Her Secret, His Child

Nicolas had raged at her for ages—raged and argued. But she’d stayed firm that time. Much easier with him so far away. When he’d threatened to return to Rocky Creek to persuade her, she’d claimed he would be wasting his time, adding the desperate lie that she was sick to death of their long-distance relationship anyway. In truth, since he’d gone to Sydney to study, she only saw him on the odd weekend when he came home, and during holidays. He sometimes didn’t even come home for those. More than once he’d gone away to a music camp.

‘I want a normal boyfriend,’ Serina had wailed. ‘One who isn’t obsessed with music. And one who lives in Rocky Creek! Greg Harmon’s always asking me out,’ she’d added quite truthfully.

‘Greg Harmon! He’s old enough to be your father!’

‘No, he’s not.’ Greg did look older than he was. But actually he was only in his late twenties, a local fellow who worked as a teacher in nearby Wauchope High School, where both Serina and Nicolas had studied. Although she had never actually been in any of Greg’s classes—he taught agriculture and woodwork—she’d always known he fancied her.

He’d started asking her out the moment she’d graduated from school.

‘He’s a very nice man,’ Serina had snapped defensively. ‘And very good-looking. Next time he asks me out, I’m going to say yes.’

It had almost been a relief when Nicolas had stormed off to England by himself. But then she’d never heard from him again: no letters or phone calls begging her forgiveness; nothing but a bitter silence.

Serina had taken a long time to get over Nicolas. But, in the end, sheer loneliness had forced her into saying yes to Greg’s persistent requests to take her out. In the back of her mind, however, she’d always believed Nicolas would return one day to claim her. So she didn’t sleep with Greg at first, or accept any of his regular proposals of marriage.

But as time went by and Nicolas didn’t return to Rocky Creek, Serina let Greg put an engagement ring on her finger. And take her to bed, after which she’d cried and cried. Not because it was awful. Greg turned out to be a tender and considerate lover. But because he wasn’t Nicolas.

Still, in time, she managed to push Nicolas right to the back of her mind and began making concrete plans for her wedding to Greg. Although not ecstatically happy, Serina was reasonably content with her life. She was loved by her fiancé, family and friends, and respected in the community. She was also finding great satisfaction in expanding the family’s lumber yard into a more extensive building supply business, local demand increasing as Rocky Creek gradually became a very desirable ‘tree-change’ destination for retirees and tired city dwellers.

If only she hadn’t made that fateful trip to Sydney in search of the right wedding dress… If only she hadn’t seen Nicolas’s interview on television in her hotel room… If only she’d stayed away from his performance that night at the Opera House…

Serina glanced across the breakfast table at her daughter and wondered, not for the first time, if she’d done the right thing, passing Felicity off as Greg’s daughter. It hadn’t been a deliberate act on her part. By the time she’d realised she was pregnant, the wedding was upon her and she hadn’t had the heart to hurt Greg as she knew the truth would have hurt him. And hurt everyone else: her parents, his parents, their friends.

Life in a small country town was not as simple as people sometimes thought.

No, I made the right decision, she accepted philosophically, the only decision.

Greg was a devoted husband and father and I had a good life with him, a nice, peaceful life. I still lead a nice, peaceful life.

But that peace was about to be broken. Big-time.

Fear clutched at her stomach. Fear of what might happen when she saw Nicolas again—this time without the moral protection of a husband in her life. She still hadn’t forgotten how she’d felt when she’d seen him at his mother’s funeral. That had been ten years ago, when she’d been twenty-seven and Nicolas an incredibly dashing thirty. Greg had insisted they both attend, Mrs Dupre having been a well-loved member in their small community. They’d taken Felicity with them. She’d been around two at the time. It was at the wake that Nicolas had cornered her, getting her alone after Greg had carried their daughter outside to play for a while.

Nicolas had been cold to her, as cold as ice.

She hadn’t felt cold, however. Even whilst he’d questioned her about Felicity’s birth date in the most chilling and contemptuous fashion, she’d burned with a desire that she’d found both disturbing and despicable. It still upset her to think of what might have happened if Nicolas had made any kind of pass at her.

