked to show off when she was still at school. So many times she’d performed arabesques and grand jetés on the beach.
‘I couldn’t possibly,’ she told them now.
‘Oh, come on!’ called a jocular fellow at the back.
‘Sorry. My dress is too tight.’
This was accepted with good-natured laughter.
At least she didn’t have to mention the flaring pain in her hip. She would prefer no one knew about that.
The desserts arrived. Eva was served by the girl with the purple-streaked hair who had chatted to her earlier. She gave Eva an especially bright smile and a sly wink, as if they were great mates.
Eva usually avoided desserts and she only ate half of her crème brulée. With the speeches over, people were rising from their seats and starting to mingle again. There was self-serve coffee at one end of the bar and Eva crossed the room to collect a cup.
‘We should talk,’ a deep voice said at her elbow.
Griff’s voice. Eva almost spilled her coffee.
His expression was serious. Determined. Eva supposed he was going to grill her, ply her with questions. She was rather afraid of that clever lawyer’s mind of his. Would he try to uncover her secret?
A flood of terror made her tremble. When she turned his way, she did so slowly, hoping to appear unruffled. ‘What would you like to talk about?’
Griff’s cool smile warned her not to play games. ‘I suspect we’d both benefit from laying a few ghosts.’
She couldn’t think how to respond to this. ‘I...guess.’
‘Let’s go outside. You can bring your coffee with you.’
Eva was struggling with her hip and the high heels and she didn’t trust herself to carry a cup of hot liquid. ‘I’d prefer to drink it here.’
His expression remained unruffled. ‘As you wish. There’s no rush.’
‘Well, no, I guess not.’ In an attempt to banish her nervousness, she tried for lightness. ‘Not after twenty years.’
But with Griff standing there, waiting for their ‘talk’, she was suddenly so tense the coffee curdled in her stomach. After three sips she set the cup down.
He frowned. ‘You’re finished?’
‘Yes, thanks. Where would you like to go?’
He nodded towards a pair of glass doors that led to another, smaller, balcony. ‘We should have more privacy out there.’
Privacy with this man. Great. Just what she didn’t need, but she knew she shouldn’t refuse him. From the moment she’d decided to come back to the Bay, she’d been aware that this encounter was a possibility.
Perhaps it was time.
If only she felt ready.
As Griff opened the door for her to precede him, the only light on the balcony came from an almost full moon. They were facing the sea now and a breeze brought a flurry of salty spray. The moon shone over the surf, highlighting the silvery curl of the waves and the white froth of foam as it crashed on the pale sand.
Eva gripped the balcony railing, grateful for its support. Now, in the moonlit darkness, Griff seemed to loom larger than ever.
‘So,’ she said, turning bravely to face him. ‘What would you like to discuss?’
‘I’m sure you must know, Eva. Perhaps you’re hoping that after twenty years I’d simply overlook the way we broke up, but I’m afraid I’d like to know why you took off like that.’
She nodded, drew a deep breath. Of course she’d guessed this would be Griff’s question and she knew she must tell him the truth. If only it wasn’t so difficult, after all this time. When they were young they’d been able to talk endlessly, with an easy, trusting intimacy that would be impossible now. They’d shared everything.
Well, almost everything.
Now, they were virtually strangers.
She was tempted to use her mother as her excuse, but that would be cowardly. Although it had been her mum’s idea to take off, leaving no word.
‘I know you, Eva,’ her mother had said on that fateful night before they’d left Emerald Bay under cover of darkness, as Eva had wept and begged to go to Griff. ‘Be sensible, darling. If you try to explain what we’re doing, you’ll end up telling him everything. He might make demands and it will become way too complicated.’
Eva had tried to protest, but her mother had insisted. ‘You need to make a clean break now. You have to think of your dancing career. You have so much promise, darling. Everybody says so—your teacher, the examiners, the Eisteddfod judges. You can’t throw that away. I won’t let you.’
There had been tears in her mother’s eyes. Eva’s potential career was incredibly important to her. She’d started dressing Eva in ballet tutus when she was three years old. By the time she was eighteen, Eva’s ballet career had probably been more important to Lizzie Hennessey than it had been to Eva.
It was only much later, with the benefit of distance and maturity, that Eva had understood that her struggling single mother had been desperate to ensure that her daughter wasn’t trapped and held back, as she had been.
Eva hadn’t allowed herself to question whether she’d been wrong to listen to her mother. Of necessity, she’d clung to the belief that she had done the right thing. And her career had repaid her a thousandfold.
The wind swept her hair over her face. With shaking fingers, she brushed it away. ‘I know it was bad of us to take off like that,’ she told Griff. ‘I’ve always felt guilty about it.’
