‘How could you have done this to me?’ His words fell into the silence like a solid weight against a fragile glass surface.
Charlotte flinched beside him. ‘I had no choice. You believed me to be a thief. You sent me packing with your threats ringing in my ears. I tried to tell you so many times.’
His eyes met hers in the subdued lighting of the cab as it pulled into the emergency bay of the hospital. ‘But you are a thief, Charlotte.’ His voice was tight with anger, each word hardbitten. ‘You have stolen from me my daughter and I swear to God you will not get away with it this time. I let you off lightly when you betrayed my family’s trust the last time, but not now. A few ancient sculptures are nothing to the value of my own flesh and blood. You will regret not telling me of my child’s existence—I guarantee it.’
Charlotte stumbled from the cab with his words reverberating in her pain-racked body as she made her way to the reception desk to find out where her daughter was being held. She had tried Caroline’s mobile in the cab but it had frustratingly gone to message service each time.
‘Emily Woodruff?’ The hospital receptionist looked through the long list of patients on her computer. ‘I’m sorry, but there’s no patient of that name who has been admitted up until the last hour. Have you tried Accident and Emergency? She might still be being assessed.’
Damon took Charlotte’s elbow as they made their way through the endlessly long corridors to the Accident and Emergency bay on the ground floor.
Charlotte pressed the security button and quickly explained the situation to the receptionist who appeared at the window.
‘Oh, yes, the little girl—she’s being assessed right now,’ the woman said, releasing the door. ‘Come on through.’
There were numerous curtained cubicles with a variety of people moving in and out of them, nurses and doctors and worried-looking relatives adding to the general sense of urgency and despair of the place.
‘Excuse me…’ Charlotte began as a doctor rushed past.
‘I need a chest drain in Emergency One, stat,’ the harried doctor said to a nurse before turning to Charlotte. ‘Could you please wait in the waiting room? Someone will attend to you shortly.’
Damon stepped forward. ‘Our daughter has been admitted to this hospital and we would like to know where she is.’
The doctor stopped in his tracks at the authority in Damon’s tone. ‘You must be little Emily Woodruff’s parents. I’m sorry—we’ve been so busy this evening. She’s just been taken down to X-ray.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Charlotte asked, panic beating like the wings of a startled bird in her chest.
The doctor gave them both a reassuring smile. ‘Nothing too serious. It looks like a greenstick fracture to her arm. It won’t even need plaster. The X-ray is just to confirm my diagnosis. The young woman who brought her in is in Emergency Bay five.’
Caroline must have heard their voices as she was already coming out of the cubicle with Janie half asleep in her arms.
‘Oh, Charlotte, I’m so sorry. It happened so quickly. I was on the phone to my mother. The girls really should have been in bed but they were playing so happily and I wasn’t watching for a moment and Emily fell off the sofa. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say…’
‘It’s all right.’ Charlotte gave her a quick hug, careful not to disturb little Janie. ‘The doctor said it’s just a greenstick fracture.’
‘It is serious,’ Damon said with a glaring frown. ‘What sort of babysitter allows a small child to injure herself?’
‘Damon, please…’ Charlotte put a hand on his arm. ‘This is not the time to—’
‘Not the time to what?’ he said, interrupting her coldly. ‘To tell me what I should have been told nearly four years ago? That is my daughter in there and I want to know how she came to be injured.’
‘You’re Emily’s father?’ Caroline said somewhat unnecessarily.
Charlotte’s eyes closed, her fingers coming up to pinch the bridge of her nose as the tension of the evening built to explosion point in the middle of her forehead.
‘Yes,’ Damon answered stiffly. ‘Although I have only been informed of the fact less than fifteen minutes ago. How did my daughter injure herself?’
Charlotte, seeing the distress on her friend’s face, stepped forward. ‘Damon, please—this is not Caroline’s fault. Children hurt themselves all the time. Emily gets clumsy when she’s tired and falling off a sofa is virtually an everyday occurrence in a child of three. It’s not fair to blame Caroline.’
