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Yes, he thought. He’d wanted her here, to see what she looked like, see if she’d fit. And if that hadn’t prompted him to take a swan dive off the balcony, then he was going to try her out on his parents. Only they had preempted that by inviting themselves over last night.
And hadn’t that gone well?
The polite tension of the past few days in Port Douglas had made him miserable. Being relegated from lover to boss shouldn’t have bothered a man who, since Laura’s death, hadn’t considered forever. At thirty-four years old, Quinn had never wondered till now whether he was missing out on anything.
He hadn’t expected to enjoy her so much.
Dani turned and smiled at him and he gave himself a mental shake. “All packed?”
What the next step was, he couldn’t be sure, but Quinn knew one thing. Where Dani Hammond was concerned, he was at least prepared to admit that there would be a next step.
She nodded and reached for her bag, just as Quinn’s phone rang. It was Sir John Knowles, former prime minister, outgoing governor-general, and close friend and mentor of Quinn’s. A call he had to take.
He walked into his office and after very little preamble, Sir John got to the point of his call. Incredulous, Quinn listened to the man’s earth-shattering admission, and in seconds the feeling of peace Quinn had woken with was ground to dust.
“Taxi’s here.” Dani stood at the doorway to his office, holding her bag.
Quinn covered the mouthpiece of his phone. “I have to take this. You go on and I’ll meet you at the airstrip.”
She left and he returned to his phone call. Based on Sir John’s admission, Quinn had no alternative.
“I want out, John.”
The older man’s quiet voice begged him. How could he turn him down?
“I’ve become personally involved. I won’t lie about something like this.”
“Please, Quinn, just another few days. I wouldn’t ask this of you if it wasn’t the last chance I have.”
“Allow me to tell her, then.”
“I can’t risk her refusal, don’t you see? And I haven’t told Clare yet. Not about the prognosis or the other.”
The old man sounded sick and alone. His last chance. Quinn had heard that before, had lived with his failure for seven years.
But still, it was a lousy thing to do. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I do, believe me. And I wouldn’t ask it of anyone but you, because I know you won’t let me down.”
“Quinn, will you come to the wedding with me?”
He sat back in his chair and displayed the same careful expression he’d had since they got back from Sydney three days ago.
Dani was worried. The rumours Ryan spoke of in Sydney had now been aired on television. The shareholders of Blackstone Diamonds were restless, despite an assurance from Kimberley in the paper this morning that all was well.
Perhaps if he knew the Blackstones, was personally involved, he wouldn’t be so hasty to offer his support to Matt.
Quinn set his pen down. “That’s not a good idea,” he said slowly.
“Why not?”
“It’s a family occasion. With the events of the past few months, everyone will be feeling a little nostalgic.” He looked at her steadily. “My history with Howard is bound to raise comment. I don’t want to rub everyone’s nose in it.”
“I don’t think anyone will—”
“I’ll let you know if I change my mind, okay?” He picked up his pen again, his eyes unreadable. “How’s the necklace coming along?”
“Okay.” The client had imposed a deadline for completion—the twenty-fifth. She was on track, Dani thought, assuming she kept her mind on the job instead of wondering what Quinn Everard was up to.
Nine
“Look who I found on the doorstep.” Dani was on her way out to collect various members of the Blackstone clan from the airport when Jake Vance’s face appeared before her. She left the guest with Quinn, gave her apologies and rushed out to her task.
Quinn’s smile faded at his friend’s grim expression. What was up? Jake kept a brutal schedule. He didn’t just show up on a whim.
Quinn waved Jake into a seat. “Coffee?”
“You have something stronger?”
Quinn narrowed his gaze but held up a bottle of cognac.
“My old mate Hennessey.” Jake nodded gratefully.
Quinn poured two generous snifters.
“No wonder you’re AWOL.” Jake’s head gestured to the door where Dani had just left. “Well, more AWOL than usual.”
Quinn stayed silent and sipped his drink, waiting for Jake to come to the point.
The silence stretched, then Jake leaned forward and placed his glass on Quinn’s desk. “Sounds important.”
“I didn’t say a word,” Quinn retorted, exasperated.
“Exactly,” Jake said smugly. “Not often you have a girl stay over at your apartment.”
“How did you …?”
“Lucy.”
“You and Lucy are talking?” Quinn leaned forward, arms folded on the desk.
“Don’t get excited. She called the day after the funeral, before she headed off back to England. Just a friendly take-care-of-yourself call.”
