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‘A lifetime.’ Then, quickly, ‘Your staff were terrific, by the way. Will you thank them for me? If I’d thought about it, I’d have anticipated resistance to handing out contact numbers to someone they don’t know.’
‘Of course they know you,’ he said. ‘Do you think I don’t talk about you all?’ Then, almost as if he were embarrassed by this brief outburst, ‘Besides, they have an any time, anywhere list.’
‘And I’m on that?’
‘We both know that the only time you’d ever call me would be with news I had to hear.’
Once Grace would have laughed at that.
If only he knew how many times she’d picked up the phone, her hand on the fast dial number, not to speak to him, but simply to hear his voice. How she’d longed to go back to the way it had once been, when they had been friends…teased one another…told one another everything.
Almost everything.
‘Grace—’
‘I’m going to miss Michael so much,’ she said quickly. Taking a step back from the memory of a night that had changed everything. When she’d thrown all that away. ‘There wasn’t a kinder, sweeter—’
‘Don’t.’ He closed his eyes for a moment, then, gathering himself, he opened them and looked straight at her. ‘Don’t put him on a pedestal, Grace. Michael wasn’t perfect. He had his faults like the rest of us.’
Grace was too angry to answer him. Even now he wouldn’t let go of whatever had been driving him…
Instead, she held Posie close as she got to her feet, supporting her head with her hand. Then, when she didn’t stir, she laid her in the crib beside her chair.
For a moment her tiny arms and legs waved as if searching for her warmth and her face creased up, as if she was about to cry. Grace laid her hand on her tummy until, reassured by the contact, the baby finally relaxed.
Once she was settled, Grace crossed to the kettle, turned it on, not because she wanted something to drink, but because anything was better than doing nothing.
‘Your flat is ready for you,’ she said, glancing at him. ‘The bed’s made up and you’ll find the basics in your fridge. It’s too late to do anything today and I’m sure you need to catch up on your sleep.’
‘I’ll hang on for a while. The sooner I slot back into this time zone, the sooner I’ll beat the jet lag.’
‘Is that right? As someone whose only trip overseas was the Isle of Man, I’ll have to take your word for it.’
‘The Isle of Man isn’t overseas, Grace.’
‘Isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘I wouldn’t advise walking there.’
That earned her one of those smiles that never failed to light up her insides and, feeling instantly guilty, she looked away.
‘There’s a casserole in the oven and I’m just about to eat. I’m not sure what meal time you’re on but, if you’re serious about keeping local hours, you’d be wise to join me.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Oddly enough,’ she said, ‘neither am I, but unlike you I can’t indulge in the luxury of missing meals.’
She stopped herself. His body clock must be all over the place and while snapping at him might make her feel better, would certainly help distract her from an almost irresistible urge to throw caution to the winds, fling herself at him and beg him to make it better, it wasn’t fair on him.
‘Look, why don’t you go and take a shower? Maybe have a shave?’ she suggested. ‘See how you feel then?’
He ran a hand over his chin. ‘You don’t like the beard?’
‘Beard?’ Under the pretext of assessing the short dark beard that covered his firm chin, cheeks hollowed with exhaustion, she indulged herself in a long look. Finally shaking her head as if in disbelief, she said, ‘Are you telling me that the stubble is deliberate?’
And for a moment, just for a moment, his mouth twitched into a whisper of the smile that had once reduced the hearts of teenage girls to mush. If her heart-racing response was anything to go by, it had much the same effect on mature and otherwise sensible women.
But then she was a long-lost cause.
‘I’m sorry, Josh,’ she added. ‘I just assumed that you’d forgotten to pack your razor.’
‘If that were true, you’d have had no doubt about the beard, but I’m still carrying the bag I had with me in China and Nepal so I hope the washing machine is up to the—’
He broke off as a tiny mewl emerged from the crib. A tiny mewl that quickly grew into an insistent wail.
Grace sighed. ‘I thought it was too good to be true. She’s been so fretful for the last couple of days. Clingy. It’s almost as if she knows there’s something wrong.’
Josh took a step towards the crib and, very gently, he laid his hand, as she had done, on the baby’s tummy.
Posie immediately stopped crying and, eyes wide, stared up at the tall figure standing over her. Then, as if demanding more from her uncle, she reached out a tiny fist and Grace caught her breath as Josh crouched beside the crib and touched her hand with the tip of one finger.
