“Of course you can. You can do anything you set your mind to,” Gina said.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I’m not pumping you up, C. You’re one of the smartest, most resourceful and determined people I know. I know you can do this. If you want to.”
“I do. It’s not what I would have planned, but…”
Gina nodded, taking a big bite of toast. “So…what about Rhys?” she asked around her mouthful.
Charlie blinked, dragging her mind away from thoughts of child care and medical bills. “Sorry?”
“Rhys. What about him?”
Charlie stared at her friend, the meaning behind her words slowly sinking in. Because she hadn’t made this baby on her own. It was Rhys’s child, as well as her own.
“Oh, God,” she said. Bizarre as it seemed, she hadn’t thought about him once.
“Are you going to tell him?” Gina asked.
Charlie’s response was utterly instinctive and out her mouth before she could even think it over. “Yes. Absolutely.”
She said it fiercely, almost angrily, and Gina held up a hand.
“Just asking the question,” she said soothingly.
“Sorry.” Charlie rubbed her forehead. “My mum died when I was born. If it’s at all possible, I want this baby to have two parents.” There was a lump in her throat merely saying it out loud. Ridiculous after all these years, but in many ways, her mother’s absence had defined her life. Certainly it had defined her childhood. It wasn’t something she talked about a lot, and it wasn’t something she’d ever shared with Gina before.
“I didn’t know that. You never talk about her.”
“I didn’t know her.”
Gina hesitated a beat. “Look, I hate to be the voice of doom here, but you realize that Rhys might not be thrilled to hear from you, right? Setting aside the fact that we have to work out how to find the guy in the first place, this is going to be a huge bolt from the blue for him.”
“It’s not something I was expecting myself, you know.”
“Sure. I’m simply flagging it in case he’s an asshole about it, so you can be prepared. Legally, he has to support the baby, of course. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be sneaky.”
“He didn’t seem like an asshole.”
Charlie shook her head as soon as she heard her own words. She didn’t know anything about Rhys, not really. She knew he worked in I.T. and that he had a low, mellow voice and that when he looked at her he made her feel as though she was the center of the universe. But she didn’t know his last name, and she didn’t know what his childhood had been like, if he had siblings, what his politics were, if he was religious, if he was good or bad with money, if he was loyal or kind or generous…
She felt sick as the full import of her own thoughts struck home. She’d made a baby with a stranger. For the rest of her life, her world and his were going to be inextricably entwined. And she knew nothing about him.
“I need to work out how to contact him,” she said, forcing herself to focus on the practicalities of the situation.
“Do you remember his address?”
Charlie thought for a moment, but her mind was blank. She’d been so focused on getting inside Rhys’s apartment that night that she hadn’t paid much attention to anything else.
“No. But I think if I went over there and walked around I could probably find the apartment block again.”
“Okay. Then I guess it’s a matter of hanging around till he comes home,” Gina suggested.
The idea of lurking in the street to confront the father of her child felt incredibly sordid and sad to Charlie, but she was well aware that she didn’t have the luxury of being proud at this point. Not if she wanted her child to know his or her father.
And she did.
“I don’t suppose you remember the name of his company at all?” Gina asked.
Charlie frowned. “It was something to do with an animal. Right?”
Gina shrugged apologetically. “Sorry. I remember him mentioning it once or twice, but the details didn’t stick.”
Charlie’s frown deepened as a memory tickled at the back of her mind. It was something to do with his apartment. Something she’d seen there. A business card? Something to do with a logo or writing or something…
She shot to her feet suddenly. “My bag. I need my bag.” She glanced left and right but couldn’t see it.
“Where do you usually leave it, creature of habit?” Gina asked.
Charlie turned on her heel and almost ran into the bedroom. Her bag hung by its strap from the inside door handle. She grabbed it and returned to the living room. Without looking at Gina, she emptied the contents onto the coffee table. A handful of spare change rattled onto the glass, a couple of sticks of chewing gum, three pens, a small memo pad, her wallet, a pair of sunglasses, a couple of hair ties…and a small, crumpled ball of paper.
She snatched it up.
“Share, please. What is it you’re looking so excited about?” Gina asked.
“I wrote him a note before I left. But the first one was no good, so I threw it into my bag and wrote another.”
“Only you could write two drafts of a morning-after note,” Gina said fondly.
Charlie found an opening in the ball and used her thumb to tease it wider. Gina leaned forward as Charlie smoothed the piece of paper flat on the table.
Charlie closed her eyes with relief when she saw the graphic in the top right corner—a soaring falcon, with the name Falcon I.T. and two phone numbers printed beneath it, as well as a street address.
“That’s the easy part sorted, then. Now you just have to ring him and tell him the big news.”
Charlie’s stomach tensed. Whether she liked it or not—whether Rhys liked it or not—they’d made a baby that night eight weeks ago. He needed to know he was going to be a father, and she needed to know what kind of man he was.