Damon turned his glittering gaze on her. ‘So it is you I should blame, is it not? For you are her mother and you left her under inadequate supervision.’
Anger flared in her eyes and, even though she knew it was unfair to dump what was really her own guilt on him, she did so regardless. ‘You were the one who insisted I spend this evening with you. If I hadn’t been forced to be with you, this might never have happened.’
Damon opened his mouth to defend himself when the rattle of a trolley turned his head and he saw his little daughter for the very first time…
‘Mummy?’ Emily’s little voice was strained and fearful as her chocolate-brown eyes went to where Charlotte was standing beside Caroline.
‘Oh, precious…’ Charlotte rushed to her and kissed her gently on her forehead, both her cheeks and the tip of her tiny nose. ‘Are you all right, darling? The doctor said you hurt your arm. You’re being so brave. Does it hurt very much?’
Emily’s bottom lip wobbled precariously. ‘Not now…I just wanted you to be wif me…’ She began to cry, big tears popping out of her eyes like oversized crystals.
Damon swallowed the rising emotion in his throat. He felt shut out and isolated. His own flesh and blood didn’t even recognise him, although he could see without a doubt she was his child. He had considered demanding a paternity test but he could see now it would be pointless. Emily looked exactly as Eleni had looked at the same age—the same dark brown, almost black hair, the same bottomless brown eyes and the same rosebud mouth and button nose.
Pain twisted inside him like a trapped and angry serpent, the venom of his anger stinging him in every possible place.
He had a child—a little daughter that Charlotte had kept from him. In spite of his earlier refusal to believe her, she’d had almost four years to tell him and yet she hadn’t. She hadn’t even told him over the last few days and yet she’d had every possible chance to do so. Three of his daughter’s birthdays had already passed; what else would he have missed if he hadn’t found out?
‘Ms Woodruff?’ The doctor who had spoken to Charlotte earlier came over with an envelope containing Emily’s X-rays. ‘Your daughter is free to go home. It is, as I suspected, a greenstick fracture, which requires nothing but a firm bandage and a review by an orthopaedic surgeon in three weeks. Here is a list of names of orthopaedic surgeons—you can choose one of these or go to your GP and they will refer you to one.’ He turned to his little patient with a smile. ‘You were very brave, Emily. I had a ten-year-old boy in here the other night with exactly the same condition and he yelled the place down.’
Emily’s big brown eyes went wide. ‘Weally?’
He gave her hair a quick but gentle ruffle. ‘I didn’t just have to bandage his arm—I was tempted to put a big plaster over his mouth.’
Emily giggled.
‘Thank you so much, Dr McHenry,’ Charlotte said after a quick glance at his name tag. ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t here with her when she came in.’
The doctor gave her a tired smile. ‘I’m a parent myself,’ he said. ‘My wife and I both work shifts, so I know what a juggle it is with childcare and babysitting. Your friend did the right thing in bringing Emily in so promptly. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must see to the rest of my patients. I’ll send a nurse over to see to that bandage. I even think we’ve got a pink one especially for little girls. Good luck, Emily, and don’t go falling off the sofa any more.’
‘I wo
n’t.’ Emily smiled shyly.
Charlotte stood to one side as the nurse gently and expertly bandaged her daughter’s arm.
Caroline had quietly excused herself just moments before with Janie fast asleep on her shoulder, but Damon was still standing watching her with a stony expression on his face and Charlotte knew without a doubt that her nightmare of a night was far from over…
CHAPTER NINE
EMILY was asleep almost before the cab arrived, her little dark head lolling against Charlotte’s shoulder as she walked to the hospital entrance with Damon at her elbow.
She could feel his simmering anger; it was almost palpable in the cold night air. It was coming off him in scorching waves that threatened to peel off her skin every time he looked at her.
‘You have a lot of explaining to do,’ he bit out as he waved down a cab.
‘This is not the time or place,’ she said. ‘I need to get Emily home and into bed.’
