The Billionaire's Christmas Baby. Marion Lennox

      He smiled. She sensed it rather than saw it. Nice, she thought, and hugged her knees a bit more.

      It really was weirdly intimate, sitting in the moonlight in her almost-PJs, talking to this...stranger.

      ‘I’m guessing here,’ he ventured, sounding cautious. ‘But am I hearing the voice of experience? You’ve worked out a eulogy for someone you didn’t like?’

      That was enough to destroy any hint of intimacy. She hugged her knees a bit tighter, needing the comfort.

      ‘I might have.’

      ‘These kids you looked after...were they your brothers and sisters?’

      ‘It’s none of your business.’

      ‘It’s not,’ he agreed. ‘But you know a lot about me now. It’s dark, we’re both tired and this is a weird space. I wouldn’t mind pretending I’m not alone in it.’

      And she got it.

      He was sitting in an impersonal hotel half a world away from where he lived. He was holding a baby he hadn’t known existed and later that morning he’d have to stand in a vast cathedral and speak about a father it sounded as if he’d loathed.

      He felt alone? He felt as if he needed some sort of reassurance that he wasn’t the only one who’d ended up in a mess up to their neck?

      After tomorrow she’d never see this man again. Why not give it to him?

      ‘I gave my mother’s eulogy when I was fourteen,’ she said and she felt rather than saw the shock her words caused.

      ‘At fourteen...’

      ‘There was no one else. Mum died of an overdose after she’d alienated everyone. I never knew my father. She had me a couple of years after she’d run away from home, and then there was a gap. Who knows why? Maybe she was responsible enough to use birth control for a while, but it didn’t last. The next four babies came in quick succession and for some reason she kept us. But kept is a loose description. We were raised...well, we weren’t raised. We lurched from one crisis to the next. Finally she died. The social worker said we didn’t need to go to the funeral, but they hadn’t found Gran and Pa then, so there was only us. And they’d already split us up. Daisy and Sam had gone to one set of foster parents, Chloe and Tom to another. It’s hard to find foster parents for a fourteen-year-old, so I was placed in a home for...troubled adolescents and I was going nuts, wanting to see them. So when the coroner released the body for burial I made a king-sized fuss and said we all had to be at the funeral. Our case worker said she had reservations but she arranged it anyway. Then I figured I had to say something the kids could remember.’

      ‘You did?’ he demanded, sounding awed.

      ‘I did,’ she said proudly. ‘I made them laugh by telling them about Mum’s awful cooking. I reminded them of the way she could never get her toenails perfect and the way she had funny names for all of us, even if sometimes she couldn’t quite remember which one of us she was talking to. They were sort of sad stories but I made them smile. Then, when we came out, the social worker had organised morning tea. I still remember the sausage rolls! And then she sat us down, very serious, and told us they’d found Gran and Pa. Apparently, they hadn’t even known we existed! Mum had robbed them blind when she was young and then, when she knew they had no more money, she cut off all contact. But they’re just...wonderful. I can’t tell you how wonderful. They had somewhere we could live and they loved us straight away. So then we all lived happily ever after. Isn’t that nice? So it’s worth thinking of something good, even if it kills you to say it.’

      There was an appalled silence. It stretched on and on and she thought uh-oh, she shouldn’t have said. Kid of a drug addict? It was a wonder he even let her near his baby.

      But it seemed he wasn’t thinking that. ‘You make me feel ashamed,’ he said at last.

      ‘There’s no need to feel ashamed,’ she said with asperity. ‘Unless you intend to let a fourteen-year-old girl beat you at the eulogy stakes. Let me have Phoebe. You can write your eulogy in peace.’ She unhugged her knees and headed over to take the baby from him.

      But he held on, just for a moment.

      ‘Thank you,’ he said simply.

      ‘You’re paying me.’

      ‘Not enough for what you’re doing tonight.’

      ‘I don’t think you realise how big a deal Gran’s chocolates are,’ she told him. ‘For those alone I’d have written your eulogy for you. Now, off you go and write. The intro’s easy. Lords, Ladies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen...there’s the thing half done.’ And she scooped the now sleeping baby into her arms and backed away.

      She needed to back away, she thought. The look on this man’s face...

      This was a night out of frame. The intimacy between them was something that couldn’t be replicated and could never exist in the light of day.

      She needed to back off fast, and she did. And he let her.

      ‘I’ll write in the bedroom,’ he managed and she nodded.

      ‘You came out for something? Or to check on me.’

      ‘I came out for a whisky.’

      ‘It won’t help the jet lag. Or the eulogy.’

      ‘I know that,’ he told her. ‘And I don’t need it any more. You’ve given me all I need.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Really.’

      She grinned. ‘Hooray. Advice by Auntie Sunny. Off you go then like a good boy and get it done.’

      ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said and cast her a look she didn’t understand. A look full of questions she couldn’t hope to answer.

      He rose and left.

      She settled Phoebe again with care, and told herself to sleep.

      Sleep didn’t come. For some reason the memory of that appalling time, her mother’s dreadful funeral, was suddenly all around her.

      She was thinking too of the grand funeral waiting for Max tomorrow, and she was thinking there were similarities.

      She hugged Phoebe because she suddenly needed the comfort and she thought again of the man through the bedroom door. Who did he hug?

      It wasn’t any of her business, but the question stayed with her until finally sleep overcame her.