“Couple more hours and he should be at his desk,” Gina said.
“I don’t think it’s the kind of conversation you have over the phone. I can’t call out of the blue and tell him something this big.”
“What are you going to do, then? Go over to his office and tell him in person?”
Charlie thought about it for a few seconds. “Well, yeah. I guess I am.”
“Man. You have balls of steel, my friend. I would totally make a phone call. Better yet, I’d send an email.”
“I want to start things on the right foot. If there is a right foot in this situation.”
“I’m not sure there is. But I’ll come with you if you like.”
Charlie felt a rush of affection for her friend. From the moment they’d met in recruit training, Gina had been a rock, funny and loyal and always on Charlie’s side.
“Thank you,” she said, her chest tight with emotion. “You’re the best.”
“So are you. And we’ll get through this, don’t worry. I’m a pretty good auntie, if I do say so myself. I bet my sister’s got a bunch of old baby stuff you could have, too. And there are heaps of parent groups around here.”
Charlie nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat. She was having a baby. Unplanned, unexpected—but not unwanted, surprising as that was to realize.
How…extraordinary.
RHYS WALKED to the terrace railing and looked out over the bright blue waters of Sydney Harbour. Behind him, the Finger Wharf stretched toward the shore. He could hear the real estate agent talking on his phone on the other side of the terrace, but he tuned out the man’s voice as he gazed across the water. It was a clear day and the wind was brisk, the force of it making his suit jacket billow behind him. He focused on a luxury yacht cutting its way across the harbor, the Manly ferry laboring in
the distance behind it.
This was a great view. One of the best in Sydney. It had a price tag to match, too—but Rhys’s gut told him there was a deal to be done here. The agent had called him this morning with the news that an apartment had come up in the Finger Wharf complex. The vendor wanted a quick sale—something to do with a divorce settlement—and Rhys had shuffled his appointments in order to make time for a viewing.
He’d known from the moment he walked in the door that this was exactly the kind of place he’d been looking for, but he’d kept his poker face on as he toured the three bedrooms and open-plan living area. Now he did some rapid mental calculations. He’d need to talk to the bank to confirm their willingness to extend his credit, but he was pretty sure he could stretch to within ninety percent of the price tag on this place. And if he couldn’t negotiate the agent down ten percent, he had no business being in business, full stop.
“So, what do you think?” the agent asked.
Rhys turned to face him. “Yeah, it’s nice.” He deliberately kept his voice uninflected, his face expressionless.
“Pretty amazing view.”
“Sure.” Rhys turned and gazed at the neighboring properties. Then he shrugged, doing his damnedest to appear nonchalant. “What’s the vendor looking for again?”
The real estate agent named a figure in the high one millions.
Rhys nodded. “Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you.”
“Don’t want to leave it too long—this one’s going to go fast,” the agent said with a toothy smile.
Rhys didn’t bother responding. He wasn’t about to be pressured into anything, certainly not a decision as big as this one.
“Thanks for the heads-up,” he said as he walked to the door. “I’ll talk to you later.”
The agent hurried to catch up with him. “So we’ll speak tonight, yeah? What time would you prefer?”
“I’ll call you,” Rhys said.
He stepped out of the apartment and onto the plush carpet of the suspended walkway that led to the elevators. He waited until he was safely in the elevator car before allowing himself to grin.
With a bit of luck, he could be calling this place home in a few weeks’ time. If the bank was willing to play ball.
He was pretty sure they would be. The Gainsborough contract was about to kick in, and Greg was in the process of wooing another big hotel chain. Their existing clients were all ticking over…
It was all coming together. Which meant he was perfectly positioned to swoop down on this place, after years of making do in a too-small apartment full of hand-me-down furniture. The elevator chimed to announce his arrival on the ground floor. Hands in his pockets, he walked slowly toward the shoreline, past bobbing yachts and wheeling seagulls and glinting water. His phone chirruped as he reached the commercial portion of the complex where restaurants and cafés spilled out on to the wharf. He pulled his phone from his pocket. The text was from Greg, checking a figure with him. He punched in the numbers his partner was seeking, then increased his pace to a brisk walk. Time to get back to work.
It took him fifteen minutes to make his way to Falcon’s offices at Bondi Junction. He made a call to the bank as he drove, leaving a message for his business banker, Peter. Sometime between now and this evening he needed to decide whether he was going to put an offer in for the wharf apartment, and he couldn’t do that without Peter’s imprimatur.
He parked in the garage beneath the building and made his way up to the fourth floor. He could see their receptionist, Julie, talking on her headset as he approached the double glass doors to reception. There were a couple of people in the waiting area and he checked his watch. He didn’t have any appointments until midday and it was only ten-thirty, so they were probably for Greg.
“Yo, Julie,” he said as he pushed through the glass doors.
“Rhys. You’re back.” Julie shot a glance toward the waiting area, her brow furrowed.
