to join them, but determinedly she had declined. She was fine, she had told them, wanting to carry on with her life, pretend nothing had happened. In truth, she had been dealt such a blow that she had just wanted to remain alone to lick her wounds.
When she had had Sean, however, against her protests, her mother had made the long journey to be with her, over-protective, fussing in her well-meaning way, so that it was with mixed emotions, two weeks later, that Annie had seen her off on her journey home. Six months later she had taken Sean and flown over to spend Christmas in Auckland with them, returning after a month. That was nearly eighteen months ago.
Now Annie had to quell the strongest urge to ring her parents, hear her father’s understanding tones, but it would be the middle of the night in New Zealand and she had never been one to run for help at the first sign of trouble.
As Sean’s hazel eyes opened and he gave her a wide grin, adoringly Annie picked him up. He felt cuddly and warm in his soft pyjamas.
Everything would be sorted out, she tried convincing herself. He had her father’s ears, didn’t he? And everyone said he had her cheeky smile and her colouring.
But as she looked at the child in her arms, reminding herself of all these things, all she could see was the strong, daunting features of Brant Cadman.
The letter came from the hospital the following morning. It told Annie to contact them as soon as possible.
When she rang they said they wanted to send someone out to see her. Perhaps the following day? But Annie insisted that if they had something to tell her, she was coming up to town herself. Today.
She didn’t tell them that she knew what it concerned. Or anything about Brant Cadman. Ridiculously, she was nursing the hope that if she didn’t bring his name into it, this whole harrowing nightmare might not be true.
For what other reason the hospital might be writing to her, she didn’t stop to imagine. The fact that Brant had said he would be calling round again today was very real and she was keen to get out of the flat before he arrived. She didn’t think she could face him until someone told her for certain that there had been a mix-up. Until then, he presented a dark threat to everything she cherished.
‘I take it you know Brant Cadman was here,’ Katrina King told her as soon as Annie rang to ask her friend if she would have Sean for a couple of hours. A year older than Annie, the woman worked from home as a freelance sportswear designer. She loved children and had volunteered to entertain Sean if ever Annie needed a babysitter. ‘You did get my email, didn’t you?’
She hadn’t. She’d been too worried and overtaken by the man’s visit to even remember to check her emails.
‘When did he call?’ was all Annie could respond with.
‘About coffee-time yesterday. Still looking like every woman’s darkest fantasy. What did he want?’ Katrina asked, sounding suspicious.
‘Just to see me,’ Annie returned, thinking how pretentious that sounded, but at that moment she couldn’t begin to tell her friend the nature of Brant’s visit.
‘I’ll bet!’ Katrina’s words held a mixture of caution and envy, but Annie ignored them.
‘See you later,’ she said quickly, ringing off.
She didn’t want to let Sean out of her sight, but decided it would be best if he was with Katrina. Her friend only lived a short drive away, and fifteen minutes later, with Sean safely delivered into the woman’s care, Annie was driving back through the suburbs only to realise that, with all the trauma of what was happening, she had forgotten both the letter from the hospital and the name of the person she was supposed to see.
Forced to make a detour back to the flat, she was tripping down the steps again to her little purple Ka when she saw the dark blue Mercedes saloon suddenly pulling up in front of her home.
Brant Cadman! She didn’t even need to look at the driver to know it would be him. Not too many cars of that sort parked outside her modest little address!
She felt her whole body tense as he unfolded himself from the big car.
‘Good morning.’
Somehow, Annie found her tongue to acknowledge him and felt his eyes flit over her, noticing, no doubt, the sharp rise and fall of her small breasts in response to seeing him standing there.
‘Are you going out?’
Of course, he would want to know, she thought with her stomach knotting, struck by how devastating he looked in his casual grey polo shirt and pale chinos. But that was what men like Brant Cadman did. Devastate.
‘That letter came today.’ She started towards the Ka. ‘I’m going to the hospital.’ She couldn’t have lied to him even if she had wanted to and was suddenly disconcerted to find his tall, lean frame blocking her path.
‘Then get into the car.’ He was indicating his own plush saloon. ‘We’ll go together.’
‘No!’ Even to her own ears she sounded like a frightened schoolgirl.
‘Annie!’ His sigh was exasperated. ‘The last thing I want to do is hurt you.’
He meant emotionally, she thought, but he had already done that.
‘I just need to do this alone. To be alone.’ It wasn’t meant to, but it came out as a plea.
‘You won’t want to, Annie. Not afterwards,’ he assured her softly.
He had been through it already, she remembered. But just because he had been sent home with the wrong baby, it didn’t mean for certain that she had, did it? So he had got her name off the computer. So she had been in the hospital giving birth at the same time as his wife. But so had a number of other women, probably. And blood tests weren’t a hundred per cent accurate, were they? Sean couldn’t be the only baby that the Cadman boy could have been switched with. Could he?
The anguish that accompanied her silent, tortured questions momentarily disarmed her, leaving her open to his decisive will.
‘Come on. I’ll drive you,’ he stated. And that was that.
Her tension might have got the better of her, holding her rigid as a statue for most of the journey. But Brant kept her talking so that she couldn’t spend the whole of the drive dwelling on the traumatic situation, something deliberately calculated to relax her, she was sure.
Only once did she feel the sickening dread in the pit of her stomach threaten to overwhelm her, and that was at the outset when he asked, ‘Where’s Sean?’
‘I thought it best that he didn’t come.’ Annie’s tone was defensive. ‘He’s at Katrina’s.’
She was expecting some demand from him to see the son he claimed was his, but all he said was, ‘You get on well with her. Where did the two of you meet? At Cadman Sport?’
‘No. We were at art college together. She left before me, then told me about the vacancy in the art department, and so I joined too.’
She was aware of him steering the powerful car through the heavy traffic, of the courtesy he extended to other drivers as he slowed to let someone out