“She was worried you wouldn’t want her at the funeral,” Quinn mused. Jake was ripped to shreds when Lucy left him after several years together. Quinn tried not to take sides and loved both of them, but he never wanted to see that hurt inflicted on either of them again.
Jake shrugged. “I appreciated it.”
“What brings you up here? Bottom fallen out of the market?” Quinn hoped it was nothing to do with Matt Hammond and his Blackstone Diamond shares. He didn’t need any more secrets upsetting the applecart with Dani.
Jake took a healthy gulp of liquor, screwing up his face. “In a roundabout way, it concerns the little lady who just rushed out of here with her tail on fire.” He fixed Quinn a stern look. “Drink up. This is going to come as a shock.”
Quinn listened in disbelief as his closest friend related how his mother, shortly before she died, told him he was not her birth child. She’d found him as a two-year-old at the site of a fatal car accident. The car had been washed into a river and the two other occupants were dead.
Jake rubbed his eyes wearily. “I thought she was delirious. And when she insisted that I was Howard Blackstone’s son, I was sure she was delirious.”
Quinn’s eyes felt like saucers. He raised his hand. “Back up. This was before she died?”
“I didn’t mention it at the funeral because … well, I just didn’t believe it. But I’ve been going through the house.” He opened the briefcase he’d laid on the other chair and took out a large scrapbook. “It’s all in there, Quinn.” He patted the book. “God Almighty, I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
Quinn rose with the bottle and walked around the desk to top up Jake’s glass. He perched on the edge of the desk and put out his hand for the scrapbook.
Jake kept talking as Quinn flipped the pages.
“How I was kidnapped as a toddler by the housekeeper and her boyfriend. How they sent a ransom note and Howard did all he could to get me back, but on the way to pick up the money, the car crashed.”
Quinn glanced at him periodically while reading the newspaper clippings. He tried to imagine the dark-haired little boy in the photos as a grown man, even as his rational mind rejected the notion. He glanced up at Jake’s dark green eyes, coal-black hair and at the fully formed widow’s peak—as opposed to just a hint of one in the baby photos.
“My mother happened on the accident and it all went a bit haywire. She’d lost a baby the year before to SIDS and was on the run from her deadbeat boyfriend. She was going somewhere where no one knew her. Anyway, she was probably a little crazy at the time—hormones, grief, whatever—so she picked me up and passed me off as her own.”
Quinn got to the last page and snapped the book shut. The dates could work, though it would make Jake a year older. It must be true, or else a very elaborate hoax, but why would April, Jake’s mother, lie at the end when she had nothing to lose?
“My God,” he breathed. “You’re a Blackstone.”
“I’m not a Blackstone!” Jake countered, then he put his face in his hands. “What the hell am I going to do now?”
They talked and drank all afternoon. Quinn suggested a DNA test to eliminate April as his birth mother.
“Already done it,” Jake said. “The results should be through in a few days.”
They agreed he should talk to his lawyers and accountants. It was common knowledge that Howard Blackstone’s amended will instructed a six-month delay of disbursements pertaining to James while his whereabouts were investigated. Jake thought April’s ex-husband, Bill Kellerman, must have got wind of the investigation and threatened her, so she decided to forewarn him.
The living Blackstones were not likely to welcome him with open arms. Matt Hammond’s intention to stir things up in the Blackstone boardroom was another complication. “You’ll need Matt onside in case they turn on you,” Quinn warned. “And watch your back. Ryan and Ric Perrini are chips off the old block. Don’t trust anyone. The Blackstones have a leak somewhere in their organisation.” That much he knew. Someone close to the Blackstones was providing little snippets of information to those in the industry. That was how Quinn had stumbled onto Ryan and Jessica’s wedding plans.
When Dani arrived home a while later, she popped her head in the office to ask if they wanted coffee. Though they both probably needed coffee by this point, judging by the depleted brandy bottle, they declined.
“Don’t worry,” Quinn reassured his friend when he saw him staring after Dani. “I’ll keep it quiet.”
Jake turned his head to look at him. “You serious about her?”
The million-dollar question, Quinn thought, leaning back and folding his arms. “Define serious.”
“I couldn’t define squat at the moment.”
