The Secretary's Secret (10 page)

Kit started laughing so hard tears filled the creases at the corners of her eyes. ‘Reel in! Reel in!’ she finally managed to choke out. ‘You’ve hooked a fish, you landlubber.’

‘A fish?’

He promptly set about reeling it in.

‘Ooh, it’s a big one!’ Kit gave him instructions—“Play the line out a bit, don’t lose it on the rocks’. Frankly, he didn’t have much of a clue what she meant, but finally he had the fish, flapping on the end of his line, clear of the water.

Jumping to her feet and bracing herself against his shoulder, Kit scooped the net beneath the fish and presented it to him. ‘Your first fish!’

He leapt to his feet. His first—

‘A bream! Congratulations, Alex.’ With that she leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek.

He promptly felt ten feet tall. He leant in and kissed her full on the mouth.

She kissed him back.

They drew away and stared at each other. Her eyes were golden with sunshine and fun. Her lips…

The all-consuming need that had been building in him for the last fortnight broke through his control. He had to have more! Before he could think the better of it, he grasped her chin in his free hand and slanted his mouth fully over hers.

She tasted of salt and choc-chip cookies and some memory from his past that he couldn’t quite grasp.

His tongue traced the inside of her bottom lip, revelling in her velvet warmth. Maybe if he kissed her deeper, longer, more thoroughly, he’d remember that memory and—

Her tongue shyly stroked his and all conscious thought fled as their kisses deepened. Her hand fisted in his shirt to draw him closer. His fingers slanted around the curve of her scalp, sliding through the silk of her hair to angle her mouth so he could explore every exquisite millimetre of her delectable lips.

Four months! He’d ached for this for four months.

It was worth the wait.

For a moment he thought it might just be worth anything.

Finally, with a gasp, she dragged her mouth from his, rested her forehead against his cheek, her chest rising and falling as if she’d just run a race.

‘Alex, you’ve got to warn a woman if you’re going to kiss her like that.’

He was breathing so hard he couldn’t speak.

‘At least make sure she has two hands free to hold onto you.’

She was still holding the net full of fish. He took the net from her. ‘Sorry, I got carried away by the moment.’

No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t the least bit sorry.

She stared up at him then, a frown in her eyes. ‘I’m not sure we should be doing that.’

He blinked. He wanted to do a whole lot more than—

Hell! He snapped away from her.

Kit sighed and sat again. ‘Don’t fall off the rock, Alex. The current is fierce and I don’t feel like diving in and saving you.’

When he sat back beside her she expertly unhooked the fish and popped it in the bucket. ‘Okay, next lesson—how to bait the hook.’

He took his cue from her. She didn’t want to talk about that kiss and he was damn sure he didn’t want to either. It didn’t mean anything. It
couldn’t
mean anything.

They caught two bream apiece. Even given that kiss, the confusion it sent hurtling through him, Alex couldn’t remember the last time he’d had so much fun. ‘I have to hand it to you, Kit. This fishing gig was a good idea.’

He grinned when she said, ‘I won’t say I told you so.’ They sat in companionable silence, their lines dangling in the water and the breeze playing across their faces. They swung their feet and breathed the invigorating salt tang that seasoned the air and listened to the cries of the seagulls. ‘You know, I always dreamed that my dad would take me fishing like this.’

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She hadn’t mentioned her father before. ‘He didn’t?’

She snorted. ‘He didn’t know one end of a fishing rod from the other.’

Neither had he before today.

‘When I told my grandma about that little dream, she took me fishing herself.’

‘On this rock?’ He couldn’t get enough of her stories about her childhood.

She pointed back along the way they’d come. ‘We dropped hand lines further along that way in the channel. A much safer spot for a child.’

‘And?’ He didn’t know what he was waiting for. He rubbed the back of his neck. Would his child dream that one day its father would take it fishing too?

The thought unnerved him.

