From Sydney With Love: With This Fling... / Losing Control / The Girl He Never Noticed

Only that wasn’t quite true, for this was Greyson’s child too.

Greyson the magnificent, with his loving family and his travelling life.

What now? What on earth was she supposed to do now?

I miss you, Aurora. I wish you were here. I wish …

A memory started forming; a vivid picture in her mind. A lamp-lit private library and an overstuffed leather armchair. Aurora in her thirties and Charlotte at five. A leather bound children’s picture book rich with story and life. Aurora’s fine voice; such a marvellous sound.

If wishes were horses then beggars would ride …

Drawing her knees up to her chest, Charlotte wrapped her arms tightly around herself, and wept.

‘You need to be at work,’ said Millie two days later, while sitting in Charlotte’s sunny apartment kitchen beneath the bridge. The bridge still loomed large and the windows still shook when the trains went by, but those things had ceased to annoy her. These days Charlotte was all about simply being grateful that she owned her own homes, that she didn’t need to work to support herself, and that when it came to the things that money could buy, neither she nor this baby would ever go without.

Reason had returned to Charlotte, or, if not reason exactly, at least a functioning awareness of how fortunate she was. She had an education and a great deal of wealth. She had stability and a good life.

She even had friends who cared enough to call in on their way home from work, seeing as Charlotte hadn’t been in to work these past few days. Millie was here, bearing flowers and cake, and Charlotte was ridiculously glad of her company. Grateful that Millie had thought enough of their friendship to drop by. Glad that Millie brought with her gossip from work.

Charlotte had almost tendered her resignation the afternoon she’d received news of her impending motherhood but she’d dredged up a thimbleful of professionalism from somewhere and put together a ‘Greenstone Foundation’ proposal instead and emailed it off to the Mead.

A proposal that—the more she thought about it—didn’t really require the university’s participation at all. One that outlined her preferred project set-up, co-ordination, collaboration, and financing practices. One that granted the university beneficial ties to the foundation and in return requested that the university provide her with a management assistant. Preferably one eager to travel with or without her to dig sites in order to oversee operations. Preferably one who’d worked outside the academic arena and had real world skills in place as well as the necessary archaeology qualifications. Preferably Derek.

‘Seriously, Charlotte,’ said Millie, from her spot at the kitchen counter, where she’d taken to slicing up the walnut loaf she’d brought with her, ‘the entire department’s in an uproar about this foundation of yours and what’s in it for them—Derek loves the idea, by the way—but you not being around to explain your vision isn’t helping any. You need to get in there and get forceful if you want it to happen.’

‘I want it to happen,’ said Charlotte simply.

‘So you’ll be back at work on Monday?’

Charlotte nodded. ‘You want some coffee to go with your walnut slice?’

Millie nodded.

Charlotte set the coffee maker to gurgling. She headed for the fridge. Out came the milk for the coffee and double dollop cream for the cake.

‘So what prompted this Greenstone Foundation idea?’ asked Millie.

‘Aurora’s death,’ said Charlotte. ‘More money than I know what to do with. The need for a challenge. Not getting the leeway or the recognition I wanted from the university employment system. Take your pick. Life lacked purpose. The foundation will give me one. And flexibility as well. Happens I’m going to need that too.’

‘What does Gil think of your newfound purpose?’ asked Millie.

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Ah.’ Millie’s eyes turned sympathetic. ‘Guess you two didn’t sort out your differences, then.’

‘No. Some people never lose the wanderlust. Grey’s one of them.’

‘Who’s Grey?’

‘Gil,’ said Charlotte. ‘Thaddeus. Only he’s not Thaddeus either. He’s Greyson.’

‘The man has more names than a birth registry,’ muttered Millie, and bit into her now cream-slathered walnut slice.

Charlotte smiled and toyed with her own food. ‘So it seems.’ What to tell and what to withhold from a woman whose friendship she’d come to value? ‘Millie, will you keep a confidence for me?’

‘Is it likely to impact negatively on my work, my relationship with others, or my ethics?’ asked Millie.

‘Not really,’ said Charlotte. ‘Maybe a little.

It’s probably not going to do a whole lot for your opinion of me.’

Millie put down her slice, wiped her hands on the napkin, sipped her coffee, and set it down gently. First things first. ‘Okay,’ she said cautiously. ‘What’s up?’

‘Gil Tyler was a figment of my imagination. Grey Tyler is the man who came to collect his office. They’re not one and the same. And I haven’t finished yet.’

