A Father At Last (2 page)

She smiled at the thought of her darling son. He’d be at home now, with his Monday to Thursday nanny, Amalia. She fished her phone from her bag and pressed some numbers.

Dylan answered almost immediately, and as always, her mood lightened at the sound of his voice.

“How’s my number one son?” she asked. Still smiling, she walked off down the street, the phone to her ear.

The kids‐wear department was on the sixth floor of the store, but before hopping in the lift, Kelly detoured past the cosmetic counters on the ground floor. She wished she hadn’t when Julie Mac

she caught her reflection in the endless mirrors. She looked washed out—her strawberry-blonde hair was a tangled mess, and she hadn’t put on fresh lip‐gloss before she left work.
I
look thirty‐seven instead of twenty‐seven.

She stopped at one of the counters, sought out a tester bottle of a particular perfume, hesitated for a moment, then sprayed a fine mist on the underside of her wrist.

She couldn’t resist a burst on her neck as well. She closed her eyes and let the fragrance invade her senses, evoking an avalanche of memories; it had been a favourite once, long ago, before Dylan was born. Correction : it had been her favourite right up to the night he was conceived.

She hadn’t bought it since, but suddenly she couldn’t think of any good reason why she shouldn’t. She opened her eyes and found a price. A hundred and eighty dollars!

Bollocks to that!
The price tag was a good enough reason not to buy, on her junior lawyer’s salary, with Dylan’s birthday coming up and the mortgage due. The perfume could wait a couple of weeks—or maybe a couple of months.

She moved away before one of the immaculately groomed cosmetics counter assistants could swoop, and headed for the fine foods department where she bought some kiwifruit chocolate as an extra little birthday treat for Dylan.

The doors of the old‐fashioned lift clanked open and Kelly stepped into the empty cage, waiting while the doors shut, but after she hit the button for the sixth floor, the doors started to open again.

She checked her watch in mild annoyance. It was ten past five already; the shop shut at five‐thirty, and at this rate, she’d be lucky to get Dylan’s present before then.

She looked up.

And felt the oxygen squeeze from her chest.

“Ben.” It was almost a whisper.

He was dressed as he was at the court: baggy grey T‐shirt, black zip‐up hoodie hanging open, loose‐fitting jeans and biker boots. The black beanie was gone, revealing thick, short‐cropped black hair—black to match his eyebrows and lashes, and perfectly complementing his dark olive skin. He was studying her face, unsmiling.

“Kelly,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”

She felt the ancient lift begin its laborious ascent. The air, vibrating with a palpable tension, was suddenly thinner.

“Not long enough, obviously.” She was pleased she had the wit to say anything under the gaze of those eyes that seemed hot‐wired to a tender spot in her heart. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to know you.”

He ignored that remark. “How’ve you been?”

A Father at Last

“Fine. Not that it’s any concern of yours, Ben. Or whoever you are today.” She was trying for stroppy, but the tremor in her voice let her down. She reached out to stab at the button for the first floor, but smoothly, easily, he blocked her, flicked a switch labelled

‘Stop’, then turned to face her, his body firmly in front of the control panel.

As the lift shuddered to a standstill, her heartbeat cranked up five notches in an instant and her breathing quickened. She wasn’t claustrophobic, not really, but she’d always been terrified of getting stuck in a lift between floors. Well, that was the excuse she made to herself for her increased heart rate.

Because she’d never been scared of Ben Carter—and wasn’t now.

“Stand back, buddy,” she said in her best courtroom voice. Even to her own ears, she sounded totally ridiculous.

He must have thought so too, because he laughed, that easy, joyful laugh she’d come to rely on all those years ago when life seemed so bleak.

It took her back, that laugh, way back, and triggered a thousand alarm bells.

“Did you follow me?”
Of course you followed me.

The grin was gone from his face, replaced with a dark scowl. “Some of my...ah...associates liked the look of you. They were making noises about hanging around outside the court and waiting for you. I talked them out of it—but I hung around myself, just to make sure.”

