Surrender to the Past

by Carole Mortimer

  Or as if she might step into the breach should Mia say or do anything to upset him …

  Mia tensed as her gaze returned to her father. ‘You’re looking well.’ Her tone was stilted.

  That glow of pleasure in his eyes flickered and then died, and there was the briefest slump of his shoulders before he straightened determinedly. ‘And you’ve cut off your beautiful hair,’ he murmured lightly.

  Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Did she look more like her glamorous mother or less so?

  Mia raised a self-conscious hand to those feathered wisps of gold.

  ‘I find it easier to deal with when I’m getting ready for work in the morning.’

  Her father nodded briefly. ‘Ethan told us that you run a very successful coffee shop in London.’

  Mia had been concentrating so hard on her father that she had briefly blocked out the fact that Ethan was there too, but she glanced at him now as he moved forward to place their suitcases in the hall, before greeting his mother and so giving Mia her first real look at the woman who was now married to her father.

  Grace Black the headmistress had always possessed a calm and likeable elegance, but Grace Burton had an added relaxed contentment to her lovely features. Those beautiful blue eyes were now glowing with pride as she hugged her son, the arms the two of them kept about each other’s waist as they stepped out onto the terrace evidence of the closeness of their relationship.

  And at the same time seeming only to emphasise the awkwardness that now existed between Mia and her father …

  Ethan frowned as he looked across at father and daughter. He had known this was going to be difficult—he just hadn’t appreciated how difficult. Mia was so tense and defensive, and William’s initial pleasure had turned to obvious disappointment as Mia kept her distance from him.

  ‘Shall we all go inside?’ he suggested lightly. ‘I’m sure Mia is as much in need of a hot drink as I am!’

  Mia shot him a grateful glance. ‘Tea would be good,’ she acknowledged quietly.

  ‘Of course.’ William seemed to drag himself out of whatever memories he had been lost in as he stood back to allow Mia to enter the villa ahead of him.

  Ethan frowned again as Mia stepped fully into the light and he saw just how pale she was. The expression in her eyes was one of dazed bewilderment. His earlier irritation with her dissipated as he accepted that only hours ago Mia had still been in England, safe in the certainty of the life she had made for herself there. Now, only hours later, she had been thrust right back into the same maelstrom of emotions—and the same people—she had felt she so desperately needed to escape from five years ago.

  ‘Mia,’ Ethan’s mother murmured softly as the two women came face to face for the first time.

  ‘Mrs—Grace.’ Mia nodded abruptly before stepping into the hallway and disappearing inside the villa, obviously no longer sure how to address her previous headmistress.

  Mia had warned Ethan not to expect any happy-ever-after ending to this meeting with her father, but he really hadn’t expected it to be quite as strained as it so obviously was. Naive of him, perhaps, but a part of Ethan had always thought—hoped?—that once Mia saw William again everything else would just fall into place.

  ‘Give her time,’ his mother said with an encouraging squeeze of his arm.

  ‘She’s already had five years, damn it,’ he growled, only too aware that he was responsible for bringing about this meeting. A meeting that could still blow up in their faces …

  ‘Then it isn’t going to hurt to give her a little longer, is it?’ Grace moved away to tuck her hand into the crook of William’s arm, her smile warmly comforting as the two of them talked quietly together.

  Ethan gave them a last concerned glance before following Mia inside. She stood in the hallway, obviously not comfortable with the idea of just walking into the sitting room as she would once have done.

  Ethan gave a frustrated sigh. ‘You—’

  ‘If you’re going to start yelling at me—don’t!’ Mia’s voice broke emotionally, her eyes awash with unshed tears.

  His expression instantly softened. ‘I never yell, Mia.’

  No, he didn’t, Mia acknowledged ruefully; another legacy of that bullying and inebriate father, perhaps? Whatever the reason, Ethan had never felt the need to so much as raise his voice in her company, or anyone else’s, in order to convey his displeasure over something.

