you. Having you in my bed again.”
Her eyes slowly closed, and for a moment she gave herself to the unbearable beauty of his words. Making love—having that touch that made her feel so complete, so loved…
She gulped down the pain of aching temptation. “It’s not enough.” Her voice was drenched with the frantic need she heard in his words, and she shivered in violent craving. She couldn’t…
“It feels like enough.” His voice was rough with sensuality. He brushed his mouth over hers again, his hand caressing her waist, and it was all she could do not to puddle in a melted heap at his feet. “It feels damn good. We were always magnificent together. You can’t hide from what we have—or from me.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, but the vivid memories took over. Touching skin, mouths fused, caressing, whispering words of love…
She had to snap out of this, to face reality if he wouldn’t. “What we have, apart from mutual attraction, is shared memories—and a child. Circumstances forced us to change, to become different people.” She kept her gaze focused on his, watching his eyes darken in denial. “I’m not that adoring girl who needed you to fill her life. My life with Casey is busy and fulfilling.” Liar, a voice in her mind whispered. “I’m not your satellite now. I can’t be your one-person support-and-cheer squad. I can’t change my life—or more importantly Casey’s life—to make yours work for you. My first priority is Casey, and it will stay that way.”
Brett’s gaze darkened, his eyes almost black. She could see the intensity of suffering he’d been through in the years they’d been apart shining through in more than his damaged knee. He wanted more than her body—he needed her presence to give him strength to heal or at least drive away the anguish that obviously still hadn’t left after two years back home.
But her life had changed. All her strength, all her resources of giving and support, had to remain focused on meeting Casey’s needs. How could she give him what she no longer had?
The knowledge lay like lead over her heart and soul. Just being Casey’s mother took every scrap of strength she had every day. She had nothing to give him—
Except my heart. And how do I trust him to not take all I have, including my daughter, and leave for Melbourne on the first flight?
Melbourne was no longer home. It was where his parents waited with a court order to stop her from leaving again; where they’d use their influence to have her proven an unfit mother, simply because she wasn’t a Glennon, and didn’t have a family name or background to give them. Then they’d take Casey from her…the only worthwhile thing in her life.
She swallowed the ball of pain in her throat. “What we once had is gone. I’m sorry, but I can’t give you what I don’t have.”
His hands landed on her shoulders, holding her with gentle strength—the inner strength of knowing who and what he was that she’d always loved about him. “I don’t believe it. Either you’re lying to me or to yourself. You want me as much as I want you.”
“That isn’t the point. It’s been a long time for me—but it’s not enough. The issue isn’t how we feel about each other.” Barely able to move, she pushed wayward strands of hair from her eyes. “What you or I want doesn’t matter. This isn’t about us. Casey is my first, last and every duty of care. You should understand that as a doctor, even if you don’t feel like her father yet—”
Before she could finish her words, a sleepy little voice came from the other end of the room. “Are you my father?”
CHAPTER THREE
SHE SOUNDS LIKE SAM in miniature…
Lost in a haze of passion, of need for Sam’s touch, Brett reacted with the instinct of a man who’d lived in a place where to move too slow could mean death. He slewed his gaze to the open door off the open-plan lounge, to where the lilting voice had asked the half-curious question.
And he saw a tiny, mussed angel in Winnie the Pooh pyjamas.
Feathery curls a touch brighter than Sam’s fell in tumbled disarray around little shoulders. A face as fine and spiritual as a Botticelli cherub was turned to him. Tiny features, a replica of her mother’s, in a pale heart-shaped face. A mouth of baby pink was unsmiling yet not angry.
This is my daughter.
A jolt of awareness filled him, a gentle awakening of some emotion he’d long buried beneath anger and denial. She was his daughter; he could see a pair of twitching dimples beside her mouth and the enormous golden-brown eyes gazing in his direction.
The photos he’d seen hadn’t done her beauty any justice at all. He couldn’t stop staring at this haunting, delicate, beautiful child.
My daughter.
“Hello?” Casey’s voice trembled with sudden uncertainty. “Mummy?”
He wanted to hit himself for being so stupid. Lesson number one in being a daddy to a special-needs child: always answer her when she talks to you.
“I’m here, sweetheart.” Sam’s voice was full of love.
Brett put a hand on her arm, willing her to stay where she was. After a short, searching glance, Sam nodded but held her ground.
“Hello, Casey.” Brett’s heart was beating fast. What would she think of him? Would she like him? Or—
“Hello.” A tentative smile flitted across her face, lifting dimples, before she repeated her initial question. “Are you my father?”
Her face held only a polite smile. Impassivity in a five-year-old unnerved Brett. There was nothing in her face to read. She was curious as to whether he was her father, that was all.
“Yes, Casey,” he said softly. “My name’s Brett Glennon. I’m your father.”
She nodded, slow and cautious, not moving toward him or moving away. He realised she was keeping her distance, almost as if she was afraid…
Afraid of him?
Keeping his features schooled, he absorbed the pain. Casey saw more than he would have thought with those imperfect eyes. Had she seen past his gentle facade to the anger in his heart that his child, his daughter, should have such a terrible burden to bear? Did she wonder if her daddy wouldn’t like her because she was blind?
This was a fear his daughter should never have had to go through—
And she wouldn’t if I hadn’t left for Africa.
And like that, the truth pounced on him, like a lion long crouched nearby, waiting to attack. Maybe he’d known all along. But he’d concentrated so much on where Sam had been, he’d forgotten what she’d borne alone in the years he’d been gone. If she’d stayed with his parents, he’d have known Casey the past two years—but he’d still have three years of unintentional neglect to make up for.
Not for the first time, he felt the knife-pang of regret for leaving Sam behind in the first place, for charging ahead with a dream despite the cost to others, for cementing a love that happened in the wrong time and place. By living his dream, he’d left her alone
