recreational. He’d met any number of women with that pragmatic attitude; he’d dated more than a few.
‘Lara?’ Elizabeth, blowing a strand of blonde hair from her eyes, looked up, appearing surprised by the comment. ‘Lara doesn’t have children. This is Lily’s little girl.’
‘Lily is married?’ Ben, who had never been one to wrap up unpalatable truths in pretty packaging, found himself not analysing too deeply his powerful gut response to this news.
‘No, she isn’t married. Lily is a single parent. I’m very proud of her,’ she added defensively, explaining, ‘She moved back to the village. She works part-time at the college and I help out when I can.’
Ben struggled to take on board all the information and the surprisingly strong emotions it shook loose.
So no big acting career, no glamorous red carpets, no name in lights, just... He looked at the child, who had stopped crying. Tears trembled on the ends of her sooty lashes as she returned his look with one of deep suspicion through eyes that were a deep blue.
Cobalt blue.
He stiffened as somewhere in the back of his mind the seeds of a crazy suspicion sent out tentative roots.
‘That must be a struggle.’ His sympathy elicited a nod.
‘Oh, I love helping... Just hold still a moment for Granny. Emmy is a total sweetheart but Lily...’
‘M...Mummy...’ Ben watched the child’s lower lip tremble ominously before she gave another sniff, her small rounded chin jutting pugnaciously as she yelled, ‘Want Mummy now!’
‘A child who knows her own mind.’
Elizabeth laughed. ‘She certainly does, not at all like Lily. She was always the easy one. Lara, now that was another story. Mummy will be home soon, darling, five more sleeps. Hard to explain time to children.’ Elizabeth gave a grunt as she successfully taped down a sticking plaster to the child’s forehead. ‘All done.’ She clapped her hands.
Ben watched as the kid followed suit, clapping her chubby little hands. His brain was working but his thoughts kept coming up against a big brick wall. He couldn’t see past it because there was nothing to see. He was making the classic mistake of trying to make the facts fit a theory. In this case a totally crazy theory!
The tension that had climbed into his shoulders eased a notch as he recognised the trap he had almost fallen into. His mouth twisted into an ironic self-mocking smile. A lot of people in this world had blue eyes; presumably the kid’s father had been one of them.
A moment later his smile vanished. As the child continued to squirm in his arms he caught a glimpse of something. A nerve beside his mouth jumped. Blue eyes were not unique, but how many people beside his own mother had that distinctive birthmark? he asked himself, fighting the urge to lift the child’s hair to examine the pigmented crescent closer.
‘M...M...Mama...’ The kid caught hold of his tie and shoved the silk into her mouth.
Who did she call dada?
‘Don’t do that, Emmy, you’ll choke.’ Her grandmother prised the soggy cloth from her mouth and directed an apologetic smile at him. A look of concern crossed her face. ‘Sorry about... Are you all right?’
Ben inhaled, dredging deep into his inner resources to force his features into something that passed for a smile. ‘I had words with my grandfather.’ It suddenly seemed a long time ago.
The explanation was accepted by Elizabeth, who held out her arms for the child, the furrow between her brows deepening as he made no move to react.
The question he’d refused to acknowledge slid into his head. Was the child...his child? His daughter?
This was surreal...
It was impossible!
His eyes slid to the baby in his arms and she looked back at him, solemn and serious, then with a grin as she grabbed his soggy tie again.
‘Mine!’
Ben felt something break loose inside him and swallowed, reluctant to put a name to the uncomfortable emotion that tightened like a band across his chest.
‘No, Emmy! Sorry, Ben...’
This time Ben reacted to the extended arms. As he handed the child over he breathed in the scent of her hair and felt the smooth softness of her cheek. He swallowed. It simply wasn’t possible.
Of course it was and he knew it.
Elizabeth took a moment to disentangle the determined chubby hands from the tie, ignoring the shrill yell of frustration when she succeeded.
‘Your grandfather misses you, you know.’
Ben shook his head to clear the loud static buzz in his brain. ‘He hides it well.’
This was one of life’s crossroad moments, when choices changed lives...his life...a life he liked the way it was...the life he had chosen. The inner struggle didn’t last long, though the resentment of finding himself in this position deepened.
Knowing for sure he had fathered a child was not news he would welcome, but it was preferable to not knowing, to live with that question mark.
His shoulders squared with decision as he masked his feelings behind a casual smile.
‘So you’re babysitting?’ Losing the battle to maintain objectivity, he struggled to keep the disapproval he felt out of his voice. He never had understood why people had kids if they couldn’t wait to farm them out.
‘Actually I have her all week, don’t I, darling?’ Elizabeth, her expression doting, tucked a shiny curl behind Emmy’s ear as the child’s head dropped on her shoulder. ‘Lily won a prize in a competition,’ she explained. ‘A week’s holiday in the sun.’
His jaw clenched. So motherhood hadn’t cramped Lily’s style.
‘She was going to refuse it.’
Sure she was, Ben thought, hiding his disbelief behind an interested smile.
‘I all but had to tie her up to get her to the airport, but it’s just what she needs, a bit of sun. She’s basically put her whole life on hold, but that’s never healthy. I keep telling her, she has to have a life outside of Emmy. But does she listen?’
As Elizabeth chuntered on the image of Lily in a bikini set up a string of images that Ben, despising his lack of control, breathed his way through. He came out the other side feeling resentful and furious at his lack of self-control. Even if this wasn’t his kid, he had nothing but contempt for a parent who put their own selfish needs ahead of their child.
‘That’s an unusual birthmark she...?’ He watched for any sign of reaction to his question on the housekeeper’s face. Either she was the world’s best actress or didn’t know either.
‘Emmy... Emily Rose.’ Her grandmother brushed aside a hank of burnished hair from the child’s forehead and touched the small mark near her right temple. ‘It looks like the moon, doesn’t it?’
Jumping to conclusions in his business was often the difference between success and failure. Sure, gut instinct came into it, but you had to gather data, sift through the evidence, calculate the probabilities before you made a call.
Ben never jumped to conclusions, and now was not a good time to start. In his experience the best way to kill crazy ideas was throw facts at them.
Clutching at straws, Ben?
Ignoring the inner ironic voice, he asked casually, ‘How old is she?’
‘Two. She was actually due on the twins’ birthday but Lily took a tumble and she came a month early.’
‘My mother has a birthmark similar to that one, or she did.’ His mother