Her Secret, His Child: A Night, A Secret...A Child / One-Night Love-Child / The French Aristocrat's Baby

It was then that she broke into a grin and winked at him.

The cheeky minx, Nicolas thought as he jumped to his feet, clapping and shouting ‘Bravo!’ as European audiences sometimes did. Everyone else in the hall started doing likewise and Felicity finally began to look a little embarrassed. It was left to the principal of the school to hurry up onto the stage and bring some order back into proceedings.

‘Wasn’t that just wonderful, folks?’ he said, and gave a by then embarrassed-looking Felicity a shoulder squeeze. ‘Not only is our school captain a great little pianist, but she’s also a great little organiser. We have her to thank for the presence here tonight of our esteemed guest and judge, Mr Nicolas Dupre. For anyone who doesn’t know, Mr Dupre was Australia’s most famous concert pianist till a tragic accident cut short his career a decade ago. But you can’t keep a Rocky Creek lad down for long. He then went on to become an equally famous theatrical entrepreneur. Some of you might have seen the segment about him on TV a few years ago. Anyway, we are most grateful that he found the time to be with us here tonight. He came a long way. Now… we come to the most important part of the evening. Will Mr Dupre please come up onto the stage and announce the winners?’

Nicolas rose, and made his way forward to some ear-splitting applause.

Serina wasn’t clapping, however, her hands twisting in her lap as she watched Nicolas mount the short flight of steps then walk across the stage to where Felicity and Fred Tarleton were standing.

He looked magnificent, dressed in a charcoal-grey suit which must have cost a small fortune. Not only did it fit his body to perfection, but there also wasn’t a single wrinkle where the sleeves met his broad shoulders. His shirt was blue, about the same colour as his eyes. His tie was dark blue and grey striped. Only his collar-length blond hair spoiled his image as a millionaire businessman. That, and the inherent sensuality in his face.

Serina heard a few soft sighs from the women in the audience.

In a way, those sounds provided a degree of comfort. How could she blame herself for being besotted by the man when perfect strangers were affected by him?

But it wasn’t his sex appeal that was causing her hands to be wrung. Or her stomach to be hopelessly in knots. It was the fear that he might have seen the truth during Felicity’s astounding performance just now.

Surely he must have seen what was so obvious to her. That this was his own flesh and blood playing up there. His genes, not Greg’s.

She leant forward in her seat to get a closer look at the expression on his face when he approached Felicity. When his daughter smiled up at him, he smiled back, just as happily, without hesitation, without even a hint of distress or anger.

He hadn’t seen! He didn’t even suspect!

Perversely, any relief Serina felt was tinged by a bitter resentment. What was it about men that they had no sensitivity, or intuition? He should have seen what was obvious. But no, they only saw what they wanted to see. Or what their male ego let them see, and believe.

Nicolas had believed she didn’t love him all those years ago, and he believed it once again today. Yet she’d shown him in that bedroom this afternoon how much she did.

She shook her head and sank back into her seat.

‘He hasn’t changed much,’ Mrs Johnson said from where she was sitting on the right side of Serina.

‘No,’ Serina agreed with considerable irony. He was still a blind fool!

‘Hush up, you two,’ her mother said impatiently from the other side of Serina.

Nicolas took the microphone from Fred Tarleton and faced the audience.

‘Firstly,’ he said, ‘my heartiest congratulations, Felicity, for what was, indeed, a spectacular performance. I know I could not have done better myself at your age. Such prodigious talent is a tribute to the dedication and skill of her teacher, Mrs Johnson, who was my own first teacher. Mrs Johnson… ’ He bowed gallantly towards the old lady. ‘I salute you.’

‘I take that back,’ Mrs Johnson murmured. ‘He has changed. The boy I taught had no charm whatsoever.’

A swift sidewards glance showed Serina the old lady was preening under his praise and that well-learned charm.

Her teeth clenched down hard in her jaw.

She sat there, silently fuming—which was insane!—as he went through the process of allotting the prizes, exerting more of his charm and gaining more approval from the audience as he awarded not one but two runner-up prizes. It had been a foregone conclusion that once Felicity was out of the running that Isabella would win. Not that Serina minded that. Isabella was a delightful girl with a truly lovely voice.

Serina tried telling herself she should be grateful that Nicolas hadn’t twigged to the truth. Possibly she would be, in time.

