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Somehow, Annie found her tongue to acknowledge him and felt his eyes flit over her, noticing, no doubt, the sharp rise and fall of her small breasts in response to seeing him standing there.
‘Are you going out?’
Of course, he would want to know, she thought with her stomach knotting, struck by how devastating he looked in his casual grey polo shirt and pale chinos. But that was what men like Brant Cadman did. Devastate.
‘That letter came today.’ She started towards the Ka. ‘I’m going to the hospital.’ She couldn’t have lied to him even if she had wanted to and was suddenly disconcerted to find his tall, lean frame blocking her path.
‘Then get into the car.’ He was indicating his own plush saloon. ‘We’ll go together.’
‘No!’ Even to her own ears she sounded like a frightened schoolgirl.
‘Annie!’ His sigh was exasperated. ‘The last thing I want to do is hurt you.’
He meant emotionally, she thought, but he had already done that.
‘I just need to do this alone. To be alone.’ It wasn’t meant to, but it came out as a plea.
‘You won’t want to, Annie. Not afterwards,’ he assured her softly.
He had been through it already, she remembered. But just because he had been sent home with the wrong baby, it didn’t mean for certain that she had, did it? So he had got her name off the computer. So she had been in the hospital giving birth at the same time as his wife. But so had a number of other women, probably. And blood tests weren’t a hundred per cent accurate, were they? Sean couldn’t be the only baby that the Cadman boy could have been switched with. Could he?
The anguish that accompanied her silent, tortured questions momentarily disarmed her, leaving her open to his decisive will.
‘Come on. I’ll drive you,’ he stated. And that was that.
Her tension might have got the better of her, holding her rigid as a statue for most of the journey. But Brant kept her talking so that she couldn’t spend the whole of the drive dwelling on the traumatic situation, something deliberately calculated to relax her, she was sure.
Only once did she feel the sickening dread in the pit of her stomach threaten to overwhelm her, and that was at the outset when he asked, ‘Where’s Sean?’
‘I thought it best that he didn’t come.’ Annie’s tone was defensive. ‘He’s at Katrina’s.’
She was expecting some demand from him to see the son he claimed was his, but all he said was, ‘You get on well with her. Where did the two of you meet? At Cadman Sport?’
‘No. We were at art college together. She left before me, then told me about the vacancy in the art department, and so I joined too.’
She was aware of him steering the powerful car through the heavy traffic, of the courtesy he extended to other drivers as he slowed to let someone out of a side-turning.
‘What do you do now?’
‘I sell miniature water-colours to anyone who’ll take them, basically.’ She had a couple of regular outlets. A small gallery in Essex. A tea-shop selling crafts in a smaller village out of town.
‘Is it rewarding?’
She glanced at him, pulling a face. ‘You mean financially?’ That sort of thing, she thought, would probably rank as a priority to a man like him.
But he said, ‘Not necessarily,’ slowing down to stop at a red light.
‘You mean spiritually?’ Annie’s dark lashes shot up under the strands of her fringe. ‘As food for my well-being?’
‘Don’t knock it,’ he said, wise to the hint of surprised cynicism she had directed towards him. ‘Isn’t that the most important form of reward?’
‘Yes, it is,’ she answered, to both his questions, because financially she only just scraped a living at present, and she certainly didn’t intend going back to work for anyone else yet and leaving Sean with strangers. She had decided from the beginning that she would look after her baby herself.
Her baby. And now here was Brant, driving her to an interview that might rob her of the right to call him that forever.
No! Panic brought on that queasy feeling again with sickening intensity, draining the colour from her cheeks.
The sun struck the polished bonnet of the car, hurting her eyes with its remorseless glare. Her head tilted to one side to avoid it, as Brant put the car in motion again, she didn’t even see him glance her way.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked quietly.
Annie shot a look at his harshly defined profile. ‘Sure. I feel great! How do you expect me to feel?’ She felt too hurt, too angry, too everything to avoid making the challenge. For the briefest moment, as he turned his head, she noticed the deep concern in his eyes.
‘’Course.’ His jaw seemed clenched as his attention returned to the road. ‘Stupid question.’
‘I’m sorry.’ It was all she could say to excuse herself. She was too strung up, as well as much too conscious of him sitting beside her: of those long-tapered fingers as they flicked on the indicator, of the latent strength of his hair-furred arm as he turned the wheel.
When he glanced at her again, it was with more than just concern.
‘What?’ Annie prompted, aware.
‘The first time I saw you,’ he responded with a slight smile curving his mouth, ‘you were wearing that colour.’ His gaze fell briefly on the royal-blue top that shaped her upper body, and which clung to her tiny waist above the wide cream belt hugging her hips. ‘You seemed to epitomise everything that was bright and young and vibrant. You were wearing a vivid blue blouse with a tight black skirt and at least four-inch-high heels that made me wonder how you could even stand in them, let alone hold yourself with such alluring dignity.’
