A Night, A Secret...A Child

by Miranda Lee

  Somehow, Nicolas managed to murmur something sympathetic. But his mind was whirling with the things Felicity’s grandmother had just told him.

  If she was Felicity’s grandmother, Nicolas began thinking with a sick, hollow feeling forming in the pit of his stomach…Surely Serina wouldn’t have done that? Surely not? But the evidence he’d just heard suggested differently.

  His eyes started to scan the room, searching for her.

  ‘Come on, Mother,’ Bert said gently as he took his weeping wife’s arm. ‘Let’s go get you a nice cup of tea. Lovely talking to you, Mr Dupre. And thanks once again for donating that terrific sum of money. You’ve made Felicity one extremely happy girl tonight.’

  Serina knew, the moment her eyes met Nicolas’s across the crowded hall, that what she’d feared would happen ever since she heard Nicolas was returning to Rocky Creek had just happened.

  Never had she seen Nicolas look at her like that. There wasn’t just anger in his eyes, or disbelief… There was sheer unadulterated horror.

  ‘God help me,’ she muttered under her breath as he came striding towards her, where she was thankfully standing by herself behind the drinks table.

  ‘We need to talk, Serina,’ he growled. ‘Now!’

  ‘What about?’ she asked with feigned innocence whilst her heart was thudding wildly behind her ribs and nausea swirled in her stomach.

  His eyes narrowed on her, his expression uncompromising in the extreme. ‘I think you know what about.’

  ‘Not unless you tell me.’

  ‘You really want me to say it here? To shout out to all and sundry that Felicity is not your husband’s daughter, but mine,’ he hissed. ‘Because I will if you don’t make some excuse and come with me right here and now.’

  Serina thought she was going to faint as she saw her whole world crashing around her. Not just her world, but her daughter’s as well. And lots of other people’s.

  But he can’t know, came the saving thought as she gripped the edge of the table, steadying her body as well as her mind. He just suspects. You can bluff this out, girl. You have to bluff it out.

  ‘I can’t imagine what Franny and Bert said to you to make you think such an outrageous thing,’ she said with superb calm. ‘But you’re dead wrong. Felicity is Greg’s daughter. Not yours.’ Which she was, in every way but biologically.

  ‘I don’t believe you, Serina,’ he challenged. ‘Now are we going to argue about this here, or are you going to come with me?’

  ‘Come where?’ Not his apartment. No way was she going to go there again!

  ‘Somewhere private,’ he spluttered.

  Felicity’s bouncing up to her mother right at that moment with Kirsty by her side was both a blessing and a curse.

  ‘Kirsty wants me to go to her place for a sleepover,’ she said. ‘Can I, Mum? Can I, please?’

  ‘Felicity, I…’

  ‘Oh, please, Mrs Harmon,’ Kirsty begged. ‘Mum says it’s okay. Then we could spend tomorrow together.’

  Serina knew there would be no dissuading them, not once they ganged up on her. On top of that, it provided her with the perfect solution over where to take Nicolas. She would feel much safer facing him in her own home; safer, and stronger.

  ‘All right, then,’ she said, relenting. ‘What about clothes?’

  ‘She can borrow some of mine, Mrs Harmon,’ Kirsty said. ‘We’re exactly the same size.’

  ‘Fine. Just don’t go doing anything silly.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like going too far into the bush looking for more sick koalas. The weather forecast for tomorrow is very hot, even hotter than today, and windy—perfect bushfire weather. Promise me you’ll stay close to Kirsty’s place.’

  ‘We promise,’ the two girls chorused.

  ‘You could go out with Nicolas again tonight, if you wanted to,’ Felicity added, and Kirsty giggled.

  It didn’t surprise Serina that her daughter was still trying to matchmake her with Nicolas. That girl never let up, once she got a bee in her bonnet. If only she knew!

  ‘What a good idea,’ Nicolas said immediately with a coldly cryptic smile. ‘I enjoyed the time I spent with your mother today very much. We’ve always been great mates. We could go the movies, Serina, like we used to.’