‘And we didn’t catch a thing, but we had the best time.’ She laughed, the memory obviously a good one. ‘Eventually my grandma and I graduated to this rock.’ She patted it.

He stretched his neck first one way then the other. Kit’s child would have her for its mother. It wouldn’t miss out on anything. It wouldn’t want for anything.

Except a father.

‘Your childhood sounds idyllic. You were close to your family?’ He wanted her surrounded by family who would look out for her, support her.

‘My family is my mother and grandmother. I adore them both.’

His heart started to pound. ‘And your father?’

A shadow passed over her face. He immediately regretted darkening her day. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business.’

‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘I think you should know about my father, Alex. It might help you understand where I’m coming from.’

He didn’t need to know about her past to know that she was wonderful now. But he was happy to listen to anything she wanted to tell him.

‘My parents never married. Their relationship was over long before I was born and my mother had me without any support from him.’

‘You and your mum were happy?’

‘Oh, yes, but when I started school and saw the other children with their daddies, I wanted one too. I started asking Mum a lot of questions, pestering her about my dad until she finally promised to track him down for me.’

He could imagine the younger Kit with her golden hair and her golden skin and her golden eyes. And her yearning. He swallowed. ‘And?’

‘And finally she did. I was so happy. He took me swimming and for ice cream. I got to introduce him to Caro and Denise and Alice and all my other friends.’

‘And then?’

She shrugged. ‘I saw him off and on until I was fifteen. He’d show up three or four times a year with a belated Christmas present, take me out for my birthday, that kind of thing.’

She fiddled with her fishing rod, resettled her hat on her head. Alex didn’t move.

‘I was a bit slow on the uptake. It took me a while to realize he didn’t actually enjoy hanging out with me.’

Bile burned the back of his throat. ‘Kit, I’m sorry. I—’

She waved his sympathy away. ‘You know, I could’ve accepted it if he’d made all those visits out of a sense of responsibility or duty, but…I caught Mum paying him.’

He frowned. He wanted her to turn and look at him, but her gaze remained on the swirling water below.

‘My mother had been paying him, bribing him, to play father to me.’

Her voice was strangely impassive and it took a moment for the import of her words to hit him. When they did his hands threatened to snap his fishing rod in two. He’d have preferred to wrap them around her father’s throat. The hide of the man!

‘I never saw him again. I was pretty angry with my mother for a long time too.’ She paused, pursed her lips. ‘But now, with a baby of my own on the way, I understand my mother’s actions so much more.’ She glanced at him and then glanced away again. ‘You see, Alex, I want my baby to have everything good in this world and that includes a father.’

Her words chilled him to the very centre of his being. ‘Kit, I—’

‘I know what you told me, Alex. I know you said you would not be a father to our baby.’

Our baby.
He closed his eyes. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t, but that he
couldn’t
.

‘I would love to change your mind about that.’

‘I—’

‘No, just listen to what I have to say. I’m not asking you to respond. I just want you to hear what I have to say. Okay?’

His heart dropped to his knees. He managed a heavy nod.

‘I know what it’s like to yearn for a father with your whole being until everything else shrinks in importance. Knowing how important it was to me, do you think I would purposely and consciously ever deny that to my child?’

She turned then and her golden eyes met his. ‘I couldn’t do it, Alex. I could never do what Jacqueline did. I could never deny my child its father.’

He closed his eyes, tried to block out all her goldenness and the spell she was threatening to weave about him.

‘Like I said,’ she continued, ‘I’m not asking you to respond to any of this. It’s just…’

He opened his eyes. He couldn’t help it.

‘The thing is, Alex, if you’re using that as an excuse to avoid fatherhood then you’re going to have to come up with another one because that one doesn’t exist.’

A hole opened up inside his chest. ‘I’m sorry your father did that to you, Kit. You can rest assured that I would never do that to your child.’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘You mean to hurt it in an entirely different way. At least I met my father and had a chance to know him and find out who he was. Even if he did disappoint me, at least it stopped me from building unrealistic fantasies around him.’