Fortunately, he hadn’t.

But who knew what he might do now that she was a widow. Had Felicity told him Greg was dead? It seemed likely that she had.

‘Do you have a copy of the letter you sent Mr Dupre?’ she asked her daughter somewhat stiffly.

Felicity looked pained. ‘Oh, Mum, that’s private!’

‘I want to see it, Felicity. And the email he sent back to you.’

Felicity pouted and stayed right where she was.

Serina rose from her chair, her expression uncompromising. ‘Let’s go, madam.’

Serina found her daughter’s letter very touching, till she got to the part where Felicity offered Nicolas accommodation at their house.

‘He can’t stay here!’ she blurted out before she could get control of herself.

‘Why not?’ Felicity demanded to know with the indignation—and innocence—of youth.

‘Because.’

‘Because why?’ her daughter persisted.

‘Because you don’t ask virtual strangers to stay in your home,’ she answered in desperation.

‘But he’s not a stranger. He lived here in Rocky Creek for years and years. Mrs Johnson said you were very good friends. She said you dated for a while.’

‘Only very casually,’ Serina lied. ‘And, as I said, that was nearly twenty years ago. I have no idea what kind of man Nicolas Dupre might have become in the meantime. For all I know he could be a drunk, or a drug addict!’

Felicity looked at her as though she were insane. ‘Mum, I think you’ve totally lost it. But you don’t have to worry. Mr Dupre refused my offer to stay with us. Here! Why don’t you read his email and then you won’t say such silly things.’

Felicity did a couple of clicks with her mouse and brought up the email from Nicolas. Serina read it.

Dear Felicity

Thank you for your lovely letter. I was saddened to hear of the tragic death of your father and send my deepest condolences to you and your mother. I have fond memories of Rocky Creek and would be glad to help you with your fund-raising project. You sound like a very in- telligent and enterprising young lady of whom I’m sure your mother is very proud. Consequently, I would be honoured to be the judge for your talent quest.

Unfortunately, I have business engagements in NewYork and London for the next fortnight and cannot arrive in Sydney till the day before your concert. Thank you for your kind offer of a room but I would prefer to arrange my own accommodation in Port Macquarie. I will contact you by phone as soon as I arrive there, at which time you can explain where and when you want me to be the following day. Please confirm this arrangement by return email and include your home phone number. My regards to your mother and Mrs Johnson. I am looking forward to meeting up with them both once again. All the best, Nicolas Dupre.

Serina didn’t know what to say. The email was extremely polite. Too polite, in fact, and a bit pompous. It didn’t sound at all like Nicolas.

Maybe what she’d said to Felicity was right in a way. She didn’t know him anymore. The passing years might have changed him from the impassioned and rather angry young man he’d once been into something entirely different. Someone calm and mature and yes… kind. Maybe he was coming all this way out of kindness. Maybe it had nothing to do with her being a widow now, nothing to do with her at all! Nicolas was just responding to the heartfelt request of a young girl whose father had been tragically killed.

Serina tried to embrace this possibility but she simply couldn’t. She knew, in her heart of hearts, that his coming back to Rocky Creek had nothing to do with kindness. It was all about her.

Not that she believed Nicolas was still in love with her. He’d made his contempt quite clear at his mother’s funeral. But maybe he’d spotted the hunger in her eyes. Maybe his plan was to take full advantage of that hunger, to do to her what she’d once done to him: indulge in a wild one-night stand, then dump her in the morning.

A shiver ran down Serina’s spine, a highly disturbing, cruelly seductive shiver.

Please, don’t let that be his plan. Let him be coming back for something else. To visit his mother’s grave perhaps. Don’t let me be his underlying motive, or his prey. Don’t let him be looking for sexual revenge. Because this time, I have nowhere to run to, and no one to hide behind…

CHAPTER THREE

NICOLAS could have hired a car in Sydney and driven to Port Macquarie. But that was a five-to six-hour drive, maybe longer, given that his early morning arrival at Mascot would mean he would hit peak hour traffic going through the city. He’d done just that when he’d returned to Rocky Creek for his mother’s funeral and regretted it. He’d regretted also hiring a stupid sports car, which hadn’t coped too well with the not-so-wonderful roads up that way.

