next day Fleur got back from work around five. Opening the garden gate, she wandered up the path, pausing to pick a bunch of thyme to add to the casserole she planned to make later. She was sniffing the fragrant sprigs when she saw the figure sitting on her doorstep.
‘Are you running away again or were you just passing?’
The girl grinned and got to her feet, dusting off the seat of her jeans. ‘I was out for a walk.’
‘With or without your father’s permission?’
‘I told Antonio I was going for a walk. He’s not home today. He’s gone to Paris or something.’
Fleur smiled and turned the key in the lock. His name made her think of the outfit laid out on her bed upstairs. After a great many twirls in front of the mirror she had finally decided on the midnight-blue velvet with the scalloped neckline that hinted at her cleavage and made her hips look frankly too good to be true.
‘Do you want to come in?’ she asked as Sandy exploded from the hallway all wagging tail and frantic barking. ‘Be careful,’ she cautioned. ‘He licks.’
Tamara, who was stroking the excitable animal, nodded. ‘I’ve been trying to ring my dad, the other one, but every time…’ She stopped and, taking a deep breath, looked at Fleur. ‘He doesn’t want me anymore, does he? It’s not Antonio stopping him? Look, Fleur, if you know, I need you to tell me…I’m not a kid…I have a right.’
‘You should ask your father…Antonio. It’s not my place…’
‘Do you think I haven’t tried?’ she asked, following Fleur inside the cottage. ‘Have you any idea how good he is at not answering a question?’
Fleur flicked the switch on the electric kettle and turned back to her youthful guest. ‘What has happened to make you think…?’
‘That dear Dad isn’t waging a legal battle to get me back?’ the girl inserted, shrugging. ‘I was exploring yesterday and I found all my stuff from home boxed up…absolutely everything, and I mean everything. Baby photos, the lot.’
‘I expect he thought you might need your things…that you’d feel more comfortable with them around you,’ Fleur suggested lamely.
‘It’s more like he’s wiping me out of his life. Every time I ring his office they say he’s unavailable and our home number comes up as number unrecognised.’ She looked at Fleur with eyes that seemed far older than her years and said, ‘I’m right, aren’t I? He dumped me on Antonio.
‘Please tell me, Fleur. I’m sick of nobody giving me a straight answer. I need to know, I really do…I go back to school tomorrow and I need to know if it’s worth coming home for weekends. If Antonio really wants me to come home.’
Put on the spot, Fleur didn’t have the faintest idea what to do. She thought the girl deserved the truth, but she respected and understood Antonio’s decision to protect her. ‘What makes you think I know anything?’ she prevaricated.
‘I know if Antonio was going to tell anyone it would be you.’
This confident assertion made Fleur blink. ‘Tamara, I think you might have the wrong idea. I hardly know your father.’
‘But he did tell you, didn’t he?’
Fleur inhaled deeply and, unable to resist the appeal in the girl’s eyes any longer, reluctantly nodded. ‘I think that is how it happened. Try not to think too badly of your other father.’ The pathetic creep. ‘I expect he was hurt to learn that you weren’t his. People do crazy things when they’re hurt.’ As if this girl didn’t know all about hurting.
‘Relieved, more like. Still, it’s no big loss.’
Fleur’s heart ached for the girl as she tried to put a brave face on it. ‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ she lied. ‘He probably acted on impulse and I’m sure he’ll regret it.’
‘He and Mum weren’t exactly kid people,’ Tamara revealed. ‘Until I went to school I saw more of my nanny than them. You know, she’d have me pretend I was younger than I was to her friends—until I grew too tall, that is. She hated me being tall.’
These casual revelations horrified Fleur, who had enjoyed a happy, carefree childhood to the core.
‘And now Antonio is stuck with me.’
‘He doesn’t think of it that way,’ Fleur said with total conviction.
‘He did say he wanted me around,’ the girl admitted. ‘He says he wants to make it official, have me take his name and everything.’
‘And how do you feel about that?’
‘I don’t know…he says it’s up to me.’
‘Family is ultra important to Spaniards.’
‘Really? I thought that was just, you know, in books and films and things.’
Fleur shook her head and offered the reassurance she sensed the girl was asking for. ‘No, it’s not just in films. I think you’ve got a family whether you want one or not.’
‘He’s awfully bossy.’
Fleur nodded.
‘And all my friends at school will have crushes on him, which will be extremely embarrassing.’
‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised.’
‘You think I should give him a chance, don’t you?’
‘Does it matter what I think?’
‘Well, he likes you.’
Fleur told herself that it would be juvenile and foolish to feel pleased. And felt pleased anyway. ‘My dog bit him,’ she confided. ‘About thirty seconds after we met.’
A giggle escaped a wide-eyed Tamara. ‘Honestly?’
Fleur shook her head. ‘As first impressions go it takes some beating.’
The grave pronouncement sent the teenager into fits of laughter.
‘But Sandy loves him now.’ There’s a lot of it about.
‘He is very…’
‘Charismatic?’ Fleur suggested.
Tamara nodded with enthusiasm. She glanced at her watch. ‘He said he’d ring around six, you know,’ she said casually. ‘I might make my way back home.’ At the door she turned with an impish grin. ‘Shall I give him your love? Or would you prefer to give him that yourself?’ Laughing, she left a redfaced Fleur staring after her. Out of the mouths of babes!
The journey along the minor roads took ten minutes. It probably ought to have taken a little longer, but Antonio was in a hurry.
When he arrived he discovered that the college consisted of several buildings sprawled over quite a large area, all red brick and none