“I am. Like I said I would be.” He reached for the handful of phone messages with his name scrawled across the top.
“I’m expecting some people at midday, okay?” He headed for his office.
“Wait,” Julie said, stopping him in his tracks. She lowered her voice. “There’s someone here to see you. I told her that you were busy and to leave her name so you could set up an appointment, but she insisted on waiting.”
He was aware of movement in the waiting area. He glanced over and saw a tall, slender woman rising to her feet. She was dressed conservatively in tailored navy trousers and a navy dress shirt, her hair pulled into a neat ponytail. Her features were small and nondescript and his gaze slid off her face and back to Julie’s.
“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said anxiously.
“It’s fine,” Rhys reassured her.
The woman walked toward him and he put on his best professional smile and turned to deal with what was almost certainly an unsolicited pitch for the business’s telephone contract or office supplies.
He went very still as he found himself staring into warm, cinnamon-brown eyes.
“Charlie.”
CHAPTER FIVE
SHE WAS VERY PALE. His gaze raked her from head to toe, taking in her businesslike—almost uniformlike—clothes, the sensible shoes, the no-nonsense hairdo.
She looked completely different from the woman he’d spent the night with two months ago. That woman was sultry and lithe and sexy. This woman looked as though she’d be great at doing his taxes.
His gaze returned to her face. She was watching him closely, her expression guarded.
“Rhys,” she said. Her voice caught on the single word and she cleared her throat. “I’m sorry to drop in on you like this, but do you have a moment to talk?”
He was still trying to catch up with the idea that she was here. That after dashing off a note then leaving his apartment in the early hours, she was suddenly at his place of business, wanting to talk.
“I was pretty sure I would never see you again.” It sounded like an accusation and it was his turn to clear his throat.
Her hands were clutched together at her waist. “Is there somewhere we can talk?” she asked.
He glanced over his shoulder. Julie was watching them with avid eyes. She was young, as were a lot of his team. He didn’t particularly want the entire staff knowing about his personal life. Especially since most of them had been at Café Sydney the night he met Charlie.
“There’s a coffee shop across the road.”
He automatically took Charlie’s elbow to guide her to the door, but after a few steps she slipped free. He eyed her as he hit the button for the elevator.
“What’s going on, Charlie?”
She glanced up the hallway toward the stairwell, almost as though she was looking for an escape route.
“Maybe we should wait until we’re across the street.”
The elevator arrived. She stepped inside and he followed. He was getting over the shock of seeing her so unexpectedly, his brain starting to work again.
It had been two months. And since she was the one who had walked out on him, he guessed she must have a powerful reason for suddenly making contact with him. A number of options sprang to mind and he didn’t like any of them.
Her head was bowed, and his gaze gravitated to the delicate hollow at the nape of her neck. He’d kissed her there, pushing her hair to one side. She’d shivered and pressed her body against his…
He shoved his hands into his suit pockets and focused on the floor indicator. Now was not the time for a trip down memory lane.
She stepped into the foyer when they arrived at the ground floor, shooting him an uncertain look over her shoulder. He took the lead, directing her outside and diagonally across the road to the no-frills coffe
e shop where he usually grabbed lunch.
Jenna and Carl both looked up from behind the counter as he entered, Carl lifting a hand in greeting. Rhys gave them a tight smile before heading for the corner table. Charlie pulled out her own chair before he could do it for her. Her hands were shaking, a fact she tried to disguise by hiding them beneath the table. The edgy feeling that had been creeping up on him intensified as he looked at her.
Charlie shifted in her chair. “Um, how have you been?”
“What’s going on, Charlie?”
She closed her eyes for a long moment. Then she opened them and looked him dead in the eye. “I’m pregnant.”
“What?” He sat back in his chair as though he’d been pushed. “That’s not possible. We used condoms. Lots of them.”
“I know. I’m still pregnant. Eight weeks and two days, to be exact.”
He stared at her. His brain was an empty echoing space. He couldn’t think.
“I’ve done two tests, and I’ve got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow afternoon to confirm it. But I haven’t had my period for two months so I don’t think there’s much doubt.” She offered a weak smile.
“But we used condoms,” he said, leaning forward, as though he could drive home the truth of his words with the force of his body language.
“Condoms are only ninety-five to ninety-eight percent effective,” she said. “I looked it up.”
Rhys shook his head. “No. This can’t be right. No one has sex three times and gets pregnant.”
She sat a little straighter. The tendons showed in her neck and, when she swallowed, the sound was audible. He studied her small, neat features, some distant part of him surprised anew by how different the reality of Charlie was from his memory of her. But maybe he shouldn’t be surprised. It had been a long time, after all. And they’d known each other only a few hours. In effect, the woman sitting across the table was a complete stranger, despite the fact that he’d been incredibly intimate with her.
Despite the fact that, according to her, she was pregnant with his child.
He couldn’t process it, it was so huge. So life changing.
More Than One Night Page 7