“Oh,” was all she could think of to say. Warmth blossomed in her heart and spread outwards. He’d protected her as a kid and a teenager, and was protecting her still. “Thanks.”

“Pleasure’s all mine.” The words came out of his mouth automatically, she thought, but his eyes were telling a completely different story.

He put down the department store bag he was carrying, and caught her hand in his.

At his touch, the feelings came back, flooding back—the desperate longing, the wanting, the craving for him. Only now it was twice as bad as it had been all those years ago.

He drew her hand to his chest and leaned his other hand on the lift wall beside her, so that his face was close to hers, the scowl gone. “I tried to contact you, lots of times, after that night we had together.” There was a rough edge to his voice. “I couldn’t find you. I concluded you didn’t feel the same way I did about a replay. Eventually I gave up.”

Of course you couldn’t find me. I made sure of that.
His heart beat under her hand, strong and steady, and the temptation to simply sink into that chest—into his warmth, to feel his arms around her—was so powerful it hurt.

She shrugged, dragging her eyes from his so he wouldn’t see the truth, and turned her head slightly to focus on a spot over his shoulder. “I was around.”

“Around, maybe, but not for me. Kelly...” He let go of her hand and reached for her chin, gently easing her head around to face him again and seeking out her eyes. “Do you Julie Mac

remember that night?”

She drew her eyebrows together and cocked her head slightly in what she hoped was a good impression of someone struggling to grasp a memory. “Vaguely, I guess.”

She saw the flash of hurt in his eyes, deep and searing, and hated herself for doing this, but there was no other option. He’d live with the hurt, she’d live with the loss, but there was another person in her life now whose feelings were far more important than either hers or Ben’s.

“So you have no recollection of how it was for us?”

“No.”
Yes! Every detail of that night is as clear to me as if it happened seven days
ago, not nearly seven years.

“I’m sorry you don’t remember.” Ben was watching her eyes, and the hand holding her chin moved fractionally to caress her cheek. “Because I do—very clearly.”

She thought her knees might give way. “Well, I’m sorry too, but I obviously don’t have your powers of recall.”
I remember every touch of your hands on my body, every slide
of your skin against mine.
She held his gaze, hoping to convey indifference.

“Shall I remind you?” He dipped his head as if to kiss her.

“No!” She jerked her head to the side.
The memory of your mouth on mine is already
imprinted on my brain forever.

If she let him kiss her—if she kissed him—all the protective barriers she’d built around her would shatter and crumble in a second.

“So why are you panting then?”

“What?” She swung her head back to face him, and saw the start of a cheeky Ben‐of-old grin.

“You’re breaking out in a sweat.” His hand on her cheek shifted slightly and he rested a fingertip against the pulse in her neck. “And your heartbeat is fast. I thought a bloke could take that as a sign that a girl wanted him to kiss her.”

“Or that she’s scared because she’s trapped in a lift between floors.” It wasn’t true, she knew. She
should
have been scared, but with his solid presence beside her in the old timber and steel cage, she felt safe.

So maybe he was right—in which case she needed to take charge of the situation.

She dragged in a deep breath, and shoved hard with the hand that was still on his chest.

“I’ve got to get going.” If she sounded rude, so much the better. “Get this lift moving please.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Where to, madam?” he asked, swinging around to the control panel.

Unexpected disappointment shot through her, but she knew it was better this way.

A Father at Last

“Sixth floor, please.”

She saw the hesitation, his hand stalled in front of the button as he read the label beside it.

“The sixth floor is children’s wear.”

His voice held a quality she couldn’t identify, and she didn’t know what to say.

Silence hung in the lift like impending thunder.

He swung to face her again, his expression unreadable. “Are you married?”

She saw his eyes home in on her left hand.

“Or living with someone?”

“No, I’m not married, and no, I don’t have a live‐in partner.” For an insane moment she thought she saw relief in his eyes.

“But you have a child.”

She reached up a hand to fiddle with her hair. Denying Dylan’s existence seemed a terrible betrayal of her precious boy. But right now it would be better to tell a lie. Far simpler and cleaner. And then she realised his words had been a statement, not a question.