This time, he booked a connecting flight to Port Macquarie that left Sydney at 8:00 am and only took fifty-five minutes. Once there, he planned to take a taxi to his accommodation where the four-wheel-drive vehicle he’d already hired would be waiting for him. He hadn’t wanted the bother of picking it up at the airport. Experience had taught him that doing so could be a very time-consuming operation. Having made the decision to come, Nicolas knew that he couldn’t bear the thought of anything delaying his arrival in Rocky Creek. The weariness he’d been feeling the night Felicity’s letter had arrived was long gone, replaced by the kind of excitement he used to feel just before going on the stage to perform.

Everything went according to plan. The flight from London set down at Mascot only a few minutes late and the connecting flight to Port Macquarie left right on time. Nicolas stepped out onto the tarmac at Port Macquarie airport right on nine. Fifteen minutes later, he and his luggage were speeding towards the centre of town.

‘Port’s grown since I was last here,’ he remarked as he glanced around. ‘But it has been nearly twenty years.’

‘Crikey, mate,’ the taxi driver replied. ‘You’ll be lucky to recognise anything.’

Not true, however. The town centre hadn’t changed all that much, Nicolas thought as they drove down the main street. The rectangular layout was basically the same, the streets straight and wide, with parking at the curb sides and in the middle. The old picture theatre was still there on the corner and the pub across the road. But the evidence of a tourism explosion was everywhere, with all the high-rise apartment buildings and the upsurge in restaurants and cafés.

And of course, the tourists themselves were there in full force. Summer had arrived in Australia and with it the hot weather that sent people flocking to seaside towns. Nicolas was already feeling a little sticky. He’d be glad to have a shower and change into something cooler than the suit, shirt and tie he was currently wearing.

The taxi turned right at the end of the main street and headed up the hill to where Nicolas’s choice of accommodation was located, a relatively new boutique apartment block that was several storeys high and made the most of its position overlooking Town Beach. Nicolas had found it on one of the many travel Web sites available and booked one of the apartments from his home in London a couple of nights back.

Although book-in time was officially not till 2:00 pm, Nicolas was soon given his keys. The apartment he’d chosen had not been occupied the previous night. Not surprising, given the hefty price tag and the fact that last night was a Thursday. Added to this was the fact that he’d taken it for a full week.

Nicolas was suitably impressed when he let himself in and walked around, inspecting what his two grand had bought him. There was a spacious living room that combined the sitting and dining areas and opened out onto an equally large, sea-facing balcony, with a barbeque, outdoor furniture and a hot tub. The bedroom was five-star, the bed king-sized, as was the plasma television screen built into the wall opposite the foot of the bed. The en suite bathroom was total luxury with gold taps, crystal light fittings and a spa bath fit for two. The kitchen was superbly appointed with black granite countertops and stainless steel appliances.

Nicolas noted the complimentary bottles of wine in the fridge. Not just champagne, but Chardonnay and Chablis. There were also a couple of bottles of fine Hunter Valley reds resting in the stainless steel wine rack. A bowl of fresh fruit sat on the coffee table and a box of chocolates, too.

Serina had a sweet tooth, he recalled.

Serina…

How would she react to him this time? he wondered as he unzipped the first of his two cases and began to unpack.

She’d been extremely tense when he’d confronted her after his mother’s funeral. Fearful, he suspected, that he might say something to her husband. No doubt she’d never confessed to Greg that she’d slept with him not long before their wedding.

His own mood had been vicious. Grief combined with jealousy had not made him ready to be kind, or forgiving. He’d questioned Serina mercilessly about her daughter’s parentage, even though his eyes had already told him that the pretty little dark-haired, dark-eyed child wasn’t his.

And all the time they were talking together, he’d been fiercely erect. Wanting her. Loving her. Hating her.