Was that what their child would do?

‘Anyway—’ Kit shook herself ‘—enough of all that for one day. Wanna learn how to clean and scale a fish?’

He tried to match her tone. ‘How could I resist an offer like that?’

Her laugh could no longer lighten his heart. Her father’s absence had left a hole in Kit’s life, had left an indelible impression there that nothing could erase. Alex hadn’t meant to do harm to anyone. But his actions had harmed Kit, and they would harm her unborn child’s.

His child.

He dragged a hand down his face.

‘So you’re squeamish, huh?’

He pulled his hand away to find her attempting to demonstrate the correct way to gut a fish.

She cocked an eyebrow. ‘Not going to throw up, are you?’ Her half-grin robbed the words of their sting.

He wanted to lay himself at her feet and beg her to forgive him. For everything.

He didn’t. Instead, he took all of the fish from her hands and, following her instructions, cleaned each and every one of them. It was the least he could do.

‘Excellent.’ She took the last fish, bundled up their things and made to leave their rock. ‘I’ll cook dinner tonight.’

‘Hey, hold on a moment. You can’t cook.’ He took the net and the bucket from her hand and handed her the lightweight rod instead.

Her eyes danced. ‘I said I
don’t
cook. That doesn’t mean I can’t cook. And I can certainly do fish on the barbecue, jacket potatoes and a tossed salad.’

His mouth watered.

They walked back the length of the breakwater. Kit hummed, but Alex’s mind churned. And then Kit halted mid-hum, and just stopped to stare.

At a mother and her baby swimming—floating—together in the shallows of the Rock Pool. A pre-toddler-sized baby. A little girl if the pink bathers and sunhat were anything to go by.

A little girl. Alex’s thoughts tumbled to a halt. He couldn’t drag his eyes from that baby. A great aching hole cracked open inside him.

‘Cute, huh?’ Kit whispered.

Yes!

Confusion, fear, desire all whipped through him. Kit’s father had only visited Kit a few times a year. It had been enough for her until she’d discovered his betrayal. Could Alex manage that kind of minimal contact—three or four visits a year?

He’d thought his staying away would be best for this child. Now he wasn’t so sure. Kit’s story had shaken him, left him stranded in uncertain territory with the ground shifting beneath his feet.

‘Did you find out?’ The question scraped out of his throat, unbidden. He hadn’t meant to ask it. He hadn’t known he’d wanted to ask it.

‘Did I find out what?’

She continued to stare at the baby. Her face had gone soft, her lips curved upwards and her eyes shone. His heart pounded against the walls of his ribs. ‘Did you find out the sex of the baby?’

She turned and smiled. ‘No. I want it to be a surprise. But if you’d like to know I’m sure the doctor would tell you.’

Her smile, her words, they took his breath away. Perhaps she meant it. Perhaps she would let him be part of her baby’s life.

He stared at the mother and baby in the shallows below and his arms started to ache with the longing for a child’s weight. Three or four times a year, it wasn’t much to ask. He remembered the smell of a baby. The newly washed, baby-powdered and slightly milky smell. The softness of a baby’s skin. The surprising strength when a tiny hand gripped a finger.

Three or four times a year…

He scratched a hand back through his hair and then, without another word, he swung away and strode off towards the car.

‘T
HE
barbecue is ready to go.’

Kit’s breath hitched, but she refused to turn from the bench where she tossed the salad. Alex—freshly showered—was making her heart beat just a little too hard. That was why she’d sent him outside to clean the barbecue plate.

‘Is it lit?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Her lips twitched at his mock subservience. She doubted Alex had a subservient bone in his body.

Nice body, though.

Oh, stop it!

She finished tossing the salad and wished her pulse would settle as easily. She tried to force her mind to mundane matters. Cooking, dinner, food.

Her mind refused. It wanted to dwell on Alex. On the breadth of his shoulders, the strength of his thighs. Thighs she’d had ample opportunity to examine when they’d been sitting on the breakwater.