‘You were my first girlfriend,’ he said. ‘But you were also the first girl to dump me.’ He sounded less aggressive, closer to the friendly Griff of old. ‘I admit my ego took a blow.’
He stepped up to the railing, standing beside her now, with his hands deep in his trouser pockets as he looked out to sea. Eva could see his profile: his broad, intelligent forehead, his strong nose, his lips that she’d once explored with such excitement and daring.
‘I thought I must have upset you,’ he said quietly. ‘We were both virgins. At the time, you seemed keen. I know you were keen, but I’ve often wondered if... I don’t know...if I’d scared you.’
Oh, Griff, never. Tears stung Eva’s eyes. ‘That wasn’t the problem, honestly. It was—’
‘Excuse me.’
A voice brought them both swinging round. It was a girl—the waitress with the purple streaks in her hair.
Had she been sent to summon them inside? Eva wasn’t sure if she was annoyed or relieved by the interruption.
‘What is it?’ Griff snapped, making his own reaction quite clear.
‘I was hoping to speak to you both,’ the girl said, but she seemed less confident now. She was wearing a white shirt and black skirt and she fiddled with the buckle at her waist.
Eva glanced Griff’s way and saw his eyes narrow as he frowned at the girl. ‘Well?’ he demanded impatiently.
‘I wanted to introduce myself.’ Her grey eyes were huge with an emotion that might have been overwhelming excitement or fear. ‘You see,’ she added, lifting her hands from her sides, palms facing up in a gesture that was both nervous and helpless, ‘I’m your daughter.’
CHAPTER THREE (#uca0ed753-2e52-5468-ae2f-7840479f1848)
GRIFF FELT AS if he’d been king-hit, knocked to the ground, left in a gutter, bruised and battered. He stared at the girl in appalled disbelief. Surely he hadn’t heard her correctly.
Their daughter?
Impossible.
And yet, as he slowly gathered his wits, he had to ask himself if this wasn’t also entirely possible. He’d used precautions back then, but heaven knew he’d been inexperienced and overexcited at the time. Hell. There was evidence enough in what had followed—Eva’s rapid departure and silence.
And now, twenty years later, this creature, this attractive young woman, tall and dark-haired, with clear pale skin and shiny grey eyes and an air of familiarity that had nagged at Griff from the moment he’d seen her.
Their daughter?
Emotions tumbled through him like the pounding surf. Shock. Anger. Sadness. Regret. And then another thumping wave of anger.
All this time, all these years—Eva had kept their child a secret? His first impulse now was to round on her, to demand a full explanation.
A quick glance Eva’s way, however, showed her sagged against the railing, white and trembling, possibly even more shocked than he was. Unfortunately, she wasn’t denying the girl’s claim.
‘I’m sorry,’ the girl said. ‘I know this must be a huge surprise. A shock, I expect. But I was so anxious to meet you both. That’s why I took this waitressing job as soon as I heard about the reunion. I was so excited when I saw the list of names and realised that you were both going to be here.’
Dazed, Griff rubbed at his temple. Could this girl, this unique, vibrant being, really be an amalgam of his and Eva’s genes? A life they’d created?
He still couldn’t quite believe he was a father. He didn’t want to believe he’d been a father all this time. Bloody hell.
A thousand questions demanded answers, but he wasn’t prepared to expose his total ignorance in front of the girl. At this point, there was no way of verifying her outrageous claim.
‘What’s your name?’ Eva asked in a whisper, while she kept a white-knuckled grip on the railing, as if it were the only thing keeping her upright.
‘Laine,’ the girl said. ‘That’s the name you gave me, isn’t it? Laine Elizabeth?’
Tears shone in Eva’s eyes as she gave a sad, slow nod. ‘Yes,’ she said and, with a single syllable, she answered Griff’s biggest question.
‘I’m Laine Templeton now,’ the girl said. ‘Or sometimes Lettie to my closest friends, because my initials are L.E.T. The people who adopted me—the Templetons—live in Brisbane.’
‘And they told you about me?’ Eva sent a frightened glance Griff’s way. ‘About...us?’
Laine shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t want to upset them, so I went straight to the adoption agency. I’m over eighteen, so I was perfectly entitled to find out the names of my birth parents.’ Her gaze met Griff’s. ‘I’m studying law at UQ. I was intrigued to look you up on the Internet and discover you’re a barrister.’
Griff felt as if he’d swallowed glass. He supposed he should feel some kind of fatherly connection to this girl. He wanted to feel sympathy for Eva, but he was too busy dealing with his own roiling emotions.
Eva shouldn’t have kept this from him. She shouldn’t have carried this burden alone. Damn it, she should have shared the news of her pregnancy.
Sure, they’d been young at the time, only just out of school, and both of them with big career dreams with absolutely no plans to start a family. He hadn’t been anywhere near ready for parenthood, but it cut deep to realise he’d been denied the chance to face up to this challenge, to at least be part of the decision-making.
