One Hour to Midnight (4 page)

"Holy guacamole," Tania breathed softly. "And had you still been there—"

"God knows what would have happened." Veronica shook her head. "Leon took me to Claremont, his home in Melbourne. When Jordan was born, he and his wife adopted him."
 

"So why's Leon here?"

Veronica looked at her friend, tears overflowing. "Jordan has leukaemia. He's in a very bad way."

Tania harsh breath was loud in the quiet room. "Shit! Is there nothing they can do?"

"He needs a bone marrow transplant."

Tania sat back on her heels. "That's why Leon came to see you?"

Veronica nodded, sucking in a shuddering breath.

Tania rose off the floor and walked to the side board. "This calls for a drink? What've you got? The stronger the better."

~***~

The strident ring of the doorbell shattered the evening quiet. Snapping on lights as she went, Veronica walked to the door and opened it. Leon surged past, not giving her a chance to block his entry.
 

She instinctively took a step backward, a hand over her heart in a vain attempt to slow its beat. She should have expected him, but he too, had managed to catch her by surprise.

"What are you doing here?" She watched as his eyes scanned every detail of the small entryway. Leon never missed a thing.

That shrewd gaze raked her from head to foot. "I wanted to make sure you were okay. I dumped a lot on you this morning."

For one moment she wished that was true. That he genuinely cared, but reality quashed the thought. "And that worried you?"

"Of course it worried me." A dangerous gleam lit his eyes.
 

"Afraid it would mess up your plans?"

His gaze settled on her face, his absolute stillness exuded menace. "Take care that chip on your shoulder doesn't bury you under its weight."

There was no way she was prepared to touch that comment and with a shrug, moved past him into the living room. Prickles of tension rippled up and down her spine as his footsteps sounded behind her. Even in the larger room, he dwarfed the space. He walked to the window before he turned to face her, hands buried in his trouser pockets.
 
"You've made this cosy."

Veronica's gaze did a swift sweep, thankful the place was tidy, before glancing at her unwelcome visitor. What, she wondered
,
was he thinking?

The two old fashioned wingback chairs she'd recovered in floral chintz. The textured weave wall paper she'd hung as a holiday project last summer. On the walls were two watercolours she'd fallen in love with at an Albany market. Polished Matai floors were a gleaming contrast to the two plush area rugs.

The furniture, all old pieces she'd bought cheaply and spent hours restoring. The antique credenza she'd rescued from a roadside rubbish collection.
 

To Veronica, her cottage was more than a home.

It was a place to sink the roots she craved. The roots she'd been denied as a child.
 
And bought with Karvasis money don't forget, blood money
.

"It's my home, Leon," she said quietly, refusing to let him intimidate her. "What else did you expect?"

"I recognise your style."

The dry response sent fiery heat flooding up her cheeks. Mortified, she turned away. Once before, in another lifetime, Leon had surveyed a home she'd created. The home she'd made at Jacobs Well. With his brother.

A strong hand gripped her shoulder and turned her to face him. "That wasn't meant as a criticism."

"Wasn't it?"

The flare of remembrance she saw in his eyes added to her discomfort. The tension in the room was palpable.

"I'm not here to rub your nose in past mistakes. I was worried about you."
 

"Were you?" She raised her eyebrows and lifted her chin.
 

His intense, searing gaze gave him a decidedly dangerous air. "You are my son's mother, Ricki, whatever that's worth."

The words, delivered with studied emphasis battered the bruise his presence created. "My name is Veronica. Ricki is dead."

The challenge echoed in the sudden silence
.

"Is she? Or was she swept under the carpet along with an inconvenient pregnancy and an unwanted child?"

His cutting words sliced through her tenuous calm. "You're a real bastard, Leon" she said through clenched teeth. "What are you implying?"
 

"When have you ever cared for Jordan's welfare?" Leon's eyes darkened with anger. "I saw you last night, displaying your assets in that bar."

"I was enjoying a night out with friends. Is that illegal?" She lifted her chin, daring him to say otherwise as years of resentment ripped open the festering sore of the past.
 
"Or did you and Julia intend me to wear sackcloth and ashes forever?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Ridiculous? It's not me being ridiculous, Leon" she said,
 
her voice deadly and venomous. "And if Jordan was ever a mistake, it was one you and Julia were sure as hell, eager to grasp."

Leon stiffened, and his eyes took on a dangerous glitter. "I find it difficult to second guess your motives, Veronica, but my only concern was Jordan."

The emphasis he put on her name burned like a brand. "You keep telling yourself that Leon. Who knows, one day you may believe it."

His eyes narrowed to gleaming slits as he took a step closer. "What are you implying?"

Long buried bitterness bubbled to the surface, shocking her with its violence. "You and your grasping bitch of a wife pressured me into giving up my baby."

Quick as a striking snake Leon grabbed her shoulders. "How dare you blame Julia for your mistakes? Jordan was a Karvasis, my brother's child. I had a duty to him. It's far too late to pretend you cared."

His blistering scorn stung.
 

Far from not caring, she'd cared too much. And the loss still haunted her. She stepped closer, seething with anger
.

"Not care
,
" she said through gritted teeth. "How dare you say I didn't care? My pregnancy was so damned convenient for you both, wasn't it?"

His lips thinned into a white line, his jaw clamped so tightly his facial muscles quivered. "What was convenient about it?"