She’d looked even more beautiful than he remembered. Black became her. There again, just about any colour suited Serina, with her dark hair and eyes, and lovely olive skin. Having a child had enhanced rather than spoilt her figure. Her curves were the curves of a woman in her prime. She’d looked luscious, and as sexy as ever.

It had killed him to watch her leave the wake with another man, to see the proprietorial way Greg had taken her arm and led her away.

Nicolas hadn’t slept a wink that night. He’d tossed and turned, picturing Serina in her marital bed, in her husband’s arms, under her husband’s body.

The next morning, a grim-faced Nicolas had given instructions to his mother’s solicitor to dispose of the house and all its contents, and forward the proceeds to his bank in London. By noon he’d left Rocky Creek, vowing never to return.

Yet here he was, doing just that.

Of course, he’d never imagined that the extremely healthy-looking Greg Harmon would die so young. Or that Serina’s daughter would write to him and practically beg him to come back to Rocky Creek.

Nicolas wondered what Serina felt about Felicity doing that? Would she have been annoyed? Angry? It had been rather bold of the girl to write to him like that. He suspected it had been done without her mother’s permission.

The fact there’d been no email from Serina herself had been telling, he thought. The principal of Rocky Creek Primary school had emailed him, checking that his offer was for real, but nothing, however, from Felicity’s mother.

Perhaps her silence meant indifference. But he doubted it.

Serina could never be indifferent to him, just as he could never be indifferent to her.

As Nicolas carried his toilet bag into the bathroom, he made another vow. He wasn’t going to leave Australia this time till he knew for certain how Serina felt about him and how he felt about her. He was not going to live the rest of his life pining for what might have been, or what might be in the future.

He’d booked this apartment for a full week. Long enough, he imagined, to have all his questions answered…

CHAPTER FOUR

SERINA found it impossible to concentrate at work that Friday morning. All she could think about was the fact that Nicolas was on his way here right at this moment; that soon, he would reach Port Macquarie and call, not Felicity or Fred Tarleton, Felicity’s school’s principal, but her own sorry self.

Felicity, the precocious child, had informed her of these new arrangements late last night, explaining that she’d given Nicolas her mobile number to contact when he arrived at Port Macquarie, as everyone at the school would be tied up all day, getting the school hall ready for the concert the following evening. Everything had to be perfect for their famous visiting judge.

There had been no use protesting. Felicity was as stubborn as a mule. And Nicolas, it seemed, was uncontactable at that hour, having already boarded his plane in London for the flight to Sydney. It hadn’t occurred to Serina till she’d arrived at work this morning that he probably had one of those fan-dangled new phones that received emails, even on planes. Serina had never been overly keen on technology and whilst she used a computer at work and carried a basic mobile phone with her, she didn’t have a PC of her own at home and wasn’t at all enamoured with the Internet.

Felicity, however, like most modern children, was a real computer buff and could make her way around the worldwide web with ridiculous ease. Over the past fortnight she’d regaled Serina with scads of information about Nicolas that she’d found on the Internet, from his earliest concert playing days right up to the successes he’d had as a theatrical entrepreneur, including that of his latest musical protégée, a young Japanese violinist called Junko Hoshino who was as beautiful as she was talented. Several gossip columnists had them being an item already. It seemed Nicolas had somewhat of a reputation as a ladies’ man, a fact that didn’t surprise.

Serina already knew quite a bit about Nicolas’s life over the past decade. There’d been a segment on 60 Minutes a couple of years ago back that was like a mini This is Your Life, highlighting the accident that had ended his piano playing career, then praising him for the way he’d put such a tragedy behind him and forged a new career in show business.

It had made difficult viewing with Greg by her side on the lounge. She’d wanted to tape the segment and watch it over and over—watch him over and over—but hadn’t dared. Greg knew she’d once dated Nicolas, though she’d always down-played their relationship, claiming she hadn’t been unhappy when he left Australia to pursue his career. Later that night, when Greg had wanted sex, however, she’d turned him down, because she knew she simply could not bear to make love with her husband with the memory of Nicolas so fresh in her mind.