‘Look, I know this is a bolt out of the blue,’ Laine said, and she was already taking a step backwards as she looked carefully from Griff to Eva. ‘I just wanted to introduce myself initially, but I guess you need time to...adjust.’
‘Yes, we do,’ Griff told her more sternly than he’d meant to.
She smiled shyly, awkwardly.
‘I’m sorry,’ Eva said through trembling lips. ‘I...I...’
Clearly, Eva was struggling to say anything coherent.
Laine lifted her hand then and gave a shy, shining-eyed smile and a stiff wave. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘I dare say my timing hasn’t been great.’
Griff felt torn. This was his daughter, after all. It felt totally inadequate to just greet her with Hi and ’bye. But he was too shocked to think straight. ‘Look, this really is a shock,’ he said. Maybe—’
Eva spoke up. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’
‘Yes, sure,’ said Laine. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I...I...’
‘We can at least exchange contact details tomorrow,’ Griff suggested. That would be a start, and about all they could manage under the circumstances. Eva looked as if she was about to collapse.
‘Thanks,’ said Laine. ‘I’ll see you then.’
She backed away quickly and as she left via the glass doors Eva opened her mouth as if she wanted to say goodbye, but no sound emerged and she looked as if she was about to collapse.
Griff stepped towards Eva again, torn between wanting to tear strips off her and feeling desperately sorry for her. What must it be like for a mother to be reunited with her baby after nineteen long years?
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
Eva shook her head. ‘Not really.’
She was still clinging to the railing as if it were a life raft. Clearly, she needed to sit down and Griff was wondering where he could take her so that they could be private.
‘Would you mind walking me back to my motel?’ Eva asked, as if her mind had been on a similar track.
It was the perfect option. ‘No, of course not.’
Griff slipped his arm around Eva’s shoulders. He felt the softness of her bare skin, sensed the supple strength of her slender frame, toned by years of dancing. But now he knew that her magnificent career had come with a huge price tag. He wasn’t sure he could forgive her.
* * *
It was a relief to lean into Griff’s massive shoulder and to have his strong arm firmly around her as they walked the short distance across the lawn to the beachfront motel where Eva was staying.
She should have been terribly self-conscious about this sudden proximity to the man she’d avoided for so many years, but now her thoughts were filled to the brim with Laine. For so long, that beautiful girl had lived in Eva’s head and heart as a tiny newborn.
Such a shock to see her baby now. Out of the blue. So astonishingly alive and grown-up and beautiful, and wanting to get to know her and Griff.
And Griff. She still hadn’t come to terms with seeing him again. In one night, the love of her life and the daughter she had given up were both suddenly back in her life. It was too much. Too unreal. Too overwhelming.
Eva couldn’t quite take it all in. She’d never felt such see-sawing emotions, teetering between joy and sorrow and guilt. Huge guilt.
‘There hasn’t been a day when I haven’t thought about her, haven’t wondered.’ She only realised she’d spoken this out loud when she felt Griff’s arm tighten around her.
He didn’t say anything, however, and Eva couldn’t imagine what he must be thinking. He would be terribly angry with her of course.
Keeping secrets was dangerous. They were usually exposed sooner or later, and the longer the secret was kept in the dark, the more likely it was that people would be hurt. Deeply hurt.
Would Griff ever forgive her?
* * *
It wasn’t long before they reached the motel. Griff dropped his arm from Eva’s shoulders and she fished in her bag for the room key.
‘Would you like to come in?’ she asked him, knowing she couldn’t reasonably send him away like this, with so many unasked and unanswered questions.
‘Yes, of course. We need to talk.’
Eva nodded, pushed the door open and slipped the key-card into the slot that turned on the lights. The motel room was large and comfortable, with a small sitting area comprising a couple of armchairs, a coffee table and a shaded table lamp.
She quickly switched off the lamps by the king-sized bed. A silly reaction, no doubt, but she didn’t want to draw attention to the seductive banks of pillows, the soft throw rug arranged artistically across the grey silk quilt. She kicked off her shoes. Her hip was screaming and for a moment she had no choice but to stand there with her eyes closed, massaging the inflamed joint with her thumb.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/barbara-hannay/reunited-by-a-baby-bombshell/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Barbara Hannay
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
Отзывы: Пока нет Добавить отзыв
О книге: A secret he never knew aboutPrima ballerina Eva Hennessey has made her life in Paris – far away from her childhood sweetheart Griffen Fletcher. But when an invitation arrives for her school reunion, she nervously accepts!Griff never imagined he would see Eva again, and now he wants some answers! She may be more beautiful than he remembers, but she also masks a pain only he can see. It’s a secret she’s kept far too long… One that will change their worlds forever!