Just not right now!

‘I have one last presentation to make before today’s event comes to a close,’ Nicolas said, everyone in the hall falling silent and snapping to attention. ‘Felicity, I think you should be the one to receive this.’ And he extracted from the breast pocket of his suit jacket what looked like a cheque. ‘It was your lovely letter that brought me here. A touching letter, folks, about her dad’s tragic death in the Victorian bushfires. As you all know, this afternoon was a fund-raiser for the local bushfire brigade of which her dad was president. Now as much as you have all turned out in wonderful numbers and paid your money at the door, I made enquires about what it would cost to buy just one of those new firefighting trucks that Felicity told me about and I don’t think you’re going to make it today, not unless I give things a helping hand. So here you are, dear girl. I think it should be enough.’

Serina watched her daughter’s eyes widen as she stared at the cheque, watched her daughter then throw her arms around Nicolas. By the time Nicolas disengaged her, Felicity’s big brown eyes were dancing with happiness.

‘It’s for three hundred thousand dollars!’ she shouted to everyone.

Everyone began to clap. Everyone, that is, but Serina, who was crying. Her mother put an arm around her shoulders.

‘There there, love. I know. It’s still hard. But I’m sure Greg must be happy tonight, looking down at his daughter from heaven. Happy and proud.’

Serina cried all the harder…

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE after-concert party was in full swing, with Nicolas being bombarded with both finger food and conversation. People kept coming up to him to congratulate him on a job well done and to say thank you, the girls from Serina’s office included—though not Serina, he noted ruefully. She kept her distance, even when her own mother and Mrs Johnson were chatting to him.

Felicity brought along her paternal grandparents, Franny and Bert Harmon, whom he’d never met before. They looked like they were in their late seventies and rather an odd couple: Bert was tall and thin whilst Franny was very short and plump. But both of them had grey hair and dark, gentle eyes.

‘Nanna and Pop bought your old house, you know,’ Felicity said after she’d introduced them.

‘Really?’

‘And your old piano. That’s what I first learned to play on.’

Nicolas was quite startled by this news. He’d imagined that her having piano lessons had been Serina’s doing, that Felicity would have learned to play on her mother’s piano. Serina had had her own instrument long before Nicolas acquired his, courtesy of a competition he’d won. Till then he’d always practised on Mrs Johnson’s piano.

‘Whenever I went to stay at Nanna and Pop’s,’ Felicity went on, ‘I could hear the kids having lessons next door at Mrs Johnson’s. Her music room was just over the fence from my bedroom window. I used to love to lie in bed and listen.’

Nicolas could hardly believe what he was hearing. Talk about coincidence!

‘Then, one day, when I was about three,’ Felicity continued, ‘I can’t actually remember this… but Pop tells me he came downstairs and I was trying to play. He decided then and there I should have lessons. To tell the truth, Mum wasn’t all that keen but Dad was, even though he wasn’t musical at all.’

‘Tone deaf Greg was,’ Franny said with a nod. ‘But he was so proud of you, love. I’m sure he would have been very proud of you tonight. The way you played. Nicolas was right. You were quite magnificent.’

‘If you moved to Sydney to attend the conservatorium of music,’ Nicolas said to her, ‘you would become an even better pianist. In a few years, you could be giving concerts all over the world.’

Felicity looked very taken aback. ‘But I would hate that,’ she said very forthrightly. ‘I love playing the piano, Nicolas, but I don’t want to do it for a living. Good heavens, no! I’m going to become a vet.’

‘A vet,’ he echoed blankly.

‘Golly, yes. Who’d want to be a concert pianist?’ she went on with the tactlessness of youth. ‘I can’t think of anything more boring. Playing the piano is fun, but not all the time. Oh, sorry, Nicolas,’ she added, suddenly realising what she’d just said. ‘I forgot for a moment. Still, I’ll bet you enjoy yourself a lot more doing what you’re doing now than thumping away on the keys for hours and hours every day. Which is what I’d have to do if I wanted to become a concert pianist. I know because Mrs Johnson said so. “If you want to make a career of the piano, Felicity,”’ she pronounced in a perfect imitation of Mrs Johnson’s somewhat haughty voice, ‘“you have to practise, practise, practise.” Well I practised like mad for weeks for tonight’s performance and I can tell you I’ve had more than enough of that piano for a while. I’m not going to touch a key over the Christmas holidays. Now, I really do have to go help the others with the food and stuff, or they’d think I’m slacking. Thank you again, Nicolas,’ she said as she gave him a peck on the cheek. ‘Don’t go without saying goodbye.’