  Serina felt all the blood drain from her face. Because of course they never went to the movies in the past. They just told their parents that was where they were going. They always spent the time making love.

  If he thought he could somehow coerce her into having more sex with him, then he was sadly mistaken. But then an appalling thought popped into her head. What if he said he’d tell everyone in Rocky Creek he was Felicity’s father if she didn’t do just that?

  Surely he wouldn’t do a wicked thing like that. Surely not!

  Nicolas saw her moment of realisation. Saw, also, the way her chin rose, her eyes spearing his with tigerish fury.

  ‘I’m way too tired to go to the movies,’ she returned coolly. ‘But you can come back to my place for some coffee, if you like.’

  He didn’t like. He didn’t want to go where she’d played happy family with Greg Harmon with his daughter. But he could hardly make a fuss in front of Felicity and her friend.

  Frankly, Nicolas wasn’t sure what he was going to do as yet. Except make Serina suffer for a while.

  She deserved to suffer, if what he suspected was true.

  ‘An excellent idea,’ he said crisply.

  ‘I can’t leave straight away,’ Serina said once Felicity and Kirsty ran off together. ‘I have to help clean up here. As you can see, the party’s coming to a close and there’s lots of mess. All the plastic chairs have to be stacked up and put away as well.’

  Nicolas controlled himself with difficulty. He was used to getting his own way with things, used to people jumping to do his bidding.

  Serina was clearly past doing his bidding. It came to him suddenly that she’d only appeared to do so this afternoon because she had a secret agenda. To get him out of Rocky Creek as soon as possible. As much as she might have seemed to enjoy his lovemaking, she was probably faking it, the same way she’d faked her mad passion that night at the Opera House. All to get him to have sex with her without protection. All to conceive the child that she knew Greg Harmon couldn’t give her.

  A dark fury—and even darker desires—filled his soul as he thought about that night. What a fool he’d been! A blind besotted fool! But he would have her again—tonight. And she’d let him. Because that would be his bargain. One more night of sex in exchange for his silence, plus his departure tomorrow…

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SERINA expected him to argue with her. But he didn’t.

  ‘In that case, I’ll help,’ he said. ‘That way, you’ll be finished more quickly.’

  Which was true. Nicolas, the celebrated entrepreneur, was also a splendid organiser. Within thirty minutes everything was cleared away, the floors swept, the chairs stacked. Fortunately, during this time, her mother had left to take a tired Mrs Johnson home and Felicity had gone off with Kirsty and her parents.

  Night was just falling when they emerged from the hall at eight-thirty, by which time Serina had her arguments all fixed firmly in her mind. She clung to the fact that Nicolas had no proof, just suspicion.

  ‘It’s still very hot out here,’ he complained straight away. ‘I hope your place has air-conditioning. If it doesn’t we’ll be going elsewhere.’

  Serina kept her temper with difficulty. ‘It has air-conditioning. On a timer, which I set for eight. The house should be nice and cool by the time we get there. But even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be going anywhere else with you, Nicolas Dupre.’

  ‘Is that so?’ came his cold reply. ‘That’s a matter to be seen. My wheels are over here.’ And he took a hold of her arm.

  She would have wrenched her arm away if other people hadn’t been nearby. ‘I have my own wheels, thank you very much,’ she said and extracted herself careful
ly from his grasp. ‘It’s the white car over there. You can follow me home, it’s not far.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘Less than a kilometre. I live up at the top end of Winter Street. Remember the old strawberry farm? Well, developers bought it, tore down the dump of a farmhouse and turned it into a very nice estate. Greg and I bought a block of land there not long after we got married.’

  Nicolas really didn’t want to hear about Serina’s life with Greg Harmon. He was still finding it hard to believe what she’d done. The girl he’d known—and loved—wasn’t capable of such deception. There again, the girl who’d come to him that night at the Opera House hadn’t been that same girl. She’d been engaged to Greg Harmon by then. Madly in love with him, obviously, and ready to do anything for him.