  Her throat felt uncomfortably dry as she swallowed before speaking. ‘I warned you I wouldn’t know what to say or do when I saw my father again!’ She gave a glance to where her father and Grace were still in muted conversation together on the terrace.

  ‘You did just fine,’ Ethan said, before he too glanced at the other couple. ‘I would imagine my mother is offering William the same reassurances!’ he added dryly.

  Mia paused as she saw the way the older couple stood so comfortably together. ‘They’re happy together, aren’t they …?’

  ‘Very.’

  She nodded. ‘You shouldn’t have brought me here, Ethan.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because I don’t belong here.’

  ‘And why is that?’ he prompted.

  Ethan knew why! Knew that Mia had only needed to see her father and Grace together to know that she wasn’t really apart of this scenario. For her to also realise her parents had never seemed this—this relaxed and comfortable in each other’s company …

  Mia had always considered that her childhood—with a workaholic father and a socially busy mother—was no different from any of her friends’. That everyone’s mother was out at the theatre, or attending dinner parties or being hostess at one, every evening of the week. That everyone’s father was so busy working that it often precluded him joining his wife and children when they went away during the school holidays, as Mia and Kay had always done, going to stay at one of their many other homes around the world—somewhere hot in the summer and the ski lodge in Aspen during the winter. William had usually managed to join them for a few days, and they would be busy days, spent by the pool or on the ski slopes, before they all met up with her mother’s friends for dinner at one of the fashionable restaurants she favoured.

  All that had changed after her mother’s car accident, of course, but during those early years it had all seemed so perfect to the child Mia had been.

  Remembering that now, looking through the eyes of an adult at the weeks, months, her parents had often spent apart, Mia couldn’t help but wonder if it really had been as idyllic as she had always thought it was, or if Ethan’s description this morning of her parents’ marriage being ‘far from perfect’ wasn’t a more accurate one.

  ‘If you would like to go through to the sitting room I’ll go and make us all some tea?’ Grace Burton prompted lightly as she and William came back inside the villa.

  ‘Perhaps Mia would like to come and help?’ Ethan answered his mother, but it was Mia he looked at as he spoke, dark brows raised in challenge.

  She shot him a glowering glance before frowning across at Grace. ‘Doesn’t Marie work here any more …?’ The plump and bustling Frenchwoman had been caretaker of the villa when the Burtons weren’t in residence, falling into the role of housekeeper when they were. She would probably be in her mid-fifties by now, but even so …

  ‘She retired two years ago,’ the older woman replied smoothly.

  No doubt only the first of many changes Grace had made since becoming mistress of the Burton households!

  ‘Marie has a young disabled granddaughter she wanted to spend more time with.’ Mia’s father was the one to explain firmly, as he obviously sensed her unspoken criticism. ‘Grace prefers to do our little bit of cooking herself, anyway.’ He looked at his wife admiringly. ‘So we just have a young girl from the village come in a couple of times a week now, to do the heavier cleaning.’

  A brief glance at her father’s face showed Mia that his expression was as disapproving as his tone as he looked at her, before his f
eatures relaxed as he turned to look at Grace. ‘I’m quite happy to help make the tea.’ Mia shrugged.

  ‘Did you bring along some of your cookies to go with it …?’ Ethan questioned.

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ Mia denied sharply—and then just as quickly felt guilty colour wash over her cheeks as she instantly thought of the box of assorted cookies sitting on top of her clothes in the small suitcase.

  Ethan gave her a knowing look. ‘Pity …’

  ‘I’m really interested to hear about this coffee shop of yours, Mia,’ her father put in enthusiastically.

  She gave an awkward shrug. ‘It’s just like a dozen others in any busy high street.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Ethan dismissed impatiently. ‘The place is always packed with people, and I can personally vouch for the fact that Mia’s triple chocolate cookies are—’

  ‘Popular,’ Mia put in quickly, in an effort to stop Ethan from repeating his earlier risqué comment.

