The Darling Harbour boardwalk was crowded and congested with holidaymakers taking videos and eating ice creams, vying for space with performers busking for spare change. Seagulls squawked both overhead and underfoot, fighting each other for crumbs, while a reproduction sailing ship spewed a hundred excited tourists back onto the wharf.
Dominic sighed, feeling out of place as he and Simone waited near the designated meeting spot and half wishing his PA had chosen somewhere less public and more private for this meeting, but then the crowds were apparently half the attraction. Keep it informal, Simone had suggested. On neutral territory. Away from his lawyer’s offices, which might give the impression he was ready to broker some kind of deal. Away from the Pirelli building where his wealth was obvious as soon as you stepped into the stunning marble lobby. This Mrs Cameron might have pretended to be making some kind of altruistic gesture, but he had no proof of that. There was no point putting temptation right in front of her.
Simone had a point, he’d conceded, catching a whiff of her expensive perfume amidst the salt and popcorntinged air. It was her favourite, he recognised, the one he’d given her a bottle of last Christmas. It suited her. Sleek and no-nonsense, feminine without being flowery. Exactly, in fact, like she was and exactly what he needed in a PA.
Come to think of it, Simone had been right about this place, he revised, peeling off his jacket and hooking it over his shoulder. He could be anonymous here, no longer Dominic Pirelli, billionaire investor and market strategist, but just one more suit escaping his office for an hour.
Except that this suit was waiting to meet the woman who was carrying his child.
Anticipation coiled in his gut. He glanced down at the platinum Tag Heuer at his wrist, saw that she was already late.
‘Do you think she’ll turn up?’ Simone looked over her shoulder, putting voice to his greatest fear, her asymmetrical black bob swinging around her head. ‘What if she changes her mind? She didn’t leave a contact number.’
‘She’ll turn up,’ he said, willing the woman to show. After the way he’d spoken to her yesterday, he’d be the last to be surprised she was having second thoughts, but it didn’t matter if she had changed her mind. He had her name. She had his baby. And there was no way she was escaping him now. ‘She’ll turn up.’
Angie’s eyes felt heavy and scratchy as she hurried along the pedestrian bridge linking the hurly-burly of Sydney CBD streets to the tourist precinct of Darling Harbour, and she didn’t need to see her reflection to know how red they appeared to the outside world. She could tell that from the inside.
Screams had driven her from sleep and dreams filled with snarling dogs snapping and tugging at her clothes and body. One had taken Shayne’s face while it circled, barking out his taunts, telling her she would never be a real woman. Another had soothed her with words of comfort while trying to snatch her baby at the same time. And yet another had taken his place, larger and more powerful than all the rest, growling with teeth bared, moving closer, ready to savage.
And she’d woken in fear to her own screams, panting and desperate, the sheets knotted around her, her body damp with perspiration and her lonely bed more empty than ever. But safe, she’d realised, blessedly safe from the nightmare.
After that it had been impossible to sleep, the images the night had spun leaving her shaken and afraid, the night sounds of Sherwill—the barking dogs, the squeal of tyres as the hoons did burn-outs around the streets, the neighbours yelling—all keeping her company while a hundred scenarios for how today’s meeting would unfold spun their way through her mind. No wonder she hadn’t slept.
And now the light summer breeze whipped at her hair, carrying with it a combination of diesel fumes from the highway below and greasy doughnuts from a nearby stall and Angie’s stomach roiled anew. She protested at the unfairness. There was nothing left in her stomach, and yet still she wanted to heave.
Please God, she thought, swallowing back on the urge. Not now. Not here. Not when she was rushing to get to this meeting. She’d lost breakfast—one piece of dry toast and a cup of tea—ten minutes after she’d pointlessly forced it down, and that had been hours ago. An hour on a jostling, crowded train hadn’t helped, nor had the man who had lurched against her from behind as she’d left the train and almost sent her sprawling to the platform. He’d disappeared into the crowds without a word of apology, while she’d had to sit down for ten minutes to see out the cold sweat and wait for her heartbeat and temperature to get back under control.
Ten minutes she hadn’t had.
So much for being relaxed and composed before she met the father of the child growing inside her.
Damn.
She blinked against the lunch-time sun, pushing her sunglasses higher on her nose as she descended the last few steps to the crowded boardwalk, suddenly wishing she’d worn something lighter. She’d wanted to cover herself up but it was much too hot for jeans and her old cardigan and she felt tatty and dated. Families strolled by as she hesitated on the last step, speaking in languages she didn’t recognise, the children laughing with painted faces and hanging on to fat balloons that bounced against the air as they ran. Couples walked hand in hand, sharing secrets, oblivious to everything and everyone. Lunch-time joggers darted between them all, all lean limbed and firm skinned under Lycra and nylon and wired for sound.
Angie pulled her thin discount department store cardigan tighter around her shoulders as she made her way through the crowds, half wishing she’d never agreed to a meeting here. Darling Harbour had sounded both cosmopolitan and exotic when she’d heard Mr Pirelli’s secretary suggest it as the meeting location and she’d made out she knew exactly where she was supposed to be, too embarrassed to admit she hadn’t been here for years.
Besides, she’d been so relieved that he’d agreed to meet her at all, she wasn’t about to argue about the location.
It was a good sign, wasn’t it, that he wanted to meet her? And if he met with her, surely that meant he would want the child? She held that hope close to her heart, nurtured it. It was all she wanted, for this child to be with its rightful parents, to be cherished by them.
And if they decided they didn’t want it?
She sucked in a mouthful of the salt-tinged air. Well, there were other options, other couples unable to have children who would adore a tiny baby as their own. This baby would make someone happy, she was sure of it.
She pulled a crumpled note from her pocket, checked again for the details of where she was supposed to meet and scanned the surroundings, feeling a sizzle of apprehension when she recognised the green arch of the Harbourside Shopping Centre the PA had told her to wait outside. Her steps slowed as she approached. She was close now but, with the shifting crowd milling around the water’s edge, it was impossible to pick out individuals. What if he hadn’t waited? What if he’d given up and left?
Then, as she drew closer, she saw a couple sitting at a table holding hands, their heads bowed, the mood intense. She hesitated, her heart thudding hard in her chest. Could they be them? Could this be the parents of the child growing inside her?
Even as she watched, she saw the woman swipe tears from the corners of her eyes. Angie felt those tears like a tug against her womb. Surely it must be them? This was the right place and she was late. Was that why she was crying—because she feared Angie wasn’t going to show?
Yet still she wavered, unwilling to intrude on this private moment. She looked around, shifting from one foot to the other, searching for any other more likely looking couple. There was a party of Japanese students lining the edge of the boardwalk, and an Italian family seated at a nearby table enjoying gelati and then there was a man in a white shirt with his jacket slung over his shoulder standing with his back to her.
Her eyes almost skated over him.
Almost.
All too soon they skated back. He stood tall and dark and somehow compelling, even from this angle, and when he turned his head to talk to the slim woman Angie had missed