  But what she’d done had been downright wicked!

  If that was what she did, another voice piped up in his head. One that wasn’t quite so ready to condemn. One that was still connected to reason. You might be wrong, Nicolas. Not about Felicity being your daughter, but about how and why she was conceived. Serina might not have planned anything. Maybe it just…happened.

  But if that was the case, then why did she go through with marrying Harmon? Why didn’t she come to me? I would have married her. I loved her.

  No, he was right the first time. She’d planned it all right.

  He knew women could do such things. His own mother had.

  His heart hardened once again towards Serina. She had to be made to tell him the truth. Okay, so he probably wouldn’t blackmail her back into his bed. Even he could not condone that kind of outrageous behaviour, much as his dark side relished the idea. That had just been his anger talking and a primal urge for vengeance.

  By the time Serina pulled in to the driveway of a cream, cement-rendered, ranch-style home, Nicolas had himself come halfway to reason. But only halfway. He wasn’t in the mood for any bulldust from her.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to keep on denying it,’ were his first words on joining her on the neat front porch.

  She ignored him and went on unlocking the front door.

  ‘Watch your feet,’ she finally said when she pushed the door open. ‘I have a cat who just loves to wind herself around your legs. Her name is Midnight.’

  Nicolas wasn’t one for pets, but he didn’t mind cats. He quite liked their independence.

  Not that Serina’s cat seemed to be displaying much of that. She almost tripped both of them up in her rush for attention. Serina eventually scooped the big black cat up into her arms and carried her down the cream-tiled hallway into an open-planned living area that combined the kitchen, dining and sitting rooms.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said soothingly, stroking the cat’s glossy black fur for a while before dropping her onto the kitchen floor. ‘Mummy’s home. I suppose you’re hungry.’ And she turned away to open the refrigerator door.

  Nicolas could see that any hope of conversation was nil till the cat was attended to. So he sat down on one of the cane stools that fronted the breakfast bar and shut his mouth whilst he watched Serina fix her pet’s food.

  Eventually, however, his eyes strayed to his immediate surroundings.

  For a house that hadn’t looked all that large from the street, the inside was extremely spacious, especially this section where there was enough room for a couple of loungers, a huge television, lots of side tables and a large, oval-shaped dining table that would easily seat ten people. The floor was tiled in the same cream tiles as the hallway, but with well-placed rugs for warmth and comfort. The walls were cream, the furniture in various shades of brown and green. It was a well-designed area, perfect for family living and gatherings.

  Before he could stop himself, Nicolas began thinking of all the family get-togethers that would have taken place in this room: the birthdays parties, the anniversaries, the Christmases.

  He stared at Serina and wondered if she’d ever felt guilty over what she’d done. It seemed impossible that she hadn’t given him a second thought over the years. He was her daughter’s father, for pity’s sake.

  There again, this whole situation seemed impossible.

  Suddenly, her fussing over Midnight annoyed the hell out of him.

  ‘If you’ve finally finished with that damned animal,’ he snapped, ‘do you think we might get back to the subject at hand?’

  She stood up and glared at him, her shoulders as straight as her gaze. ‘Look, I already told you. Felicity is Greg’s daughter, not yours. I can’t imagine what Bert and Franny told you to make you believe otherwise.’

  ‘Several things,’ he shot back at her. ‘Firstly, they expressed their gratitude that their son had been lucky enough to have at least one child. It seems having mumps as an adolescent can lead to sterility.’

  ‘Greg was not sterile,’ she countered quite firmly, ‘and I can prove it. We had tests done when we didn’t conceive another child. He did have a low sperm count. But he could still have become a father.’

  ‘But not of a musical prodigy,’ Nicolas snapped. ‘Serina, do you think I’m totally blind? How many twelve-year-old girls can play like Felicity did tonight? She didn’t come from some tone-deaf father!’

  ‘She’s my daughter, too, you know,’ Serina argued, her face becoming quite flushed. ‘I wasn’t half-bad at music.’

  ‘You were merely adequate.’

