Her One and Only Valentine

by Trish Wylie

  Rhiannon momentarily felt dizzy.

  ‘I’ll go and make arrangements to have equipment sent up from Dublin so I can work from here.’

  Just like that? He was already making plans to move in?

  ‘And I’ll spend time with her when she gets home from school.’

  He’d be right here, under the same roof, where she would have to stand by and watch as he tried to bond with Lizzie.

  ‘And then you’ll tell her who I am.’

  From somewhere she finally found some words. ‘You can’t be like this with her. You’ll have to try being nice.’

  A sudden burst of sharp laughter caught her off guard. A laugh of disbelief, as if he didn’t know how she’d just had the audacity to say what she had.

  ‘Ah, but she didn’t hold this back from me, did she? Why would I be angry at her?’

  Rhiannon shook her head, a deathly sense of calm washing over her in the face of the inevitable. ‘Fine. I obviously don’t have a choice. And, to be honest, I’m done arguing with the people living under the same roof as me, even if they’re only staying temporarily.’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  And that just proved how vulnerable she was in her current state of emotional exhaustion, if ‘secrets’ were spilling out. ‘It means that I have to tell her if you’re determined to have access to her, because I won’t put her through a battle. But she does need to spend some time with you and settle into her life here first. And that’s a request for her sake, not for mine.’

  ‘We’re not talking months when it comes to telling her. I’m not even talking weeks. I’m talking days—within the week. Otherwise I tell her.’

  Rhiannon closed her eyes for a moment. The temptation to run was so strong it was like a fishing line tugging at the back of her sweater. But she’d promised herself when they came to Brookfield that it would be the last time they moved.

  When she opened her eyes Kane was studying her, a deep vertical frown line between his blue eyes—a sign that he frowned often, no doubt. But in the depths of his eyes there wasn’t just anger, there was something else—a mixture of what looked like consideration of a puzzle yet to be solved, as if he was somehow trying to size her up.

  And, for some reason, Rhiannon found herself fascinated by that, distracted even. For a heartbeat she forgot all the difficulties between them and was curious about the man who stood in front of her. Had he really been the person she’d once thought he was or had he lied to her all along? Why had he left the way he had? What had driven him to be so successful when he could simply have sat back and lived on the money his family already had?

  Who was Kane Healey, really?

  But all she really wanted to know was whether he could be the kind of father that Lizzie deserved. She prayed he could be. And now he was going to be a part of her life, and Rhiannon knew she was going to have to learn to live with that.

  Because the sooner everything was sorted out, the sooner he would go.

  She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips and fixed her gaze at a point past Kane’s shoulder. ‘I’ll tell her as soon as she’s comfortable with you. But we can’t argue in front of her like this. If you have anything to say to me, you say it when she’s not here. She shouldn’t have to pay the price for our dislike of each other.’

  Kane stepped sideways, his upper arm brushing briefly against her shoulder as he walked past, causing a sudden crackle of static to pass through the wool to her skin.

  ‘She’s lived her entire life without a father. I’d say she’s already paid, wouldn’t you?’

  Rhiannon stood in the cold room for a long time after he left, her eyes dry and sore, while inside she felt—nothing, as if a part of her had just given up. It occurred to her that she should at least have wanted to cry, just a little, while she was alone.

  But, with a resigned sigh, she knew a part of her had always known this day would come. All she had to do now was find the right words to explain it to Lizzie.

  And a way to live under the same roof as the man she had spent a decade of her life hating.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  KANE looked out of his office’s floor-to-ceiling windows, over the city and the River Liffey far below, swinging back and forth in his chair while he tapped one long finger against his chin.

  It was the first time in years that he’d felt so completely floored, thrown by something he really hadn’t been prepared for. To suddenly discover that Rhiannon had kept that big a secret from him for so long—

  Well, suffice to say it had been a long time since he’d been so angry at anyone; usually he considered himself an even-tempered kind of a guy. After all, he was more aware than most of how life could be too short to get heated up over things.