She tried to resist glancing around at him. And failed. He met her gaze, moistened his lips. She wanted to groan. She wanted to reach up and wipe the tempting shine away.

That kiss on the breakwater…

Momentary lapse of concentration, her foot! It had been heaven.

And she’d love a repeat performance.

Her gaze zeroed in on those lips—lean, firm and magical. Alex cleared his throat. ‘What can I do now?’

His voice came out hoarse. She wrenched her gaze away. Cooking, dinner, food, that was what she needed to concentrate on.

Food…um—she’d seasoned the fish with butter, lemon juice and fresh herbs before wrapping them in foil. They’d take no time at all to cook.

Dinner…um—she glanced at the stove. Jacket potatoes were nearly done. Salad was tossed.

Cooking…um—she lifted the platter of fish.

‘You can get out of my way, for starters, because this master chef needs room to move.’

With a bow, Alex held the door open for her. Her heart galloped at the grin he sent her, flip-flopped and then galloped again. She did her best to ignore it. ‘Could you bring that plate of corncobs with you?’ She sent up a prayer of thanks that her voice actually worked.

After arranging the food on the barbecue, she glanced around her garden. The light was pink and gold and promised to last for another hour yet. A light breeze made the very top of the banksia sway every now and again. ‘How about we eat out here?’

‘A picnic?’

She wondered when Alex had last been on a picnic. She’d bet it was a long time ago. ‘Freshly caught fish tastes better eaten out of doors.’ Besides, he had sanded her two Cape Cod chairs and accompanying table and had painted them a crisp, clean white. They were crying out to be used.

‘Tell me the first word that comes to your mind when I say “fishing”?’

She wanted Alex to relax this evening. She wanted him to have fun. And then she wanted to talk.

‘Rocks,’ he returned.

She had an immediate image of his legs dangling over her rock on the breakwater earlier. Strong thighs and—

‘Mountains,’ she returned.

‘Himalayas.’

Good, no sexy images accompanied that word. She turned the fish. And in the same spirit… ‘Yaks.’

‘Yaks?’

Laughter burst out of him and Kit refused to question the way her shoulders lightened. ‘Yeah, you know, big woolly animals with horns.’ At least she thought they had horns.

‘I know what a yak is.’ His grin when it came was sudden and blinding. ‘But in four steps we’ve jumped from fishing to yaks?’

Kit had to grin back. She physically couldn’t help it. Besides, grinning wasn’t against the rules. ‘I’m trying to keep baby brain at bay. Caro has warned me that as soon as the baby is born, my brain will turn to mush. I thought word association games and the daily crossword might help counter its onset.’

‘Right, smart move. Okay, here’s one—picnic.’

‘Ants.’

They both promptly stared down at the ground. ‘No ants,’ Kit finally said. ‘C’mon, let’s get this picnic on the road. The fish is nearly done.’

Ten minutes later they were settled in the chairs, plates balanced on knees, eating fish, potatoes, barbecued corncobs drenched in butter and salad.

‘Heck, Kit, for someone who won’t cook you’ve done a damn fine job.’

Kit licked butter from her fingers. ‘I have, haven’t I?’ But when she realized Alex followed the way her tongue caught the trickle of butter from the back of her hand, saw the way his eyes darkened, her stomach clenched. She grabbed a serviette and wiped her fingers instead. She left the rest of her corn untouched on her plate. Alex wrenched his gaze back to his plate.

The memory of their kiss burned between them.

That kiss, what did it mean? Alex hadn’t planned on fatherhood, but it had found him anyway. He hadn’t planned on any kind of romantic relationship either, but…

She refused to finish that thought.

She shifted on her chair. Could she blame pregnancy hormones for the way her heart crashed about in her chest whenever she locked eyes with Alex?

Her lips twisted as she speared a slice of cucumber. Not a chance. That was due to hormones she’d had long before she’d ever fallen pregnant.

‘The fishing this afternoon, Kit, it was fun.’