‘This is not over, Charlotte,’ he warned her. ‘I swear to God this is not over.’
The cab arriving forestalled any further speech and Charlotte sank into the seat with her daughter snuggling up close.
‘Put her in the seat belt,’ Damon instructed.
Charlotte’s blue eyes battled with his for a moment before she did as he demanded, even though it produced a whimper of pain from Emily. She hadn’t wanted to let her daughter go even for a second, but she knew he was right. Even a short journey could be dangerous without the protection of a seat belt.
Damon leaned forward to give the cab driver directions and Charlotte felt her heart give a tiny flutter. He had very definitely had tabs on her if he knew where she lived.
She sat back in her seat with Emily’s dark head on her lap, wondering how he would view her tiny run-down inner city rented flat. It was all she could afford. Childcare cut into her budget and, with Stacey’s ongoing demands, she often sailed a little too close to the wind. There were few luxuries. Some weeks it was all she could do to keep food on the table.
‘I cannot believe you have kept this from me for all this time,’ he inserted into the stiff silence.
‘If you remember, I did tell you,’ she threw back. ‘But you refused to believe me. I tried phoning and emailing you, but you blocked all contact.’
‘You could have told me the first night I saw you at the museum! She’s my child!’ He glared at her furiously. ‘Do you have any idea of how much I have missed out on? Do you?’
Her eyes flashed at his, her tone unmistakably sarcastic. ‘So this is now all about you, is it, Damon? I’m sorry, but I thought it was about a little child who has suffered an injury. Pardon me for being so remiss in putting her needs over yours.’
His jaw tightened until she could see white tips at the edges of his mouth. ‘I should have been told. As soon as I saw you the other night, you should have told me.’
She sent him an embittered glance. ‘I would have told you if I hadn’t thought you would whip her away from me as soon as she was born.’
There was a deadly little pause.
‘I can still do that.’
Charlotte’s eyes flew back to his, her heart threatening to jump out of her chest. ‘You can’t do that! She’s my daughter.’
His eyes were like black diamonds. ‘She is my daughter as well. And, from what I have seen so far, you are not looking after her with any degree of competency.’
‘That’s not true!’
He gave her a cynical look. ‘How can you possibly say that when she is lying between us with a serious injury?’
‘She hurt her arm,’ Charlotte said. ‘It’s not the least bit life-threatening. Children hurt themselves all the time. It could have happened at crèche.’
His eyes burned with fury. ‘You send her to crèche to be looked after by strangers?’
She rolled her eyes at him. ‘I’m a single mother, Damon, and just like any other single mother I have to work to put food on the table. And, as much as I would love to be with Emily full-time, I don’t have the luxury of that choice, so yes—I do allow strangers to look after her, but they are highly qualified strangers who each have a fully accredited childcare certificate.’
‘You will withdraw her from care immediately.’
Charlotte tightened her mouth. ‘I will do no such thing.’
‘You will cancel her childcare arrangements, for from now on you will be a full-time mother to her.’
‘I have a job!’ she reminded him heatedly. ‘I have commitments regarding the exhibition.’
‘Cancel them.’
‘I can’t cancel them! Julian is out of action and it’s all up to me to pull this off. I can’t pull out now, even if I wanted to.’
‘I will withdraw my sponsorship if you do not quit your job. I will also tell your employers of your history of theft. I was starting to believe you were innocent, but I can see now you were not. You have no trouble with lying; it comes to you so naturally.’
Charlotte felt the tension building to breaking-point. She could barely see for the white spots of it disturbing the line of her vision. She felt sick with dread in case he did as he threatened. He had so much power and she had so little…
‘Please…’ She turned to look at him, her eyes awash with unshed tears. ‘I know you are angry and I can understand how you must feel, but you will be hurting your daughter if you hurt me. I have only ever acted in her best interests. You have to believe that. I had no choice over seeing you again because you saw me as a thief. Do you know how many times I wished I could have picked up the phone in the last three years and told you of her existence? I wanted to every day of her life but I couldn’t. You made it impossible for me by labelling me the way you did. You shut me out of your life. You charged me with a crime I did not commit.’
