that’s better—all you needed was a bit of colour.’
A hand absently rubbing the nape of her neck, Eve looked up as her friend applied a finishing flick of blusher to the older woman’s cheeks.
‘You’re p-pregnant, Mum. H-how?’ Two sets of raised eyebrows turned her way and Eve blushed. She was regressing; she no longer stuttered or blushed. ‘Well, I suppose that explains it.’
‘Explains what, Eve?’ Sarah asked.
Eve shook her head and thought why the rich scumbag Charlie Latimer had suddenly decided, not only to make his secret affair with his cook public knowledge, but to marry the woman who had been his mistress. It didn’t involve a sudden attack of respect or love for Sarah; it was all about the possibility of an heir.
Not that Hannah looked as though she minded the possibility of being disinherited—her friend looked delighted.
‘I knew it,’ Hannah said smugly as she dabbed the moisture from around her soon-to-be stepmother’s eyes. ‘Whoever invented waterproof mascara deserves a medal—not that you’d know about that, Eve.’ She flashed her friend, who had been blessed with naturally thick dark lashes that required no embellishment, an envious smile before turning back to Sarah. ‘I said to Kamel last night that I thought you might be but he said that just because I’m—’ She stopped and covered her mouth with her hand. ‘I wasn’t meant to say anything until Kamel has told his uncle because of all this protocol. You won’t breathe a word, will you…?’
‘Oh, Hannah, darling, Kamel must be thrilled!’ Sarah’s waterproof mascara was once again being put to the test as she reached up to hug Hannah.
‘We both are, but Kamel is acting as though I’m made of glass. He won’t let me do a thing, and the man is driving me crazy,’ Hannah confided with a laugh.
The expression in her friend’s eyes when she said her husband’s name made Eve look away feeling uncomfortable, almost as though she had intruded. Eve was prepared to like the prince her friend had married because he was clearly as potty about Hannah as she was about him, but the cynic in her wondered how long the honeymoon period would last.
‘You’re both having babies.’ Eve was still playing mental catch-up.
Looking mistily ecstatic, Sarah clapped her hands. ‘Isn’t that incredible? Our family is growing, girls.’
‘A real family,’ Hannah chimed in.
Eve cleared her throat. It was obviously her turn to respond, but what to say…? She managed a faint and unimaginative, ‘Incredible.’
She’d moved a long way on since she had lain awake at night wishing she had a real family. Eve had pretty quickly realised that not having a father, at least not one willing to acknowledge she existed, was actually a blessing, not a curse. Unlike the majority of her classmates she had been spared the trauma of seeing her parents going through an ugly divorce or separation.
Her mum had not even had boyfriends until she came to work for Hannah’s father. Hannah had caught on much sooner than Eve and she had been more concerned by the secrecy than the relationship itself.
For Eve, it hadn’t just been the secrecy, it had been everything, and the longer the affair had lasted, the deeper her anger had grown as she’d watched helpless to do anything while her mother allowed history to repeat itself as she had become what amounted to the plaything of man who treated her like the hired help in front of his rich and powerful friends.
Charles Latimer might not be married but in every other way he was her own father—a selfish loser who used and humiliated her mum. Of course, back then Sarah had been a young impressionable student on her first holiday job—easy pickings for her unscrupulous rich employer.
What Eve could not understand was how her mother could let it happen again when she was now an independent, intelligent woman. How could she allow herself to be used and humiliated like this…? Where were her pride and self-respect?
Did Mum realise that he was only marrying her because of the baby? Eve wondered. Well, at least he was one step up the evolutionary scale of slime from her own father, whose contribution when he had learnt of her had been to write a signed note that included the words get rid of it.
Eve had never told her mum she had found the note while searching for her birth certificate, and she’d never let on she knew the identity of her father. Instead she had carefully folded it and put it back in the box that held her birth certificate.
‘Having a baby at your age…’ She sensed rather than saw Hannah’s look of warning. ‘Not that you’re old, obviously.’
Her mother managed a wan smile at the retrieval. ‘Always the soul of tact, Evie.’
Eve watched as Hannah and her mum exchanged a look. She didn’t resent the rapport that her mum and her friend had but, though she rarely acknowledged it, there were occasions when she did envy it. Eve was her daughter but Hannah was a kindred spirit.
‘I just meant…’ She paused and thought, What did you mean? ‘Couldn’t it be dangerous…for you, and the baby?’ But not for Charlie Latimer. Eve felt the anger and resentment she had always felt towards the man deepen so that they lay like an icy block behind her breastbone.
‘Loads of women in their forties have babies these days, Evie.’ Hannah proceeded to tick off a list of well-known celebrities Sarah’s age and older who had given birth recently.
‘And I’ll have a lot more support than I did last time around; your father has been marvellous, Hannah.’
Too little too late, Eve thought, before the guilt kicked in; it always did when she thought about all the things her mum had given up to be a single parent. She finally deserved some happiness but was she likely to find it with Charlie Latimer…?
Eve clenched her jaw. No, her mum deserved more—she deserved better after all the sacrifices she had made.
Wanting to give her mum the things she deserved had been behind Eve’s choice to reject the prestigious university scholarship she’d been offered and instead start her own firm. It hadn’t been easy. All the banks had turned the inexperienced eighteen-year-old away and in the end it had been a charitable trust set up to promote youth enterprise that had been convinced by her business plan and the rest, as they said, was history. Nowadays she was held up as one of the trust’s success stories, and regularly mentored young aspiring entrepreneurs and helped raise funds.
It had been a year ago that Eve had been able to go to her mother and triumphantly tell her she didn’t need to work for Charles Latimer, and that she, Eve, was able to support her while she did what she wanted: a university course, open her own restaurant…anything.
Good plan with one problem. It turned out her mum was already doing what she wanted: she wanted to waste her talents, to slave away for a man like Charles Latimer. Eve had been angry, hurt and frustrated. She knew that a distance had formed between them since that day. She had let it form.
Sarah’s green eyes filled again as she scanned her daughter’s face and asked anxiously, ‘You’re all right with this, aren’t you, Eve?’
‘I’m really happy for you, Mum,’ she said quietly, thinking, If that man hurts you I’ll make him wish he had never been born.
Maybe