“I heard you, outside the court, on your phone.”

His words confirmed her dawning comprehension. She swallowed hard and nodded.

“Yes, I have a child, a boy.”

Read the eyes. They tell you everything.
They’d taught the students that in law school, and Kelly’s time in court had helped hone the skill. Right now, Ben Carter’s eyes were giving her chapter and verse, although his face was a rigid mask.

“How old is he?” His voice was low and harsh.

“He turns six on Saturday.” She saw Ben, always top of the class in maths at school, do the calculation in three seconds flat and she wished she hadn’t been so specific.

“Is he mine?”

There was an intensity in those golden eyes that almost made her flinch.

She shook her head and stepped back fractionally. “Not yours, Ben.” She saw the regret in his eyes, sharp and surprising, followed almost instantly by an emotion she couldn’t identify.

“Who’s his father?”

“None of your damn business.” Kelly sounded strong, sassy even, but inside she was weak. She had to get out of here, fast. She stepped forward, reached her arm past him and pushed the button for floor six. She wanted to hold him, kiss him, tell him the truth, erase Julie Mac

the regret from his eyes forever. But she couldn’t—not now, not ever.

“And if I
was
his father, would you have told me?”

His voice, little more than a raw whisper, was close to her ear, and his warm breath brushed her neck.

She heard the creak of the pulleys above her, and the lift began to move. Her throat tightened. “You’re not listening. He’s not yours.” Fear crept through her belly. “And no, I wouldn’t have told you even if he was. Don’t you remember what it was like for me when it all went wrong for my father and he went to prison?”

She hated the way she sounded close to tears. “Do you think I’d want a child of my own to go through that?”

He said nothing and she couldn’t bear to look at him. Instead, she watched the indicator lights above the door as the lift progressed slowly upwards.

He stood motionless, but she could hear the steady in, out, of his breathing, feel his body close to hers, but a million miles away. Still, he said nothing.

Then, after they’d passed the fourth floor, he pushed the button for the fifth, and surprised her, leaning in, brushing his lips against her cheek, murmuring, “I hope your little boy brings you truckloads of happiness, Kelly.”

For a long moment, the only sounds were their breathing and the mechanical clunkings of the lift.

Then he added, unexpectedly, “You smell good. I remember you wearing that perfume—back then.”

She turned to face him, and saw the heat in his eyes, those amazing liquid gold eyes, halfway between green and brown.

“Here, I bought something for you.” He reached down to pick up the department store bag from the floor beside him and put the gold rope handle in her hands. Then he fished in his pants pocket, pulled out a wad of notes and dropped them in the bag. “Buy your little fellow a treat for his birthday. Go to the fun park or something. Tell him it’s from an old friend of yours.”

“He doesn’t need a fancy treat.” Kelly grabbed at the money in the bag. “Dylan’s not a spoilt kid. We’re having a picnic tea at the beach with some of his friends.” She held the money out to him. “Here. Take this back.”

But he made no move to take it. Fleetingly, she thought of stuffing it back in his jeans pocket, but dismissed the idea instantly.

Her eyes had obviously betrayed her intentions, because he gave a knowing and infuriating smile. But the smile failed to reach his eyes, which right now looked incredibly sad. And when she saw the sadness, she was almost undone.

And then she was—completely undone, because he leaned in and kissed her, full on A Father at Last

the mouth, not with a tentative, questioning, first time kiss, but with a ‘been there before’

kiss, strong, hard, skipping the preliminaries. And Kelly couldn’t help herself.

She responded to his heat instinctively and without rational thought. Her tongue met his, and she heard his quickened breathing and heard—no, felt—the vibration in his chest as he groaned and deepened the kiss. He’d pulled her close, so her body touched his, like a homecoming—but an impossible, sad homecoming. Her hands went to his hips, as his tangled in her hair, and she knew she’d lied to herself for all those years.

Then the lift stopped, and he pulled back from her.

“Trust me, Kelly,” was all he said. When the doors opened, he turned, stepped out and walked away without looking back.

“This store will shut in ten minutes. Please complete your purchases and make your way to the exits.”