‘You lie!’ He threw the words at her like stinging arrows. ‘You are lying now. You were never going to tell me of my daughter’s existence. I know that. I can see it in your eyes. You wanted this last hold of power over me. The ultimate revenge was to have stolen the most priceless thing of all—my child.’
Charlotte set her mouth. ‘I did not steal her,’ she said. ‘You threw her away when you threw me away.’
‘When did you suspect you were pregnant?’
‘I was late and started to worry. I know condoms aren’t foolproof and although I’d gone on the pill I wasn’t sure it had kicked in when…when we…’ She moistened her dry mouth and continued, ‘When you came to the gallery that afternoon I tried to tell you of my suspicions, but you had suspicions of your own.’
Damon struggled to listen without interrupting. He wanted to defend his actions but he was starting to see that Charlotte had been in a difficult situation.
‘I didn’t have the pregnancy confirmed until I was back in Sydney,’ she said in a subdued tone, her fingers brushing back the silky hair off Emily’s peacefully sleeping face.
Another tense silence tightened the air between them.
‘Was it deliberate?’ he asked. ‘As a way of snaring yourself a billionaire?’
She sent him a furious glance. ‘How can you ask that? I was halfway through my Honours degree. I had a chance to sidestep a Masters to have a go at a Ph.D. Why would I deliberately compromise that by getting pregnant on purpose? And, if I had, why then would I keep it a secret for all this time?’
Damon turned his head to look out at the city streets flashing by. It was raining, the cold sheets of icy moisture reminding him of how far away he was from home. He felt out of his depth, not just because of the climate change but because everything had changed.
He was a father.
He had responsibilities he had to face, even though the thought of tying himself to a woman who had exploited him and his family was anathema to him.
Yes, he still desired her. She was a fever beating in his blood and the fact that she had borne his child only made it a thousand times worse. They were connected in the most intimate way possible, their blood lines linked, t
heir future enmeshed in the body of the small, exquisitely beautiful child lying between them.
He knew his mother would be beside herself with joy to find she had a grandchild, especially so soon after the tragic loss of Eleni. How much hurt would little Emily repair by meeting her grandmother for the first time?
‘Once the exhibition is over we will go to Santorini,’ he said.
Charlotte stared at him in shock. ‘I’m not going anywhere with you.’
His eyes met hers with a challenge she knew was going to be hard to withstand. ‘You come with me, Charlotte, or I swear to God you will never see your daughter again.’
She swallowed convulsively. ‘You can’t do that…’
His expression was unmoved by her emotionally charged statement. ‘I can and I will. You have reared my child in an unsafe environment. She is daily exposed to danger. Tonight is a case in point. God knows what we will find at your flat.’
Charlotte felt her heart sink in despair. Stacey wasn’t to be trusted. She sat on the edge of her seat, the sharp teeth of terror gnawing at her insides as the cab driver pulled into her street…
The bedroom light was on in her flat, which hopefully meant Stacey had taken her up on her offer of a bed for the night.
Damon had Emily in his arms, his hold so gentle and protective it brought tears to Charlotte’s eyes as she led the way to the door.
She heard a low male groan as soon as she opened the door, her heart instantly tripping in alarm.
‘Come on, baby, give it to me,’ the stranger’s voice said. ‘I paid you double the money—now deliver.’
Charlotte shut the door with a snap and turned to face Damon’s thunderous frown, her back pressed flat against the door. ‘W-we can’t go in there…’
His jaw tightened until she could see a pulse leaping at the side of his mouth. ‘Your sister?’ he asked.
The colour of her shame answered for her. ‘Yes.’
‘How often does this occur?’ he asked.
She knew he wouldn’t believe her but she felt compelled to defend herself. ‘It hasn’t happened before, I swear it hasn’t.’
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