"Come off it, Leon!" A bitter laugh escaped as she faced him, brim-full of angry grief. "I was young, an orphan with no family. And boy didn't that work to your advantage?"

He turned and paced to the window and then back. "We never took advantage of you. Why do you think I took you to Claremont?"

She couldn't help it, another rancorous laugh escaped. "You took me to Claremont so you could steal my baby."

Veronica's gaze never left his face. The acrimonious accusation echoed, her breasts rose and fell with the force of years of pent-up emotions.
 

Leon watched her shaking his head, but never attempted to refute her words.
 

And her heart broke a little more.

"You were always welcome in our home, to visit and be a part of our family, to watch Jordan grow up."

"Was I?" Her sarcastic laugh brought ruddy colour into his cheeks. "What part of your family, Leon? The spectre at the feast?"

Did he expect me to watch my son grow up calling Julia mother? Or him father?
 

She rubbed her hands up and down chilled arms, cold despite the sultry summer heat.
 

Leon lifted a hand and then let it fall. "You would have been treated as family."

"You know something, Leon? For such a successful business man
,
you're so fucking blind." She shook her head, disbelief vying with sorrow. "Julia never wanted me at Claremont. As for being welcome after Jordan's birth, surely even you can't be that obtuse."

Dull colour surged up his cheeks. He crossed the room on steps jerky with anger, putting a finger under her chin and forcing her to meet his eyes. "Why the hell didn't you say all this ten years ago? Why wait until now, ten years too late?"

Unable to bear his touch, she jerked her head away and his hand fell to his side. "Ten years ago I was seventeen, Leon. A vulnerable girl you and Julia had no hesitation in exploiting."

One huge fist clenched so tightly his knuckled showed white.
 
"We did not exploit you. I ensured you had extensive counselling."

Anger and sorrow swirled in her belly. In the dark garden, a morepork's plaintive cry found its echo in her heart.

"And that achieved exactly what you wanted, Leon," she said in an unforgiving, stricken whisper, "my baby."

He lifted a hand and raked it through his hair. "All this is irrelevant."

"Irrelevant?" The word exploded from her like a bullet ejected from a gun. Veronica wanted nothing more than to rip the eyes from his head.

"It's the past. No one can change the past." He pulled an envelope from a coat pocket. "Here are plane tickets and your appointment at Mercy Clinic."

His arrogance almost left her breathless. Didn't this man never listen? "I pay my own way, or I don't come."

"You'll come. And use these tickets."

It was past time Leon Karvasis realised she was a grown woman capable of making her own decisions. She opened the packet, extracted the appointment card, and handed the rest back. "Thanks, but no thanks."

She watched him struggled with anger, then with an eloquent shrug, slip the packet back into his pocket. "Have it your way."

"I intend to." Her mouth compressed to a taut line.

"You'll come?"
 

"
I
never renege on an agreement." A mocking smile curved her lips.

He hissed out a breath. Between them lay his broken promise.
You're free to visit Jordan and Claremont, whenever you choose. I will never intrude
on your life.

With great restraint, she escorted him to the door.

"I'll see you in Melbourne." He caught her hand, lifted it, kissed the upturned palm, curled her fingers over it and disappeared into the night.

Her palm ached and her mind spun. Why such an intimate little gesture?

Closing the door, she snapped off lights, walked to her bedroom, mind spinning. She sank onto the edge of the bed and confronted the nightmare of Leon's return into her life
.
It was the one thing she'd vowed she'd never let happen.

For one thing hadn't changed.

Leon was a married man.

Chapter Three

L
eon's hand shook as he laid down the phone, Jordan's quiet, restrained sobs echoed in his ear. He scrubbed a hand across his face. He hated that he was away from his son's side, hated this awful sensation of powerlessness, but most of all he hated the way Jordan tried to hold in his distress so he didn't upset his father.
 

"Here mate."

Leon half turned and took the glass of whisky Milas Yeager handed him and downed it in one swallow, welcoming the bite and the warmth in his belly.

"Another one?" Milas lifted the decanter.

"Please." Leon slumped back in the chair, eyes closed.

"How is your boy?" Milas asked as he handed him the refilled glass.

Leon took the drink and this time he sipped it. "Upset and missing me, but his nurse assured me there's been no change in his condition."

"That's good? What time's your flight?"

"Yeah, it's good." Leon glanced at the antique brass and glass carriage clock on the side board. "I'm taking the red eye and have to be at the airport in an hour."

"How did your meeting go with Veronica?" Milas looked at him over the rim of his whisky glass.

"She's promised to come." Leon winced, recalling her expression. "But she's so angry and bitter I'm worried she may change her mind."

"I doubt it, she's a straight arrow." Milas looked at him shaking his head. "Last night is the first time I've ever seen her angry, she's normally so quiet, so reserved."

"Reserved?" A harsh laugh escaped Leon. He
 
shook his head in disbelief. "You could've fooled me. She's one feisty woman, and outspoken."
 

He stared at his whisky. No way could he reconcile the woman he'd just left with the woman Milas was describing.

When Milas remained silent, Leon glanced up and caught his whimsical smile. "Give you grief did she?"

"Veronica's got one vicious tongue. A far cry from the timid mouse I remember."

"And neither are you dead, my friend."

A rough laugh escaped as Leon shook his head. Since he'd clapped eyes on Veronica in that bar, he was far too aware he wasn't dead and neither was his libido.