Harder than she’d thought, this unburdening of her sins. So many, many lies. It was time for them to stop.

‘Okay.’ Millie’s eyebrows had risen considerably. ‘Continue.’

‘Grey and I slept together a time or two. It was … intense. Amazing. But strictly short term. We parted ways relatively amicably.’

It seemed as good a summary as any, even if it did downplay the intensity of the real thing.

‘Sounds like a good time was had by all,’ said Millie.

‘And now I’m pregnant.’

Millie blinked, nodded slowly, and kept her mouth firmly shut.

‘Not deliberately,’ said Charlotte hastily. ‘This would be one of those extremely unexpected pregnancies. As opposed to a planned one.’

Another slow nod from Millie.

‘Millie, say something.’

‘Yes,’ said Millie. ‘Yes, I believe that is the custom. I just need a moment’s processing time. And we’re definitely going to need more cake.’

‘I have mountains of cake,’ said Charlotte. ‘Also ice cream, pickles, and caramel tart, just in case. All I’m after is your uninhibited response to my news.’

Millie sent her a speaking glance.

‘Although any response will do.’

‘Does anyone else know?’ asked Millie.

‘Not yet. You’re my practice run.’

‘Oh, the pressure to say something you might actually want to hear,’ murmured Millie. ‘I feel like I’m on a game show and you’re the host, waiting for my reply to the million dollar question.’ Millie put both hands to her head and groaned. ‘Can I phone a friend?’

‘Who?’

‘Derek.’

‘Only if you’re planning on inviting him over,’ said Charlotte. ‘I may need him for my second practice run. I think I’ve blown the first.’

Millie ran her hands over her hair and looked back up at Charlotte, her eyes imploring. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘Say I can do this,’ pleaded Charlotte, brittleness giving way to uncertainty in the face of Millie’s continued hesitation. ‘Please, Millie.’ Before Charlotte’s tears started in earnest. ‘I need someone to tell me that I can do this and that everything’s going to be okay.’

‘Oh, Charlotte. Sweetie.’ Millie was on her feet, wrapping her arms around Charlotte. Contact and comfort. Charlotte gulped back a sob. ‘It will be okay. I know you. There’s nothing you can’t do when you put your mind to it. You’ll make a wonderful mother. You’ll see.’

‘What am I going to tell Greyson?’ whispered Charlotte.

But to that, Millie had no answer.

Derek arrived an hour and a half later, bearing Thai takeaway for three and a six-pack of beer. ‘I don’t do feel-good films and I don’t do tears,’ he said. ‘I’m here strictly to get the low-down on the Greenstone Foundation proposal.’

‘Of course you are,’ murmured Millie soothingly. ‘Shall we eat first?’

‘We should definitely eat first,’ said a freshly composed Charlotte.

Derek eyed the sweets laden kitchen counter sceptically. ‘You’re into the crisis food,’ he declared. ‘I’ve lived in enough foster homes to know crisis food when I see it and crisis phone calls when I get one.’

‘This crisis doesn’t involve you directly,’ said Charlotte.

‘Then why am I here?’

‘We needed a test male,’ said Millie. ‘And by we, I mean Charlotte. Strictly speaking, this isn’t my crisis either—lucky for you.’

‘Millie’s going to observe and take notes,’ said Charlotte. ‘Derek, would you like a cold glass for your beer?’

‘Hospitable,’ said Millie. ‘Nice touch.’

Charlotte poured beer for Derek with a relatively steady hand, wine for Millie, and sparkling mineral water for herself.

‘The mineral water could raise questions,’ said Millie. ‘Maybe you should pour yourself a glass of wine as well, even if you don’t touch it. Derek, what do you think?’

‘Huh?’ said Derek.

‘My mistake,’ said Millie. ‘Proceed.’

Charlotte set three places at the kitchen counter for eating. She set serving spoons to Derek’s Thai offerings. ‘You think I need to be more formal?’ asked Charlotte. ‘Because I can always set the dining table?’

‘No, this is good,’ said Millie. ‘He needs to feel comfortable and relaxed. Derek, do you feel comfortable and relaxed?’

‘I might if I knew what was going on,’ muttered Derek.

Millie nodded sagely. ‘Proceed.’

‘I’m going to ask him about his work,’ said Charlotte. ‘Derek, how’s the work? Research coming together well?’