‘A vet,’ Nicolas muttered drily as he watched Felicity hurry away to join her friends. What a horrible waste of talent!

‘She’s animal mad, is our Felicity,’ Bert piped up. ‘Not domestic animals so much. Wildlife. She and Kirsty—who’s her very best friend, the one who did the hip-hop dance—they’re always hunting around in the bush looking for injured animals and birds. Kirsty’s folks have an acreage just out of town.’

‘I see,’ Nicolas said politely. Though he didn’t at all. All he could see was that she was wasting a musical talent that was beyond exceptional.

‘To tell the truth, Mr Dupre,’ Bert went on, ‘Mother and I are glad Felicity wants to be a vet. That way, even if she goes away to study for a while after leaving school, she’ll eventually come back to live in this area. She’s all we have now that our son has gone. Greg was an only child, you see. We always hoped that he and Serina would have more kiddies, but that wasn’t to be.’

‘His having had the mumps as a young lad had something to do with that,’ Franny added. ‘He had some tests done when Serina didn’t fall for a baby again and they said he had a low sperm count. So we’re lucky to have one grandchild. We’d be totally lost without Felicity, wouldn’t we, Bert? She brings us such joy. Do you remember the day she was born? She was amazing from the word go. Didn’t look like a newborn. Why, she could have passed for three months old. And she was so beautiful. Nothing like Greg when he was born. He looked like a wizened-up monkey for weeks. Of course she’s taken after Serina with her looks and her musical talent. Not so much in nature though. Felicity’s a real little goer, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, but extremely stubborn. It’s thankful she has a good heart to temper her ambitions. But I know Serina has trouble with her sometimes. We help as much as we can. And Serina’s mother does, too, of course. The girl really needs a father figure. Greg was wonderful with her, not too indulgent. He recognised she needed direction. Felicity adored him. Oh dear,’ Franny said suddenly, her eyes suddenly filling with tears. ‘Sorry. I thought I was over doing this.’

Somehow, Nicolas managed to murmur something sympathetic. But his mind was whirling with the things Felicity’s grandmother had just told him.

If she was Felicity’s grandmother, Nicolas began thinking with a sick, hollow feeling forming in the pit of his stomach… Surely Serina wouldn’t have done that? Surely not? But the evidence he’d just heard suggested differently.

His eyes started to scan the room, searching for her.

‘Come on, Mother,’ Bert said gently as he took his weeping wife’s arm. ‘Let’s go get you a nice cup of tea. Lovely talking to you, Mr Dupre. And thanks once again for donating that terrific sum of money. You’ve made Felicity one extremely happy girl tonight.’

Serina knew, the moment her eyes met Nicolas’s across the crowded hall, that what she’d feared would happen ever since she heard Nicolas was returning to Rocky Creek had just happened.

Never had she seen Nicolas look at her like that. There wasn’t just anger in his eyes, or disbelief… There was sheer unadulterated horror.

‘God help me,’ she muttered under her breath as he came striding towards her, where she was thankfully standing by herself behind the drinks table.

‘We need to talk, Serina,’ he growled. ‘Now!’

‘What about?’ she asked with feigned innocence whilst her heart was thudding wildly behind her ribs and nausea swirled in her stomach.

His eyes narrowed on her, his expression uncompromising in the extreme. ‘I think you know what about.’

‘Not unless you tell me.’

‘You really want me to say it here? To shout out to all and sundry that Felicity is not your husband’s daughter, but mine,’ he hissed. ‘Because I will if you don’t make some excuse and come with me right here and now.’

Serina thought she was going to faint as she saw her whole world crashing around her. Not just her world, but her daughter’s as well. And lots of other people’s.

But he can’t know, came the saving thought as she gripped the edge of the table, steadying her body as well as her mind. He just suspects. You can bluff this out, girl. You have to bluff it out.

‘I can’t imagine what Franny and Bert said to you to make you think such an outrageous thing,’ she said with superb calm. ‘But you’re dead wrong. Felicity is Greg’s daughter. Not yours.’ Which she was, in every way but biologically.