He’d been beyond angry when she’d told him that he was too late to stop the surrogacy, that she was already pregnant with her sister’s baby. News that she hadn’t even shared with Phoebe, determined not to raise false hopes until the doctor had confirmed it.
She hadn’t known how he would react to Posie. As a youth, a young man, he’d been adamant that he would never have children of his own. His marriage to a girl he’d never even mentioned had been so swift, so unexpected that it seemed at the time as if everyone was holding their breath, sure that only the imminent arrival of a baby could have prompted it. But there had been no baby and within a year the marriage had been over.
Now, as he gazed down at this small miracle, she waited, heart in her mouth, for his reaction. For the inevitable question.
How could she do it?
How could she have felt the first tiny movements, watched that first scan, listened to the squishy beat of her heartbeat, cherished the baby growing inside her for nine long months, only to surrender her to her sister and his brother?
Other people had asked.
Not friends, true friends. They had understood. But a reporter from the local paper who’d somehow picked up the story had called her, wanting to know the whys, the hows, the financial deal she’d signed up to. If the woman had done her research, she’d have known that anything but expenses was against the law and Grace hadn’t needed or wanted even that. It was the people who didn’t know them who’d seemed most indignant that she could do such a thing. People who clearly had no concept of unselfish love.
None of those people had mattered, but she so wanted Josh to understand. Even though he disapproved of what she’d done, she needed him to understand, without asking, why she’d done it.
Don’t, she silently begged him. Please don’t ask….
‘Michael rang me minutes after Posie was born,’ he said, after what felt like an eternity. ‘He was almost incoherent with joy.’ For a moment he too seemed to find difficulty in speaking. ‘I was in the back of beyond somewhere, the line was terrible but even through the static it came through loud and clear. His world was complete.’ He looked up, looked at her. ‘You gave him that, Grace.’
She let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding. He understood.
Then, catching up, ‘Michael phoned you?’
‘He didn’t mention it?’
She shook her head. Why wouldn’t he have told her? Had Phoebe known?
‘What did you say to him, Josh?’ she demanded.
‘I asked him if you were all right and, when he assured me that you had sailed through the whole thing, I asked him if he was sure you had no doubts about giving up the baby. Urged him not to rush you…’
She waited, sure there was something else, but he shook his head.
‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘He didn’t.’
Why had it mattered so much to him? And why wouldn’t they have told her that he’d cared enough to ask about her? Had been concerned that she was all right. Hadn’t Phoebe known how much it would have meant to her?
Or was that it?
Had her sister suspected what had happened between them all those years ago? Had they been afraid that, in the hormonal rush after Posie’s birth, a word from Josh might have been enough to change her mind?
Not wanting to think about that, she crossed to the crib, picked Posie up, cradled her briefly, cherishing the weight of her in her arms, the baby scent of clean hair, warm skin. Then she turned and offered her to Josh.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Take her. Hold her.’ When he didn’t move, she looked up to find him staring, not at the baby but at her. ‘What?’
He shook his head. ‘I thought you’d be married to your Toby by now, Grace. With a home, children of your own. Wasn’t that what you always wanted?’
‘You know it was.’
She’d wanted what her sister had wanted. A settled home, a good man, children. She also wanted Josh Kingsley and the two were incompatible. No one could have everything they wanted.
Her sister had never borne the children she had yearned for.
And she had never found anyone who could erase her yearning for a man for whom risk was the breath of life, the horizon the only place he wanted to be.
‘Unfortunately,’ she said, ‘life isn’t that simple.’
‘Maybe men just have it too easy these days. All of the comforts with none of the responsibility.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Well, it wasn’t for lack of choice, was it? You appeared to be dating someone different every time I came home.’
‘Not every time, surely?’ Her well-schooled, careless tone was, she knew, ruined by a blush.
‘You don’t remember?’
She remembered.
Given a few days warning of his arrival, it hadn’t been difficult to drum up some hungry man from the crafts centre who was glad of a home-cooked meal. Camouflage so that it wouldn’t look as if she was living in limbo, just waiting for Josh to come home and sweep her up into his arms, tell her that he’d been a fool. Pick up where they’d left off.