Quinn had given considerable thought to the question but was little closer to an answer. At his mother’s funeral, Jake had spoken of the importance of family, which made Quinn think of the relationships that were vital to him. He was as proud of Lucy, who’d dragged herself up from nothing, as if she were his real sister. Watching Jake grow into the confident, successful business baron he was had been one of Quinn’s greatest pleasures in life, and he had no qualms that however upsetting the situation with the Blackstones became, Jake would face it squarely and prevail. Even his parents were constantly motivated to change things for the better. They were now busy fund-raising for a caravan to take to the inner-city streets as a drop-in centre for the street kids of Newtown.
Quinn loved them all and was proud to share in their successes, but sharing was nothing new for him. He’d grown up sharing everything until Laura died—and then he had nothing left. He’d closed himself off, kept his motor idling, but somehow had stalled here in Port Douglas.
He was passionate about his work, hugely successful, but he did have to question whether or not he was growing. Because from where he sat, he was doing the same things he was five years ago, while everyone else had moved on.
Quinn stared at a point somewhere above his friend’s shoulder. “I’ve always felt it was unfair to ask a woman to sit around waiting while I’m off travelling the globe.”
“Liar!” scoffed Jake. “You’ve never even considered asking a woman to sit around waiting for you.”
Quinn grinned and picked up his glass. He made a thoughtful study of his friend through the amber liquid. “There’s this woman I know in Milan. I see her every three or four months for one or two nights. I like her, but we both know that’s all it is, a one-night stand every so often. I remember her birthday, I buy her nice things, take her out somewhere nice….” He emptied his glass in one swallow, grimacing at the burn. “But that’s all there is. I was happy with that, damn it!”
“About time.” Jake stood and approached the desk, tipping the bottle up to empty the last drops into Quinn’s glass.
“You can talk!” he retorted. His grin faded. “She’s like no one else. Every minute with her is a keeper. Suddenly, my life, which I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed—”
“Stinks!” Jake nodded sympathetically.
“No!” Quinn drained his glass and his eyes watered. “It just seems a bit lame, that’s all.”
After he poured Jake into a cab and sent him off to the airport, Quinn went to find Dani, nursing a moderate headache from the effects of the brandy. She lay mostly submerged in a bath full of fragrant bubbles, chewing her nails. He tapped her hand away, admonishing her. “You going out, I suppose?”
She nodded. “I didn’t think you would want to come.”
Quinn sat on the edge of the bath, the steam and the brandy fuzzing his brain. He most certainly didn’t want to spend the evening with the Blackstones.
Then again, maybe it would help Jake to know something of the family dynamics. Who was top dog, who was most likely to oppose his appearance, and who—if anyone—might offer the hand of friendship.
An idea was forming….
“Quinn, have you told anyone about the wedding?”
He squinted at her. Her hair was mostly piled up on top of her head, a long coiled strand clinging to her damp shoulder. “Nope.” He reached out and tugged the curl gently, straightening it. It bounced back when he let it go.
“It’s just, I know Port Douglas, and there’s something going on. I can smell a press photographer a mile off.”
He blinked as her words sunk into his brain. “You think I tipped off the press?”
She reached out and touched his knee, leaving a wet patch, but Quinn’s indignation faded fast when her movement stirred up the bubbles and a very pink and pert nipple peeped out of the froth.
“No,” she answered. “I just think there’s something going on, something not quite right.”
He bit back the words before they tumbled from his mouth. “With us, you mean?” Where the hell had that thought come from? Whatever he did, he could not get into a deep and meaningful conversation after half a bottle of cognac. He dipped his hand into the steaming water and rubbed his face. “I probably deserve suspicion.” After all, he had blackmailed her about the wedding in the first place.
When you thought about it, he deserved to be hung, drawn and quartered for all the lies he’d told, all the secrets he withheld. Layer upon layer of secrets. Just when he’d decided he might take a chance on her, look ahead a little—kapow! And then kapow again. First Sir John, and now Jake. What next? And however could he justify it to her?
She looked up at him thoughtfully. “I didn’t think you would contact the media. I just …” She sighed and reached to the side for a sponge, her knee bending up out of the water. “I just so want this day to be perfect for Ryan and Jessica.”
Perfect? Quinn knew what was perfect. A smooth pink knee foaming with bubbles. He felt hard as a rock suddenly and licked his dry lips. “Jake,” he croaked. “The press will be after Jake.”
She looked up at him, a relieved smile forming on her delectable mouth. “You think?”
“He attracts attention wherever he goes. You planning on finishing that?” He nodded at the sponge resting on her knee. The thought of it was attracting all sorts of attention in all sorts of places.
“What was he doing here, anyway?”