He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her, she remembered, shocked even now to recognise the depth of excitement his interest had produced in her. But that was when she had been guileless, unaware of how easily a man could pledge his feelings, and how easily a woman could be snared by her own sexuality. That was when she had still been young enough to take her happiness as read, before Warren had jilted her, before she had reacted to his defection to his lovely model in the most humiliating way.
‘I suppose practice makes perfect,’ she said tartly, and wondered, with a sudden quickening of her pulse, if despite his marriage and all the time that had passed since, he could still be remotely attracted to her.
Then she decided it was just another ploy on his part to take her mind off the main issue when, still thinking about a whole host of things she would have been wise not to remember, she heard him say, ‘Here we are.’
CHAPTER TWO
IF SHE lived to be a hundred and fifty, Annie thought, she wouldn’t have believed it possible to find herself a victim of such a bizarre and cruel coincidence.
Because it was true. At least, that was what they were telling her. There had to be more conclusive tests, of course.
But how could her baby have been switched at birth with someone else’s? she agonised, forcing one foot in front of the other over the last flight of stairs down from the office where they had imparted the dreaded news. And not just someone, but someone she knew. Him!
He had intended to summon the lift, but she had insisted on taking the stairs. After the pain of being told officially that Sean probably wasn’t hers, she had needed to walk, to think, to try to recover some measure of stability.
Now, as Brant swung open the glass door to allow her into the brilliant June sunshine, she noticed the grim set of his jaw and remembered the anger he had unleashed on the two hospital officials to whom they had spoken. ‘If further tests prove conclusive, you will, of course, be instructing solicitors to sort out the custody issue,’ the middle-aged woman had said to Annie, as though she had been able to take it in—take anything in—right then.
‘Lawyers won’t be necessary.’ She had barely heard Brant’s succinct response, her brain still reeling from the cruel reality of it all. ‘We’re going to work it out for ourselves.’
Were they? At that moment, Annie could only let him conduct the interview, take control, even if she felt he was doing so against her paralysed will.
‘There’ll have to be an inquiry into how a thing like this could have happened,’ the woman’s male colleague tagged on, looking worried behind rimless steel glasses, which was when Brant’s temper had seemed to snap.
‘You’re darn right there will! And if you don’t instigate it after we’ve left this office, then I will!’ he had threatened. ‘It might be just a hiccup in the smooth running of your damned hospital, but it’s turned other people’s lives upside down—and someone’s going to have to answer for that!’
Which was an understatement, Annie thought as the door swung closed behind Brant now. Her world hadn’t just been turned upside down. Yesterday, and then last night when she hadn’t been able to sleep, she had felt as though it were hanging by a thread. Now that thread had snapped and it had come crashing down around her, choking, blinding her to all but its emotional chaos.
‘Come on,’ she heard Brant say gently, and felt a strong hand at her elbow. ‘I’ll take you for a drink.’
The café to which he took her was a small bistro within walking distance of the hospital. It wasn’t yet lunchtime, but the place was still humming with lively chatter.
‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ Annie murmured, after the waiter had served them their drinks at the only small table left for two. She lifted the tall, slim glass to her lips, feeling the bitter-sweet tang of the iced grapefruit juice she had ordered zinging on her tongue, piercing through her numbness. ‘I thought this sort of thing only happened to other people.’
‘We are other people—to everybody else,’ he remarked, his tone phlegmatic, the anger she had witnessed in him back at the hospital banked down now like carefully controlled fire.
Over the rim of her glass, Annie watched him pick up his cup of strong black coffee, her eyes reluctantly drawn to the sinewy strength of his hand. He was a stranger to her and yet she had known the caress of those strong hands, known the excitement of his crushing weight…
Rather unsteadily she returned her glass to its little slate coaster, though not before catching the disconcerting awareness in those all-seeing eyes.
‘Why did you take off the way you did that Saturday morning after that party?’ he was suddenly asking. ‘Without saying a word to anyone?’
She looked at him quickly. Why did he have to mention that?
‘Apart from ringing your boss at home and handing in your notice, no one seemed to know what happened to you—where you went.’
Toying with her glass, Annie felt her heart change rhythm. Had he asked? A slow, insidious heat stole through her veins.
She shrugged, the royal-blue top striking against the shining vitality of her hair.
‘I went to France,’ she told him, meeting his eyes levelly now. ‘Fruit-picking. I needed a change. A break.’ She had needed the time too. Time to recover her pride, and recover from the shame she had left back here in England. ‘When the harvest was over, I spent time backpacking round the south of France.’
‘Sounds idyllic.’
‘Oh, it was!’ It was easy to bluff, to pretend, now that her wounds had healed.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were planning to go away?’
Because she hadn’t planned it. She had simply run. ‘There didn’t seem to be much point.’