‘Is this a job interview?’ asked Derek, hoeing into the food. ‘Because if this is about the sidekick position for the Greenstone Foundation, I want more prep time. Seriously, Charlotte. You could do worse than consider me for the job.’

‘Interesting,’ said Mille. ‘The man has his own agenda.’ She turned to Charlotte. ‘Greyson may well have his own agenda too.’

‘Who’s Greyson?’ asked Derek.

‘Formerly Thaddeus,’ said Charlotte. ‘In other words Gil. Gil Tyler. Of long pig fame. Millie can fill you in on the details later. The important thing is for you to put yourself in the role of dedicated research scientist and world traveller. We didn’t think it’d be too much of a stretch for you. As for the foundation position, if it goes ahead you’d damn well better apply seeing as I wrote it with you in mind.’

‘Seriously?’ said Derek.

‘Seriously.’

Derek beamed.

‘Excellent work with the compliments,’ said Millie, and to Derek, ‘How are you feeling? Are you feeling relaxed?’

‘Well, I was,’ murmured Derek.

‘I think it’s time,’ said Mille.

‘Are you sure?’ Charlotte didn’t feel at all sure. ‘I mean, he’s hardly touched his beer.’

‘It’s time,’ said Millie. ‘It’s just a practice run. Master the fear.’

‘Okay.’ Charlotte took a huge breath and reached for Millie’s wine, only Millie was faster, holding it up and out of the way before Charlotte could get to it. Derek had his beer halfway to his lips so no joy there either. ‘Derek, I’m pregnant.’

Derek’s beer went down wrong. Derek surfaced all a splutter.

‘I’m thinking you should probably wait until Greyson’s between beers to make that particular announcement,’ said Millie.

‘Will do,’ said Charlotte nervously. ‘Derek? Anything to add?’

‘Not a word,’ wheezed the beleaguered Derek.

‘Put yourself in Greyson’s shoes,’ said Millie encouragingly. ‘Anything to add now?’

‘Am I the father?’ asked Derek. ‘No, let me rephrase. I can’t say those particular words without breaking into a cold sweat. Is Greyson the father?’

‘Yes,’ said Charlotte.

‘And also your fiancé.’

‘No,’ said Charlotte. ‘I’m currently fiancé-less. As is Greyson.’

‘And you want him back?’ asked Derek.

‘Hard to say,’ murmured Charlotte. ‘I never really had him in the first place. Let’s just assume that I don’t really know what I want from him at this particular point in time.’

‘Do you want financial assistance when it comes to raising this child?’ asked Derek.

‘No.’ Charlotte shook her head emphatically. ‘I don’t need Greyson’s money. That’s the last thing I need.’ She picked up her glass of fizzy water, wishing it were wine. ‘Is that really one of the first things that came to mind?’

‘Yes,’ said Derek grimly. ‘Not everyone can afford to be blasé when it comes to ongoing monetary commitments, Charlotte, and raising a child very definitely qualifies as that.’

‘So maybe she tells him she doesn’t want his money before she tells him she’s pregnant,’ said Millie.

‘How?’ asked Charlotte. ‘How do I do that?’

‘Maybe you start with what you do want from him,’ said Millie. ‘Which would be …?’ And when Charlotte remained silent, ‘This is your cue. What do you want from him?’

But Charlotte didn’t know. ‘Maybe, apart from the knowing … maybe some level of participation?’

‘You mean marriage,’ said Derek.

‘No! Not necessarily.’ Charlotte was starting to tremble now. She countered by crossing her arms in front of her. ‘I don’t know. This isn’t going well, is it?’ she said in a small voice.

‘You’re telling a man he’s going to be a father, Charlotte,’ muttered Derek. ‘How do you expect it to go?’

‘Better,’ she said and choked down her rising panic. ‘I just assumed that breaking the news to him in person would be better, but maybe it’s not. I could email him with the news, or text him, and then arrange a meeting …’

But Derek was shaking his head. ‘I didn’t say don’t give him the news in person. I said give him some thinking time once you do. Don’t analyse his initial response. Like as not, it won’t be the one you want. Give him some space with this. Let him know your thoughts on marriage and motherhood, and then let him be.’

‘I can do that,’ said Charlotte faintly, and turned to Millie. Millie who’d been judging her presentation and hopefully taking notes. ‘Millie, so how did it go?’

‘Fine. Just fine,’ said Millie a little too readily. And then, ‘I need another drink.’