  ‘Unlike anything else I’ve ever tasted,’ Ethan finished dryly.

  ‘Let’s go and make that tea, Mia.’ Grace suggested firmly, at the same time as she gave her son a questioning glance at that other conversation she sensed beneath his casual remarks.

  Being alone with the other woman was the last thing Mia wanted, but without making a scene immediately on her arrival she really had to go along with the suggestion. Besides which, the other woman’s headmistress-like tone was such that Mia didn’t feel she had any other choice but to trail silently after Grace as she went through to the rustic kitchen at the back of the villa!

  No doubt the two men would find their own conversation flowed far more easily once the women had left than any conversation was likely to do between Grace and Mia …

  ‘Mia seems so … different.’

  Ethan gave the older man a sympathetic glance even as he inwardly wondered how Mia and his mother would get along together in the kitchen; Mia’s reluctance to be alone with Grace had been more than obvious. ‘Only superficially. Fundamentally she’s still the same Mia,’ he said, and realised that it was true; beneath all that prickly self-defence Mia was still the same warm and caring woman Ethan had known five years ago.

  Dangerously so …?

  Because there was more to Mia now than just warmth and caring, and her obvious beauty and intelligence. She now possessed an added self-confidence after having succeeded in her business enterprise, making her a deadly combination for any man.

  Ethan frowned slightly as he thought of the way Mia had evaded answering him earlier when he had asked if she’d had other lovers. That frown deepened as he acknowledged he didn’t like the thought of any other men in her life this past five years.

  He had discovered on their first night together that he was Mia’s first lover, and had tempered his lovemaking accordingly as he gently introduced her to the delights of such intimacy. He had never been any woman’s first lover before, and although Mia probably didn’t realise it—and wouldn’t care even if she did!—Ethan had always valued the fact that he had been her first lover. If not her last.

  Which was probably not something he should be thinking about while talking to Mia’s father!

  He gave William a rueful smile. ‘I believe she feels just as awkward about this meeting as you do.’

  William gave a sad shake of his head. ‘She’s still angry with me.’

  ‘Not as much as she thinks she is,’ Ethan said slowly, having seen the hunger in Mia’s eyes as she had looked up and seen her father again for the first time in five years, even if she hadn’t been aware of it herself.

  ‘I hope you’re right.’ The older man suddenly looked worried. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t have let the two women go off alone together just yet …? I wouldn’t want Mia to say anything that might upset Grace.’

  Ethan smiled more confidently. ‘My mother is perfectly capable of taking care of herself, I assure you.’

  William looked no less concerned after his assurances. ‘I hope you’re right …’

  ‘So, Mia, how have you really been?’ Grace moved efficiently about the rustic terracotta kitchen as she prepared the tea things.

  In fact the other woman moved about the kitchen so confidently that Mia felt slightly superfluous. Especially so as Grace’s quiet efficiency alerted her to the fact that her own mother had probably never even stepped inside this kitchen, let alone made tea for herself or the family.

  Kay had never particularly liked the villa William had bought ‘in the wilds of nowhere’ in the South of France, and would much rather it had been in one of the more fashionable resorts along the coast, where all of her friends had had villas or apartments. As such, Kay had come here as little as possible, and even when she had as often as not she’d left Mia and William beside the pool for the day while she went off shopping, or to Monte Carlo with friends.

  More memories from her childhood came as Mia stood in front of the kitchen window, looking out over the familiar valley. The lights of several other villas were shining in the darkness, and the brighter lights of Cannes glowed in the distance.

  She turned now to look at Grace with guarded eyes. ‘I’ve been very well. You?’ she prompted stiltedly.

  Grace shrugged. ‘The scare we had with William six months ago was … cause for concern, of course, but he seems to have recovered very well.’

  There was no rebuke in the other woman’s tone, and yet Mia still felt guilty at the part she had played—albeit innocently—in her father’s heart attack. ‘Ethan told me.’

  ‘Did he …?’