  Her hands found her hips. ‘Oh, thank you very much.’

  ‘You can snap and snarl all you like. But I know what I know. Felicity is my daughter.’

  ‘In that case, how can you explain her birth date, which can also be verified? Felicity was born exactly nine months after our wedding day, ten months after I slept with you that night. Since you’re such a genius, you should be able to do the maths. She couldn’t possibly be your daughter!’

  Nicolas had been waiting for this argument to surface.

  ‘I fell for that argument once before, Serina,’ he retorted, finding calm in the face of her growing hysteria. ‘But not tonight. Bert and Franny also waxed lyrical about how beautiful Felicity looked when she was born. Nothing like their son, who’d been all wrinkly. Not like a newborn at all, Franny said.’

  He watched as Serina struggled to find something to say. But failed.

  ‘She was late being born, wasn’t she?’ he charged. ‘Very late.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she spluttered. ‘No doctor worth his salt would let a mother go that late these days. He would have given me an induction.’

  ‘The doctor probably didn’t know you were that late. Because you gave him the wrong dates. Now let me guess. You didn’t have an ultrasound during your pregnancy. You made up some excuse about being superstitious about them. Maybe I could ask your mother and verify my suspicions.’

  Serina crossed her arms. ‘What you’re saying is just so much rubbish! I don’t know if you’re mad, or just delusional.’

  ‘If you keep denying it, Serina, I will have a DNA test done and then there will be no further arguments.’

  Her arms fell open, as did her mouth. ‘You can’t do that! Not without my permission.’

  ‘Oh, yes I can. Trust me. All I need is a good lawyer and a court order. Soon, I’ll have what you’ve denied me for twelve years. Proof of my paternity, then access to my daughter.’

  ‘Don’t do this, Nicolas!’ Serina cried, coming forward to grip the edge of the countertop.

  ‘Don’t do what?’

  ‘Don’t destroy your daughter’s life.’

  ‘So she is my daughter.’

  There was a stricken silence from Serina, then a long shuddering sigh as her head drooped. ‘Yes,’ she confessed brokenly. ‘Yes, she’s your daughter!’

  Nicolas felt like someone had struck him. It was one thing to suspect something, quite another to hear it from the only person who knew. He was sitting there, stunned, when her head lifted, her eyes flooded with tears.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nicolas,’ she choked out, ‘so sorry.’

&nbs
p; ‘She’s sorry,’ he repeated numbly.

  ‘I never meant to hurt you. I never meant any of it. What I did…it was wrong. But not intentional.’

  ‘Not intentional,’ he repeated, all the while trying to control the emotions welling up inside him. Not fury so much anymore. In its place was a deep sadness, and a dreadful, dreadful emptiness.

  ‘By the time I found out I was pregnant,’ she cried, ‘the wedding was upon me and I…I didn’t have the courage to just walk away.’

  ‘You should have told me,’ he said bleakly.

  ‘I should have. Yes.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You didn’t love me. You loved him.’

  Again, she fell silent, shaking her head from side to side.

  ‘Did you know Harmon couldn’t have kids when you slept with me? Did you do it to give him the child you knew he couldn’t have.’

  Nicolas could not deny the shock that filled her face. ‘No! No! I would never do a thing like that. And Greg could have children. I told you. He just had a low sperm count.’

  ‘If that’s the case, when did you know she was mine?’

  ‘Oh, God,’ she sobbed, then snatched a handful of tissues from a box on the counter, turning away from him as she blew her nose.

  ‘I’m waiting for an answer, Serina,’ Nicolas said with barely held patience.

  Her sigh was weary, her eyes haunted. ‘I knew all along,’ she confessed. ‘I…I hadn’t slept with Greg during the last couple of months of our engagement. He wanted to make our wedding night special, he said.’

  ‘And was it?’ Nicolas asked bitterly.

  ‘I’m not going to answer that.’

  ‘You’ll answer anything I ask you. And you’ll do anything I ask you. Or you know what will happen. I’ll tell everyone in Rocky Creek the truth and to hell with you.’