Charlotte waited until the following morning to email Greyson. A beautiful late-summer’s morning with not a whisper of a cloud in the sky. A good day, she decided, for sharing unexpected news. Nonetheless, her email to Greyson still took her all morning to construct and finally consisted of three short words. ‘Where are you?’

Greyson’s reply pinged back within ten minutes. ‘Hawkesbury river.’

‘Dinner at my place this evening?’ she wrote back, before she lost her nerve entirely. ‘Seven p.m.?’

This time his reply came almost instantaneously. ‘Why?’

Not a man bent on being amiable. Not entirely unexpected, given that her parting words to him two months ago had been, ‘Don’t call me and I won’t call you.’

‘Need to talk to you,’ she wrote back. Now there was a phrase guaranteed to send a chill up a man’s spine.

Charlotte sat back and stared at the computer screen after that, sat there for ten minutes with her heart in her throat, waiting for a reply that did not come. When the phone rang, she almost slipped her skin. Charlotte reached for it gingerly, hoping it was Greyson, hoping it was not.

‘Charlotte Greenstone,’ she said as evenly as she could, while her hands shook and her knees shook and she tucked her free hand between her knees in an effort to stop the trembling of both.

‘So talk.’ Greyson’s voice; deep and gravelly and riddled with wariness.

‘Hello, Greyson,’ she said, in a voice that wobbled only faintly. ‘I half expected you to be in Borneo.’

‘No.’

‘No.’ She ran through the script she’d prepared in her mind. Some sort of compliment was supposed to come next, but her brain had gone blank the minute she’d heard that familiar deep voice.

‘What do you want, Charlotte?’

‘Not money.’ She remembered Derek’s words of last night and figured she might as well get that one out of the way. ‘You don’t ever need to worry on that score.’

‘I wasn’t,’ he uttered dryly.

‘Because money’s not the problem here.’

‘So what is the problem here?’ he said. ‘I’m assuming you’re not ringing because life felt empty without me and you want to pick up where we left off? Am I wrong?’

Charlotte closed her eyes. She hadn’t armoured herself properly against Greyson’s thinly veiled hostility. She should have. ‘Never mind,’ she said raggedly. ‘This was a really bad idea. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you.’

‘Charlotte, wait!’

She waited in silence. Trembling. Quailing.

‘Dinner, you said,’ he muttered, and his voice was as ragged as hers.

‘Yes.’

‘You should know that I’ll not be able to keep my hands off you if we have it at your place. You should know not to be with me in private right now. I’m telling you this as a courtesy.’

‘Somewhere else, then,’ she managed, while his words seared through her, bringing equal parts heat and apprehension. ‘There are dozens of restaurants nearby.’

‘Name one.’

She did. A steakhouse slash cocktail bar. Nothing fancy but there was privacy to be had in darkened booths if conversation demanded it, and this conversation surely would.

‘I’ll meet you there at seven,’ he said. ‘And, Charlotte?’

‘What?’ she said faintly.

‘If you want me to be at all civilised, you’ll be letting me pay for the meal.’

Greyson Tyler was no stranger to trouble. He knew the ways in which it crept up on a man. He knew how it smelled. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that meeting Charlotte again for a meal and whatever else she had in mind spelled trouble for them both. His needs were a little too intense when it came to delectable yet thoroughly unsuitable Charlotte Greenstone. There was no telling what he might demand of her, or the concessions he might make in order to get those demands met.

He’d stayed away. He’d been the gentleman and kept his distance. He’d done everything she’d asked of him and, dammit, he’d been hurt in the process.

Cancel.

That was what he should do. Tell her she’d been right all along about them wanting different types of lives, and that he couldn’t see any reason to meet up with her again. No reason at all.

Cancel.

But he did not.

Greyson arrived fifteen minutes early to the restaurant Charlotte had suggested: a scarred and bluesy corner bar with a blackboard menu promising quality fare that didn’t cost the earth. A quick glance around told him that Charlotte hadn’t yet arrived. He ordered a beer, found a shadowy corner booth with a view of the entrance and settled down to wait.

Charlotte the wilful, the reckless, the vulnerable. Best lover he’d ever had. Unstinting in her responses and mesmerising in her sexual abandon. Not a woman any man would forget in a hurry and he cursed her afresh while he sat with his beer and waited, and nursed the scars she’d given him.