  ‘Well, he showed me those photographs my father somehow … acquired.’ Mia grimaced as she recalled the awful images.

  Grace looked concerned. ‘He shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘Drastic measures …’ Mia gave a shrug, knowing she probably wouldn’t be here now if Ethan hadn’t shown her those photographs. ‘I really had no idea my father would still be looking for me after all this time.’

  Grace gave her a pained glance. ‘He’s never stopped looking for you, Mia.’

  Mia bristled defensively. ‘I left him a note telling him not to.’

  Grace gave a sad smile. ‘William still has that note. He carries it about with him in his wallet. Along with the last photograph of the two of you together.’

  Mia drew in a pained breath. ‘I never meant to hurt him—’

  ‘And yet you did.’

  Her cheeks warmed at the gentle rebuke. ‘As I said, I never meant to. Look, Grace.’ She rallied determinedly. ‘I appreciate my having come here is difficult for my father, for Ethan, and most especially for you—’

  ‘Most especially for me?’ Grace looked at her quizzically. ‘Why on earth should I find your being here in the least difficult? You’re William’s daughter, as Ethan is my son, and there has never been a problem with Ethan visiting us.’

  ‘It’s not the same …’ She gave a shake of her head.

  ‘You’re wrong there, Mia. It’s exactly the same. The cups are still in the same cupboard as they always were, if you would like to get them for me?’ Grace prompted as she began to place milk and sugar on the tray.

  Mia moved automatically to the correct cupboard and took out four cups and saucers before handing them to the older woman. ‘I’ll only be staying a day or so—’

  ‘Why?’ Grace pierced her with those candid blue eyes.

  She shrugged. ‘For one thing, I have a business to run.’

  ‘And for another …?’

  Mia sighed her impatience. ‘I’m sure that Ethan has explained to you that I’ve only come here at all in order to reassure my father that there will be no more photographs of—of dead bodies found in ditches for him to look at and imagine they might be me!’

  ‘He has, yes,’ the older woman murmured. ‘And you don’t think that reassurance might take a little more time than a day or so …?’

  Her mouth firmed. ‘No.’

  Grace nodded without further comment. ‘What about Ethan?’


  Mia frowned. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Mia gave a puzzled shake of her head. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  Grace looked at her speculatively. ‘You know, Mia, you were one of my brightest pupils. Intelligent and studious, you left Southlands School with four first-class A levels.’

  Mia had lost this conversation somewhere. ‘You think perhaps I should have done something more with those A levels than open a coffee shop—’

  ‘Not at all,’ the other woman dismissed. ‘I always knew that you would succeed at whatever you chose to do with your life, and from the little Ethan has told us that’s exactly what your coffee shop appears to be—a success. It’s only in the emotional side of your life that you appear to be somewhat … lacking in insight.’

  Yes, Grace had definitely lost her. Unless … ‘If you’re attempting to criticise my mother because she was something of a social lightweight rather than an academic like you—’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of criticising your mother, Mia. In any way.’ Grace sounded shocked at the suggestion, and every inch Mia’s previous headmistress.

  ‘Then I don’t understand …’

  ‘My reference was to your past relationship with Ethan, of course.’

  ‘My …?’ Mia gave a dazed shake of her head, her cheeks feeling suddenly warm. ‘What does that have to do with the here and now?’

  ‘The two of you were a couple before you disappeared so suddenly,’ Grace reminded her gently.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And have the two of you managed to resolve your own … differences at last?’

  Mia’s mouth tightened as she thought of the way she and Ethan were together now. ‘No,’ she bit out abruptly.

  ‘Pity,’ the older woman said quietly.

  ‘I’m sure you don’t mean that!’

  Grace looked puzzled. ‘Why wouldn’t I …?’

  ‘Because Ethan was never serious about me—was only using me in the same way that you—’

  ‘Careful, Mia …’ Grace warned.

  ‘Or what?’ she mused ruefully. ‘What else can anyone do to me? I haven’t even seen my own father for the past five years—’