  But how could she have possibly thought he wouldn’t have cared that he had a child? Hadn’t she known him at all? Did she honestly think he’d have walked away from something like that? Damn her!

  ‘So, basically the offer is on the table.’ His corporate solicitor continued talking behind him. ‘The shareholders—and you are, of course, a major one—stand to make a fortune.’

  He forced his mind to follow the conversation. ‘If they vote to accept it.’

  ‘Well, obviously there are still months of negotiations but I’d say it’s a safe bet they will.’

  Kane continued swinging back and forth, his mind elsewhere. It was a bad time for him to be forced away from the office too…But for the first time in years he had something infinitely more important than his company and his work to think of. Nothing was more important than getting to know his child. Not even an attempt from an overseas company to make a takeover. Takeovers he could deal with, shareholders he could deal with, million dollar technological developments he was used to dealing with on an almost weekly basis. The time with his child that he’d had stolen from him was something he would never, ever deal with.

  How in hell could Rhiannon live with herself? All right, maybe not so much when it came to how he would feel, but to have deprived her daughter of her father…?

  ‘It’s a once in a lifetime offer, Kane. How many men are self-made millionaires before they’re thirty-two?’

  Kane took a breath. ‘How many men can stand by and watch something they put their soul into split up into tiny pieces and swallowed by a company seeking worldwide domination of the market?’ He swung the chair around to look the older man in the eye. ‘It’ll mean a loss of creative control and some major job losses. And neither of those things sit well with me.’

  Particularly the latter—because the value of family might not mean much to Rhiannon MacNally, but it meant something to Kane. As far as he was concerned, people came first.

  ‘Well, yes.’ The man looked vaguely confused at Kane’s lack of enthusiasm. ‘But this sort of thing happens all the time; it’s the way of the world. Job losses happen every day.’

  He studied his adviser for long silent minutes. He’d built Micro-Tech from virtually nothing with the help of a small group of investors and, of course, Mattie Blair’s faith. But, regardless of what had driven him to succeed, Kane still found it difficult to let go, even for such a large financial reward. Yes, he could agree to it all—to the takeover and the job losses—but he would have a problem looking in the mirror in the mornings. And now that he had a daughter it seemed even more important to him that he was able to do that.

  He swung his chair back towards the windows, not allowing his gaze to stray towards the vicinity of Trinity University, where he had first met Rhiannon, while he focused on more important thoughts.

  It might not make much sense to want to be the sort of man a child would feel proud to have as a father when that child had lived almost a decade with an absentee father, but it was how Kane felt. If she was his then he had to step up and try to make up for the years Rhiannon had stolen from them both.

  He frowned at the view in front of him. Maybe he should have figured it out, believed in what they had had at the time so tha
t he hadn’t been so quick to think she’d moved on to someone else the second he was gone. But he’d had so much to deal with, had been so eaten up with bitterness and anger and an inevitable sense of fear…

  Whereas Rhiannon had thought a letter was enough to ease her damn conscience!

  He had to focus on the here and now. What he needed was a plan. Maybe a plan would make him feel better, more in control, more proactive.

  Step one was the knowledge that the loss of jobs involved in a takeover would have a devastating effect on a lot of people and their families—people who had gone out on a limb with him in the first place. And he couldn’t allow that to happen if he wanted to be the kind of self-respecting father any child deserved.

  Step two, as he sung his chair back round again, was to make sure everyone was clear where he stood—and quickly—so that he could get back to Brookfield to right a wrong that he may well have to admit to being part of, because he’d left when he had.

  And that meant that part of step three would have to be to discover just how much of a difference his leaving had made to Rhiannon’s decision. Because he needed to understand, not so that he could forgive her—he doubted that was even possible—but so he could at least find a way to deal with her.

  After all, she was the mother of his child.

  ‘Every kid should have a dog, don’t you think, Kane?’