These days, only Toby was left. He’d been brighter than most, quickly cottoning on to what she was doing and apparently happy to play the possessive suitor whenever Josh came home.
Why she’d still been going through the motions after so long she couldn’t say. Unless it was because she still wanted it so badly. That it was herself she was fooling rather than him….
Whatever, she could hardly get indignant if he’d been fooled by her deception. Assumed that she’d fallen into bed with every one of them as easily as she’d fallen into his.
‘Maybe they could sense the desperation,’ she said, burying her hot cheeks in Posie’s downy head, before holding her out to Josh. ‘Here,’ she said, placing the baby in his arms. ‘Say hello to Phoebe Grace Kingsley. Better known as Posie.’
Josh held her awkwardly and Posie waved her arms nervously.
‘Hold her closer to you,’ she said, settling her against Josh’s broad chest, taking his arm, moving it, so that it was firmly beneath the baby. ‘Like this. So that she feels safe.’
She was desperately anxious for him to bond with this little girl who would never know her real father. For whom Josh, no matter how reluctantly, would have to be the male role model.
‘She has a look of Michael, don’t you think?’ she suggested. ‘Around her eyes?’
‘Her eyes are blue. Michael has…had brown eyes.’
‘All babies have blue eyes, Josh, but it’s not the colour.’ The tip of her finger brushed the little tuck in Posie’s eyelid. ‘It’s something about the shape. See?’
She looked up to see if Josh was following her and found herself looking at the same familiar feature, deeper, stronger in the man. Remembered the still, perfect moment ten years ago when, after a long, lingering kiss, a promise that all her dreams were about to come true, she’d opened her eyes and that tuck had been the first thing she’d seen.
Josh felt as if he were carrying a parcel of eggs. Just one wrong move and they’d be crushed. Maybe Grace was just as anxious because she’d kept her arm beneath his, laid her long, slender fingers over his hand, as if to steady him.
This was so far from anything he’d imagined himself doing. He’d never wanted children. Had never wanted to be responsible for putting children through the kind of misery he’d endured. The rows. The affairs. The day his father had walked out and his mother had become someone he didn’t know.
After a while, as he became more confident, Grace stepped back, leaving him holding this totally unexpected baby, who bore not the slightest resemblance to his brother.
If she looked like anyone, it was Grace, which was strange since she didn’t much resemble her sister. He’d always assumed that they were half-sisters, although Michael had said not. The little tuck in the eyelid was familiar though, and he said, ‘So long as she hasn’t got Michael’s nose.’
Grace laughed at that and the sound wrapped itself around his heart, warming him, and he looked up.
‘I wish…’ he began, then stopped, not entirely sure what he was wishing for.
‘Michael never gave up hoping you’d turn up for the christening,’ she said. ‘He so wanted you to stand as her godfather.’
‘He knew why I couldn’t be there.’
‘Too busy conquering the world?’ Then, when he didn’t answer, didn’t say anything, ‘Here, let me take her,’ she said, rescuing him. ‘I’ll change her and put her to bed while you have a shower. Then we’ll eat.’
He lifted his head and, glad of a change of subject, said, ‘Actually, something does smell good. How long have I got?’
‘Oh, half an hour should do it,’ she said, not waiting to see whether he took her advice, but heading for the stairs and the nursery.
Josh let the shower pummel him, lowering the temperature gradually until it was cold enough to put the life back into his body, wake up his brain.
Doing his best to forget the moment when he’d come so close to breaking the promise he’d made to his brother. A promise he’d refused to free him from. Would never be able to free him from.
To forget the look on Grace’s face as she’d looked up, and for just an instant he could have sworn that she’d seen the truth for herself.
He stared in the mirror. He favoured Michael—no one would have doubted they were brothers—but there were not by any means identical. Still he could have sworn she’d seen something.
He tugged on an old grey bathrobe that had been hanging behind the bathroom door for as long as he could remember, waiting for him whenever he was passing through London and could spare a little time to visit Maybridge, see his family.
He tied the belt and crossed to the alcove that still contained the desk he’d used when he was at school. Where he’d plotted out the future. Where he’d go. What he’d do.
His old computer was long gone, but the corkboard was still there. He reached over and pulled free a picture, curling with age, that Phoebe had taken of Michael and him building a barbecue in the garden years ago, when his brother had been about the same age he was now.