‘Yeah.’ She smiled. ‘I have so many great memories of sitting on my rock—fishing, dreaming, hanging out there with my friends or my mum and grandma. It reminds me of summer holidays and endless afternoons and laughter and all good things.’

He stopped eating to stare at her. ‘I’m honoured you shared it with me.’

Regardless of what happened, she knew this afternoon would always be precious to her. And what she’d just said to Alex, all of that was true. ‘Do you have a place like my rock?’

He cut into a potato, but he didn’t eat it. ‘No,’ he finally said.

His face didn’t shutter closed. She took that as a good sign. ‘What did you like doing with your parents when you were young?’ She swallowed as a different question occurred to her. ‘Are your parents still alive?’

‘They died when I was twelve. Car accident.’

There was no mistaking the closing up of his face now. Her heart burned. Her fingers shook and she had to lay her cutlery down. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘That must’ve been awful.’

‘Not your fault, Kit.’

His words, his half-shrug…the fact he ate a piece of fish—fish she’d cooked for him—gave her the courage to continue. ‘Who did you live with afterwards?’

‘My grandfather. He was as rich as Croesus and as bitter as battery acid.’

Uttered in a flat tone—fact with no emotion. Kit abandoned the rest of her food. ‘That’s when you moved to Vaucluse?’

He nodded.

The exclusive address hadn’t shielded him from life’s harsher realities. She could sense that much.

‘He’d disowned my mother when she married my father. Apparently a motor mechanic wasn’t good enough for the daughter of one of Australia’s leading politicians.’

She shuddered. Alex’s grandfather sounded controlling and vengeful. It wasn’t the kind of home she’d ever want her child being sent to. ‘If he disowned your mother, why did he take you in?’

‘The papers got hold of the story, and to him appearances were everything.’ His lips twisted into the mockery of a smile that made a chill creep up her arms. ‘He had to at least be seen doing the right thing.’ He threw off his smile with a shrug. ‘I’d have been better off in a foster home.’

This was the man who’d raised Alex throughout his teenage years? More pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Kit wasn’t prepared for the surge of anger that shot through her on Alex’s behalf, though. The people who should’ve looked out for him, loved him—his grandfather, his ex-wife—they’d betrayed him utterly.

She didn’t blame him for guarding his heart.

Her chest ached; her eyes ached. Did he have to keep guarding it against their baby, though?

‘I left when I was sixteen. I found work as a builder’s labourer.’

And he’d built an empire on his own. But that empire of his, it wouldn’t have made up for all he’d lost when his parents died. With an effort, she swallowed back the lump in her throat. She was glad he’d given her a glimpse into his past, but she wanted tonight to be about happy memories. ‘When they were alive, what did you like to do with your mum and dad?’

Enough light filtered into her garden for her to see that her question stumped him. She had a feeling that Alex had shut himself off from his past to protect himself from all the bad memories, but in the process he’d shut out all the good memories too.

‘I…’

She could see that he struggled. ‘Did your dad like to kick a ball around the garden with you? Did your mum make the best birthday cakes?’

One corner of his mouth kicked up. ‘Mum couldn’t bake to save her life.’ He sat higher in his chair and grinned. It made him look younger, wiped all the cares from his face for a moment. It stole her breath. ‘We used to play this strange cricket game with a tennis racquet and a ball.’

‘We used to play that game on the beach!’ She clapped her hands, absurdly pleased at this point of connection. ‘We called it French cricket. Though I don’t know how French it was.’

‘On the weekends Dad would tinker with the car and he’d let me help. He taught me all the names of the tools.’

She could imagine a younger version of Alex—dark-haired and scrawny—handing his father tools, studying engine components in that serious, steady way of his. If they had a son, would he look like Alex? Share his mannerisms?