He didn’t know why he was here—lining up for another serve of nameless sorrow—except that she’d asked him to meet her and she’d sounded so unsure of herself and that in itself signalled trouble. Maybe her workmates had found out about her fictional fiancé. Maybe she’d lost her job and her reputation—her problem, not his—but he would hear her out and help if he could. He could do that much without letting bitterness hold sway.

They’d only been on a handful of dates. Hardly her fault if her withdrawal had come too late to save him from going under. He could give her that much.

Honour demanded it.

Grey saw Charlotte before she spotted him. Small woman with generous curves and a waterfall of wavy black hair pulled back off her face with a vibrant silk headband. She wore tailored black trousers, dainty high-heeled sandals, and a sleeveless vest top in the same pinks, purples, and greens as her headband. A purple leather handbag completed the outfit, and she looked more like the pampered socialite he’d taken to his mother’s barbecue than the experienced Associate Professor of Archaeology he knew her to be.

He stood as she approached him. Stood because a woman who expected a man to open car doors for her would surely expect that as well. Stood because the fighter in him demanded he pursue any advantage he could with her and size was one of them.

She cast him a quick smile and slid into the bench seat opposite. A waiter materialised and took her order for mineral water. Greyson’s beer stood mostly untouched and he left it that way.

‘Thank you for coming,’ she said politely.

‘I’m a sucker for punishment.’ Nothing but the truth. ‘I’m also curious as to what you have to say to me.’

‘Ah,’ said Charlotte. ‘Yes. That. I kind of need to work my way up to that particular discussion. How’s your mother?’

‘My mother’s well.’ Not where he’d been expecting this conversation to go. ‘Why?’

‘No reason. How’s the Sarah situation?’

‘I’ve seen her once since we spoke after the barbecue. We talked. She left. She blames you, by the way, for my newfound insensitivity.’

‘Handy,’ she said quietly.

Charlotte’s drink came and the waiter directed them to the blackboard menu. Neither he nor Charlotte was ready to order. ‘You’ve lost weight,’ he said. She still took his breath away with her perfection of form and features, but there was no denying she’d dropped a few kilos from her slender frame. Kilos she could ill afford to lose.

She’d lost weight; she looked wan. He was the son of a doctor. ‘Charlotte, are you sick?’

Grey watched in horror as tears swam in Charlotte’s eyes and threatened to overflow.

Oh, God, she was sick. ‘What is it?’ Information. He needed information.

‘Not sick,’ she murmured. ‘Not sick.’ She put her hand to her forehead for a moment, then changed her mind and put both hands in her lap. Not once did she meet his gaze. She stared at her coaster, the tabletop, the entrance to the bar as if she’d rather be anywhere else but there with him. ‘Pregnant.’

‘What?’

Charlotte glanced up at him then, startled and terrified and apologetic all at once and he had his answer.

‘Mine,’ he said.

‘Yes.’ He could hardly hear her for the thundering of his heart. ‘There’s tests we can do if that’s what you want,’ she offered. ‘But there’s been no one else.’

‘Forget the tests.’ Satisfaction flooded through him, as unexpected as it was savage.

Mine.

In which case … ‘Shouldn’t you be putting on weight?’ he said silkily.

‘I’m working on it,’ she said in a low raw voice. ‘I’ve also been thinking about what we might do. Greyson, I don’t want to raise this child all by myself. It’s not enough. I’m not enough. A child should have more than that. More family. More security.’

‘You want a termination?’ Hard to keep his jaw from clenching or his dislike of that notion from colouring his words. ‘Is that what you brought me here to tell me? Because it’s not going to enamour you to me, Charlotte. Not by a long shot.’

Mine.

‘That’s not why I asked you here,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve not considered that course of action. I don’t think it’s for me.’

‘Good.’

The waiter approached them again, took one look at Grey and kept right on walking.

‘I’m not asking for marriage or monetary support either,’ she said earnestly.

‘Tough.’ From one have-it-my-way child to another. ‘You’re getting both. And food. We’re ordering food now. Pick something.’

‘I’ll have the chef’s salad.’

‘Now pick something else.’

‘And the teriyaki chicken kebabs,’ she said with a roll of her eyes. ‘But only because I’m humouring you.’

Grey glared at her. Better that than leaning across the table and kissing her senseless. Or was it?

In the end he did lean across and kiss her, terrified that she wouldn’t respond to him, equally terrified when she did because it was still there, this all-consuming need to lose himself in her. ‘Pick a date,’ he murmured when his lips left hers. ‘Any date.’