  ‘Not every kid does, though.’

  ‘Yeah, but they should.’

  Kane smiled patiently at her. ‘You don’t give up easy, do you?’

  Lizzie shrugged. ‘Mum says I get my determine…detre…’

  ‘Determination?’

  She smiled. ‘Yeah, that thing. I always get the word wrong. Anyway, she says I get it from my dad.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s s’posed to be a good thing.’

  He nodded in agreement. ‘It can be; it helps you get the things you need to get.’

  ‘And I need a dog and a pony.’ She nodded curtly as she spoke, handing him another empty box to tear into flat pieces.

  ‘And you think you’ll get them if you pester her enough—is that the plan?’

  ‘Mum? Yes.’ Her nose wrinkled again. ‘If it’s not too expensive. We aren’t rich.’

  Kane smiled again at her matter-of-fact way of laying down the truth. But then he was enthralled by everything about her.

  How could Rhiannon have kept all this from him for so long? She’d had no right to keep him from his child’s first smile, first laugh, first step, first words—all of the things he would never get back or ever experience…

  Even with only a few days of new-found knowledge, he couldn’t ever remember resenting someone as much as he did Rhiannon. Hence he had chosen to stick closer to Lizzie since he’d moved in rather than allowing the tension that lay thick in the air when Rhiannon was around to affect Lizzie. At least on that one subject he could agree with her mother.

  Clenching his jaw as a thought occurred to him, he forced nonchalance into his voice as he asked, ‘Didn’t your dad get you a pony or a dog before?’

  ‘You mean Stephen?’ She shook her head, a shadow briefly crossing her bright eyes. ‘He wanted me to go to boarding school and said if I had a dog or a pony it couldn’t go. But Mum didn’t want me to go to boarding school. It’s better when it’s just me and Mum. And if we had a dog and a pony it would be perfect.’

  Well, there was never going to be any problem getting information out of Lizzie, was there? That realization, along with the stunning sense of relief that washed over him that she had never called anyone else Daddy, brought a small smile back on to Kane’s face. ‘You always call him Stephen?’

  ‘Yep,’ She grinned as she lifted a pile of pony magazines out of a box. ‘My mum called him Stephen.’ She giggled and leaned closer to whisper, ‘And some bad names too when she thought I couldn’t hear her.’

  Kane chuckled. Despite the fact that it was another subject he agreed with Rhiannon on—he had called Stephen plenty of names over the years. There was just something about him that had always grated on Kane’s nerves.

  With a large bag of ripped up cardboard in one hand, he followed Lizzie on to the landing. His smile was still in place when she turned to check that he was following her, slowing down to allow him to catch up with her when in reality he could have managed it in two strides.

  It was thoughtful of her. She was an amazing kid.

  ‘Do you have any kids, Kane?’

  His breath caught at the innocent question. How in hell was he supposed to answer that one? It wasn’t as if he could say, Not that I knew of. And Rhiannon had made it very clear that she had never even hinted at it to Lizzie before. Damn her.

  ‘Are you married?’

  ‘You’re just full of questions, aren’t you?’ He swapped the bag to his other hand. ‘Should I call my solicitor before we go any further?’

  Lizzie stopped at the top of the stairs, turning and frowning up at him as one small hand brushed back a long strand of hair from her face—hair the same colour as his, the eyes that were looking up at him the same colour as his. It was surreal.

  ‘Why would you need to call one of them? Are you getting a divorce too?’

  ‘No, I’ve never been married. It’s in case you ask me anything I might get into trouble with the police for.’

  Her eyes rounded. ‘Have you been in trouble with the police, like one of those guys on TV?’

  A loud peal of male laughter escaped to echo up and around the cavernous entrance hall. ‘That would make me much more interesting than I actually am.’

  ‘Well, I think you’re interesting.’ She smiled up at him, then turned and headed down the wide staircase.