‘Not much…’ A spark of something like annoyance lit his eyes. ‘After what we shared?’
She wished he hadn’t reminded her, but since he had, she lifted her small chin in an almost defiant gesture and asked, ‘What did we share, Brant?’
A muscle clenched in his jaw. ‘You even need to ask?’
What was he saying? Why was he even making such an issue of it?
Struggling for equanimity, she said with as much nonchalance as she could muster, ‘I was on the rebound. And you…’ You were in love with Naomi, her brain screamed at him, because you certainly married her soon enough afterwards! Pride hurting, she cringed as she heard herself asking the question burning through her from her bitter calculations. ‘Was she already pregnant when you made love to me?’
He didn’t answer for a moment. How could he? she thought woundedly, watching him pick up his spoon and toy absently with the dark liquid in his cup, though he had taken it without sugar.
‘Our boys were born on the same day.’ He sent a casual glance upwards towards two patrons who were passing their table, his eyes returning to the spoon he let drop into its saucer. ‘How do you answer that one, Annie?’
His tone might have been casual, but the intensity of his gaze impaled her, causing hot colour to flood into her cheeks.
He had been careful, of course. Unerring in his unshakeable responsibility towards her—to himself. Now it was Annie who was lost for words.
She hadn’t known, when Warren had asked her to start taking the contraceptive pill, that a simple dose of antibiotics for a chest infection could render it ineffective. But it had.
Matter-of-factly, Brant stated, ‘You conceived in a relationship that was falling apart.’ And when she didn’t answer, her lashes drooping, concealing the misery of recalling that time, he asked, ‘Did the two of you ever get back together?’
‘Hardly.’
‘But he was aware you had his child?’
‘Warren had his model. What happened to me after that wouldn’t have concerned him.’
‘So you didn’t tell him.’
Why should I have? she thought bitterly, but didn’t say it.
Quickly she lifted her glass again, took another swift draught of her juice. Already the ice was melting and it tasted less sharp, much more watery on her tongue.
‘So there’s no reason then for Maddox to be involved in this affair?’
Annie shook her head, replacing her glass. Across the table the eyes that studied her were like enigmatic pools.
‘The man must have needed his head read,’ he said softly.
Was that a compliment? Annie wondered, blushing as she considered the wild, abandoned way she had given herself to this virtual stranger sitting opposite her; wondered too just how wanton he must have considered her. But that one night of folly with him wasn’t in character with the real Annie Talbot at all. Her parents had always stressed the maxim of one man—one woman—one passion. They had adhered to it themselves and, until Warren’s unfaithfulness, she had thought she could easily follow in their footsteps.
She visualised them miles away in their little colonial-style house, her father quietly impatient, immobilised by a hip operation, her mother fussing over him, over-protective as usual, unaware of the shocking truth that was about to change their lives—all of their lives, she thought, the uncertainty darkening her eyes, puckering her forehead.
‘What are you thinking?’ Brant was setting his empty cup back on the table, eyes keen, senses sharp as a razor.
What she had been thinking during the long hours when she had been tossing and turning last night. ‘I’m wondering what Mum and Dad are going to say.’
‘When they find out that their grandchild’s mine and not Warren Maddox’s?’
For a moment his statement seemed to rock her off her axis.
‘Yours and Naomi’s,’ she enlarged at length.
‘Yes,’ he said, the way his breath seemed to shudder through his lungs leaving her in no doubt of how much he must have loved his wife.
Briefly, her mind wandered back to the woman she had glimpsed once from a distance getting into Brant’s car. Short, chic auburn hair and dark glasses. And that amazing height—only an inch or two shorter than Brant—which Annie, even in the four-inch heels to which he had referred earlier could never aspire to. Naomi Fox, as she had been then. Beautiful, sophisticated and intelligent—if office gossip was anything to go by—she had obviously swept Brant off his feet, then had died from a postpartum haemorrhage almost immediately after being delivered of their baby son.
Annie didn’t want to think about that, or what Brant must have endured because of it. But she couldn’t stop herself, in spite of everything, from considering his plight. Not only losing the woman he loved, but now learning that the child they had produced in their short marriage wasn’t theirs. She wondered how he could even begin to deal with that.
And the child he was raising, this unknown child—if the hospital was to be believed—was hers, the child she had given birth to. The sudden crushing need to see him, know him, almost stole the breath out of her lungs.
‘It isn’t very easy for my mother, either.’
His mother? His surprising statement dragged her back to the present. She hadn’t even considered that he might have parents. A mother. She’d imagined men like Brant merely happened. But naturally there would be other people involved, not just the two of them. Their babies. Her own parents. There would be other confused and anxious relations. Perhaps aunts and uncles. Did Brant have any brothers or sisters? Did Naomi? Suddenly, despite having shared his bed, shamefully she realised just how little she knew about him.