‘I don’t believe you, Serina,’ he challenged. ‘Now are we going to argue about this here, or are you going to come with me?’

‘Come where?’ Not his apartment. No way was she going to go there again!

‘Somewhere private,’ he spluttered.

Felicity’s bouncing up to her mother right at that moment with Kirsty by her side was both a blessing and a curse.

‘Kirsty wants me to go to her place for a sleepover,’ she said. ‘Can I, Mum? Can I, please?’

‘Felicity, I… ’

‘Oh, please, Mrs Harmon,’ Kirsty begged. ‘Mum says it’s okay. Then we could spend tomorrow together.’

Serina knew there would be no dissuading them, not once they ganged up on her. On top of that, it provided her with the perfect solution over where to take Nicolas. She would feel much safer facing him in her own home; safer, and stronger.

‘All right, then,’ she said, relenting. ‘What about clothes?’

‘She can borrow some of mine, Mrs Harmon,’ Kirsty said. ‘We’re exactly the same size.’

‘Fine. Just don’t go doing anything silly.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like going too far into the bush looking for more sick koalas. The weather forecast for tomorrow is very hot, even hotter than today, and windy—perfect bushfire weather. Promise me you’ll stay close to Kirsty’s place.’

‘We promise,’ the two girls chorused.

‘You could go out with Nicolas again tonight, if you wanted to,’ Felicity added, and Kirsty giggled.

It didn’t surprise Serina that her daughter was still trying to matchmake her with Nicolas. That girl never let up, once she got a bee in her bonnet. If only she knew!

‘What a good idea,’ Nicolas said immediately with a coldly cryptic smile. ‘I enjoyed the time I spent with your mother today very much. We’ve always been great mates. We could go the movies, Serina, like we used to.’

Serina felt all the blood drain from her face. Because of course they never went to the movies in the past. They just told their parents that was where they were going. They always spent the time making love.

If he thought he could somehow coerce her into having more sex with him, then he was sadly mistaken. But then an appalling thought popped into her head. What if he said he’d tell everyone in Rocky Creek he was Felicity’s father if she didn’t do just that?

Surely he wouldn’t do a wicked thing like that. Surely not!

Nicolas saw her moment of realisation. Saw, also, the way her chin rose, her eyes spearing his with tigerish fury.

‘I’m way too tired to go to the movies,’ she returned coolly. ‘But you can come back to my place for some coffee, if you like.’

He didn’t like. He didn’t want to go where she’d played happy family with Greg Harmon with his daughter. But he could hardly make a fuss in front of Felicity and her friend.

Frankly, Nicolas wasn’t sure what he was going to do as yet. Except make Serina suffer for a while.

She deserved to suffer, if what he suspected was true.

‘An excellent idea,’ he said crisply.

‘I can’t leave straight away,’ Serina said once Felicity and Kirsty ran off together. ‘I have to help clean up here. As you can see, the party’s coming to a close and there’s lots of mess. All the plastic chairs have to be stacked up and put away as well.’

Nicolas controlled himself with difficulty. He was used to getting his own way with things, used to people jumping to do his bidding.

Serina was clearly past doing his bidding. It came to him suddenly that she’d only appeared to do so this afternoon because she had a secret agenda. To get him out of Rocky Creek as soon as possible.As much as she might have seemed to enjoy his lovemaking, she was probably faking it, the same way she’d faked her mad passion that night at the Opera House. All to get him to have sex with her without protection. All to conceive the child that she knew Greg Harmon couldn’t give her.

A dark fury—and even darker desires—filled his soul as he thought about that night. What a fool he’d been! A blind besotted fool! But he would have her again—tonight.And she’d let him. Because that would be his bargain. One more night of sex in exchange for his silence, plus his departure tomorrow…

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SERINA expected him to argue with her. But he didn’t.

‘In that case, I’ll help,’ he said. ‘That way, you’ll be finished more quickly.’

Which was true. Nicolas, the celebrated entrepreneur, was also a splendid organiser. Within thirty minutes everything was cleared away, the floors swept, the chairs stacked. Fortunately, during this time, her mother had left to take a tired Mrs Johnson home and Felicity had gone off with Kirsty and her parents.