‘Mum’s favourite song was by the Bay City Rollers and she’d sing it all the time. Sometimes Dad and I would join in and…’ he stilled with his fork halfway to his mouth ‘…we’d end up on the ground laughing. Mum would tickle me.’ His grin suddenly widened. ‘And Dad would always say that we were in for an early night.’ He glanced at Kit, his eyes dancing. ‘I now know what
that
was all about.’

‘They sound like fun.’ An ache stretched through her chest. ‘They sound as if they loved each other very much.’

‘I think they did.’

Don’t go fooling yourself into thinking you can get that kind of happy ever after with Alex.
If it weren’t for the fact that she was pregnant, Alex would’ve left two weeks ago.

Without a backward glance.

He still might yet.

The only happy ever after she could hope for was Alex realizing that he could be a good father, that he would be there for her child.
Their
child.

‘I did have a place!’ He swung to her. ‘A place like your rock. It was a tree in the back garden—a huge tree!’

She could tell he was talking about his garden in the western suburbs and not the one in Vaucluse.

‘There was a particular branch I always sat on. It was the best place. Mum would bring me out drinks and biscuits. You’re right, Kit, food out of doors does taste better.’ He set his now empty plate on the table and glanced around her garden. ‘You know, I like the idea of having a garden.’

Her breath caught. Enough to give up his penthouse apartment with its harbour views? She crossed her fingers. ‘All kids should have a garden.’ She tried to keep her voice casual, which was nearly impossible when this all mattered so much.

‘Yeah.’ Physically he was present, but she had a feeling he was a million miles away.

‘Alex?’

‘Hmm?’

‘If you decided that you did want to be an active, involved father, what are the kinds of things you’d like to do with your child? Hypothetically speaking, of course.’ She added the last in a rush. She didn’t want to scare him off. She didn’t want him clamming up again. She just wanted to plant the idea firmly—very firmly—into his mind.

‘I…’ He dragged a hand back through his hair, shrugged. ‘The fishing this afternoon was fun.’

‘Nuh-uh, I bags the fishing. You come up with your own activities, buster.’

He chuckled but she heard the strain behind it. He swung to her. ‘Kit, I’ve by no means decided—’

‘I know.’ She refused let him finish, wouldn’t let him talk himself out of the thought of becoming a father. She touched his arm. ‘But will you promise me to at least consider the possibility? Just to…think about it?’

‘Kit, I—’

He broke off and dragged a hand back through his hair. ‘I’ll think about it. But I’m not making any promises.’

‘Thank you.’

He rose and took her now empty plate. ‘Would you like some more?’

She shook her head.

‘I’ll get started on the dishes then.’

Kit watched him take their plates inside, her hand resting across her stomach, her fingers crossed.

Three days later Alex wasn’t any closer to knowing if he could manage the kind of involvement Kit wanted from him.

Whenever he thought of that baby girl at the Rock Pool, though, a surge of longing cracked his chest wide open. Longing that had grown into a persistent ache.

He didn’t know what it meant. He’d discounted children and family for ever.

But Kit was carrying
his
child. Could he just walk away?

He swallowed, remembering the first moment Chad had been placed in his arms and—

His mind shied away from the memory. Thinking about Chad, he couldn’t do it. It hurt too much. Thinking about Chad made him want to throw his head back and howl.

He rolled his shoulders, shoved his thoughts aside. He hadn’t signed up for any of this!

When he half-turned from the house to seize the crowbar Kit appeared at the very edge of his peripheral vision, sitting in her Cape Cod chair. She’d gone still, her fingers no longer flying across the keyboard of her laptop and suddenly he realized she’d ceased working to watch him. He swallowed and forced himself back to face the house. He pretended not to have noticed, told himself it didn’t matter, pretended it didn’t affect him.

Impossible! All the muscles in the lower half of his body bunched and hardened. Her gaze had the physical presence of a warm caress, like a soft finger tracing willing flesh.

He gritted his teeth and ordered himself to focus on the job at hand. Several weatherboards on her cottage needed replacing before he could paint. With crowbar primed, he started prising one off, steadily working his way along its length.