  ‘Thank you.’ The sense of pride that gave him as he followed her grew exponentially.

  ‘Stephen thinks you’re interesting, he used to ask Mum tons of things about you.’

  I’ll just bet he did. Kane frowned briefly at the back of her head, forcing his voice to stay light. ‘Stephen and I know each other from a long time ago; he was probably just wondering how I’ve been getting along all these years since I last saw him.’

  Lizzie turned her head slightly as she got near the bottom of the stairs. ‘What is a control freak, anyway?’

  Kane blinked innocently. ‘A what?’

  ‘It’s what Stephen said you are.’

  ‘Did he now?’

  She bobbed her head before turning on her heel and grabbing hold of the banister as she jumped off the second last step. ‘And something about being over a bear.’

  He quirked a brow as she pushed the door to the kitchen. ‘Overbearing?’

  She grinned. ‘Yeah, that and another thing about—’

  ‘Lizzie?’

  Both sets of eyes turned in the general direction of Rhiannon’s softly demanding voice.

  But while Kane surrendered to a swift wave of pure unadulterated resentment again—for the simple reason that every time he saw her he had an immediate, uninvited visceral response—Lizzie was quick to bounce on regardless.

  ‘Oh, hi, Mum. We unpacked all the stuff for my room and Kane helped me tear up the boxes.’

  ‘That was good of him.’ Rhiannon glanced at the anger in his eyes before refocusing on her daughter, as if she saw her as some kind of shield between them. ‘So what were you just saying to Kane?’

  Lizzie shrugged. ‘We were talking about Stephen.’

  Kane watched Rhiannon’s throat convulse as she swallowed, her eyes flickering up to his face and then away before she answered with a tightlipped, ‘I see.’

  Yeah. He’d just bet she did. Because she’d known from the start how little he thought of Stephen and yet she’d still gone ahead and married him and allowed him to become some kind of a stand-in father figure to Lizzie too. It was hellish hard to swallow.

  His eyes narrowed when she looked back at him.

  ‘Kane says they were friends from way back.’

  Rhiannon’s finely arched eyebrows rose, her brown eyes full of
disbelief. ‘Friends?’

  Kane rectified the misconception in a flat tone. ‘I said we knew each other.’

  Lizzie looked surprised. ‘You weren’t friends?’

  Forcing a smile in the face of such innocent curiosity, he added, ‘Not exactly, no.’

  ‘How come?’

  He took a breath. ‘Because we don’t always get on with everyone we know.’

  ‘Just like you don’t get on with everyone in school.’

  Kane glanced at Rhiannon again as she spoke, understanding immediately what she was doing but ignoring any hint of a rapport between them that that might have indicated. He was way past the stage of appreciating anything nice she might try to do, even if she was currently trying to smooth over a difficult topic on his behalf.

  Lizzie sighed. ‘Mum’s still mad at me ’cos I pushed Sarah McCracken and she fell down.’

  ‘Little girls don’t go around pushing other little girls over.’ Rhiannon glanced at Lizzie, then briefly up at Kane before concentrating on unwrapping a few more of the plates on the table in front of her, stacking them into a rapidly growing pile. ‘Even when the other little girl says something they don’t agree with.’

  Wasn’t finding it easy to look at him for long, was she? Kane smiled a small smile as he glanced down again, trying to keep all of his attention on Lizzie. Maybe her mother was starting to feel a little guilty? Well, she damn well should!

  ‘What did Sarah say?’

  Lizzie shrugged again. ‘She said I only played football so that the boys would like me.’

  He bit back a larger smile. ‘And do you?’

  ‘You want to watch she doesn’t push you too. She may look all sweetness and light, but she has a temper.’

  Like her mother used to have. Kane remembered the sometimes heated debates they used to have; he remembered how defensive she’d been about where she’d come from and how single-minded she’d been about making something of her life. And she’d managed it through a marriage into one of the oldest families in Dublin in the end, hadn’t she? She’d traded up.