Night was just falling when they emerged from the hall at eight-thirty, by which time Serina had her arguments all fixed firmly in her mind. She clung to the fact that Nicolas had no proof, just suspicion.

‘It’s still very hot out here,’ he complained straight away. ‘I hope your place has air-conditioning. If it doesn’t we’ll be going elsewhere.’

Serina kept her temper with difficulty. ‘It has air-conditioning. On a timer, which I set for eight. The house should be nice and cool by the time we get there. But even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be going anywhere else with you, Nicolas Dupre.’

‘Is that so?’ came his cold reply. ‘That’s a matter to be seen. My wheels are over here.’ And he took a hold of her arm.

She would have wrenched her arm away if other people hadn’t been nearby. ‘I have my own wheels, thank you very much,’ she said and extracted herself carefully from his grasp. ‘It’s the white car over there. You can follow me home, it’s not far.’

‘How far?’

‘Less than a kilometre. I live up at the top end of Winter Street. Remember the old strawberry farm? Well, developers bought it, tore down the dump of a farmhouse and turned it into a very nice estate. Greg and I bought a block of land there not long after we got married.’

Nicolas really didn’t want to hear about Serina’s life with Greg Harmon. He was still finding it hard to believe what she’d done. The girl he’d known—and loved—wasn’t capable of such deception. There again, the girl who’d come to him that night at the Opera House hadn’t been that same girl. She’d been engaged to Greg Harmon by then. Madly in love with him, obviously, and ready to do anything for him.

But what she’d done had been downright wicked!

If that was what she did, another voice piped up in his head. One that wasn’t quite so ready to condemn. One that was still connected to reason. You might be wrong, Nicolas. Not about Felicity being your daughter, but about how and why she was conceived. Serina might not have planned anything. Maybe it just… happened.

But if that was the case, then why did she go through with marrying Harmon? Why didn’t she come to me? I would have married her. I loved her.

No, he was right the first time. She’d planned it all right. He knew women could do such things. His own mother had.

His heart hardened once again towards Serina. She had to be made to tell him the truth. Okay, so he probably wouldn’t blackmail her back into his bed. Even he could not condone that kind of outrageous behaviour, much as his dark side relished the idea. That had just been his anger talking and a primal urge for vengeance.

By the time Serina pulled in to the driveway of a cream, cement-rendered, ranch-style home, Nicolas had himself come halfway to reason. But only halfway. He wasn’t in the mood for any bulldust from her.

‘I hope you’re not going to keep on denying it,’ were his first words on joining her on the neat front porch.

She ignored him and went on unlocking the front door.

‘Watch your feet,’ she finally said when she pushed the door open. ‘I have a cat who just loves to wind herself around your legs. Her name is Midnight.’

Nicolas wasn’t one for pets, but he didn’t mind cats. He quite liked their independence.

Not that Serina’s cat seemed to be displaying much of that. She almost tripped both of them up in her rush for attention. Serina eventually scooped the big black cat up into her arms and carried her down the cream-tiled hallway into an open-planned living area that combined the kitchen, dining and sitting rooms.

‘Yes, yes,’ she said soothingly, stroking the cat’s glossy black fur for a while before dropping her onto the kitchen floor. ‘Mummy’s home. I suppose you’re hungry.’ And she turned away to open the refrigerator door.

Nicolas could see that any hope of conversation was nil till the cat was attended to. So he sat down on one of the cane stools that fronted the breakfast bar and shut his mouth whilst he watched Serina fix her pet’s food.

Eventually, however, his eyes strayed to his immediate surroundings.

For a house that hadn’t looked all that large from the street, the inside was extremely spacious, especially this section where there was enough room for a couple of loungers, a huge television, lots of side tables and a large, oval-shaped dining table that would easily seat ten people. The floor was tiled in the same cream tiles as the hallway, but with well-placed rugs for warmth and comfort. The walls were cream, the furniture in various shades of brown and green. It was a well-designed area, perfect for family living and gatherings.

Before he could stop himself, Nicolas began thinking of all the family get-togethers that would have taken place in this room: the birthdays parties, the anniversaries, the Christmases.

He stared at Serina and wondered if she’d ever felt guilty over what she’d done. It seemed impossible that she hadn’t given him a second thought over the years. He was her daughter’s father, for pity’s sake.