He was very fresh in her mind again today, not just because he was on his way to Rocky Creek but because of what she’d watched on Felicity’s computer last night. That incorrigible child had found an old video of him on a social networking site showing him playing one of Chopin’s polonaises at the Royal Albert Hall.

‘You have to come and look at this, Mum,’ she’d insisted.

Serina had, very reluctantly at first. But then with total concentration on the screen.

No one, in Serina’s opinion, played the piano quite like Nicolas. She had no doubt that lots of concert pianists—past and present—were more technically brilliant. But none possessed his passion, his panache, or his blatant sex appeal.

Women had swooned over him when he played. She certainly had that fateful night. His performance—even on this grainy video—sent sexual shivers running down her spine.

‘Wasn’t he an incredible pianist, Mum?’ Felicity had raved.

‘Yes,’ Serina had agreed huskily, her tongue thick in her throat.

‘And to think he can’t play anymore! I cried when I read about his hands being burned like that. But it was very brave of him to do what he did, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Serina had agreed again, this time in a more composed voice. ‘Very brave.’

Which it had been. Apparently, he’d been walking along a street in central London very late one night—not long after his mother died—when a passing car had careered out of control on a corner, hit a brick wall and burst into flames. The driver—a woman—had been knocked unconscious. Nicolas had raced over and dragged her out. He’d just pulled her clear when he’d heard the baby crying. It had taken him some considerable time to undo the seat belt and extricate the baby from its capsule in the backseat, during which time his hands had been burned, his left hand so badly that his left thumb had had to eventually be amputated.

Serina had cried, too, when she’d first heard about Nicolas’s burnt hand. It had been widely covered in the news at the time. Greg had found her weeping over it in her bedroom, but thought she was crying over her inability to conceive another child. She’d let him think that. For how could she explain her distress over Nicolas’s accident?

She’d felt guilty, though. She’d felt guilty a lot during her marriage. That was the one thing that Greg’s death had released her from. Feeling guilty.

There was no guilt in Serina today. The guilt had been replaced by the most excruciating nervous tension.

Her eyes kept going to the clock on the wall. Only ten-fifteen. If he was driving, Nicolas couldn’t possibly be in Port yet. His plane didn’t touch down in Mascot till six-thirty this morning. By the time he got through customs and rented a car he would have hit peak hour traffic in Sydney. It would take him till well after nine to get out of the city and onto the freeway. Once you included a couple of stops for food and nature calling, plus all the delays caused by the road works around Bulahdelah and Taree, his estimated time of arrival would be around three or four this afternoon.

But, of course, he might not be driving up. He might have taken a connecting flight. She herself had never flown anywhere from Port. When she went to Sydney by herself that one time, she’d taken the train from Wauchope. Then, after her marriage to Greg, on the few occasions they’d gone to Sydney, they’d driven down. But she knew there was a flight from Sydney that got in around ten. If it was on time, it would take Nicolas about half an hour to collect his luggage and get to wherever he was staying in Port. Which meant she could expect a call anytime now.

Serina had just finished this mental calculation when her phone rang. Not her work phone but her mobile.

‘That’ll be him!’ Allie called out from the reception desk.

‘If it is then he couldn’t have driven,’ Serina said.

‘Of course not!’ Emma said impatiently from her nearby desk. ‘A man like that. He wouldn’t drive all this way when he could fly.’

Both the girls who worked with Serina in the office knew everything about Nicolas’s visit—and the man himself—courtesy of Felicity dropping by every second morning to give them an update, including this morning. Fortunately, neither of the girls were old enough to have been at high school with either Serina or Nicolas, so they believed everything Serina told them about her relationship with the famous entrepreneur.

Nonetheless, being typical females, they were quick to suggest that her ‘just good friends’ status with the famous Nicolas Dupre might develop into something more once he got to see her again. Both Allie and Emma were openly admiring of their boss’s looks and style, and had recently begun to try to match-make her with every single man in Rocky Creek. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—there weren’t too many local men around Serina’s age who weren’t already married, or Mumma’s boys, or simply too unattractive for words.

In truth, Serina had no interest in getting married again. Or even in dating.