inform Elliott. The thought of that made her feel slightly sick.
After that first meeting in the café—even before then, in fact, when she’d first laid eyes on him—she’d recognised he had a chill factor. Even his name, seen for the first time on her original birth certificate, had had a cold clink of reality to it. At eighteen, when the law had allowed, she’d gone through the procedures of finding out her birth parents’ names out of curiosity, but probably would never have acted on the information. She doubted if she’d have contacted him at all, if it hadn’t been for that Tuesday, exactly six weeks ago.
She’d been standing at the reception desk, checking a patient’s file, when someone had approached the desk and said to Cindy, ‘Elliott Fraser. I’ve brought Matthew for his check-up.’
Sophy’s heart had jarred to a standstill. In a breathless kind of slow motion she’d looked up and seen him for the first time. Her father.
He was in his late forties, his hair already silver. He looked smooth and well-heeled, the image of a successful businessman. His eyes were a cold slate-grey, not like hers at all, and as he’d talked to Cindy his gaze hadn’t warmed or changed in any way. Though Sophy had stared and stared to try to find a resemblance, she hadn’t been able to see any.
There had to be one, though. People could hardly ever see likenesses to themselves. She supposed she might take after her poor mother, who, according to the records, had died from contracting meningitis, but there should still be points of resemblance with her father.
Her glance had fallen then on the four-year-old at Elliott Fraser’s side. He had the most endearing little solemn face. In a rush of conflicted emotion she’d realised he was her half-brother.
How strange to see some of the actual people in the world who shared her blood, her genes. Even perhaps, if she were lucky, things in common. Though she’d loved her adoptive parents, they had a much older daughter in England from Bea’s first marriage, and Sophy had sometimes had the feeling she was being compared to her. Lauren was good at maths and science. While Sophy liked them, too, she preferred the arts. Lauren had done medicine, while Sophy had chosen to study child language development. Lauren went hiking and shinning up mountainsides, while Sophy liked growing things and browsing through bookshops.
Soon after Sophy had turned eighteen, it was as though Henry and Bea felt they’d discharged their responsibility towards their adopted child, for, even though there’d been lots of teary regrets and one long visit, they’d emigrated back to England to be with Lauren, Bea’s real daughter, when she started her family.
Sophy often thought that if only she’d had brothers and sisters, she mightn’t have missed her parents so badly. Still be missing them. That little brother…
As she remembered his big brown eyes her heart made a surge of pleasure, though it was tinged with concern. He’d been so sweet, but she’d had the most overwhelming instinct that he was lonely. Afterwards, going over and over the encounter in her mind, it had struck her clinical brain that, while Elliott Fraser had waited in Reception with him, he hadn’t made one single eye contact with his son. There were books and toys for the children to investigate while they waited, but Matthew had sat all hunched up on the seat beside his father, as if hedged into his own little world. Elliott hadn’t spoken to him once.
She saw that often in the clinic. Parents who didn’t understand that their communication with their child was crucial. She wished there were some way she could help Matthew. Dreaming about it, she was so deep in thought that by the time she disembarked at Circular Quay she realised she hadn’t noticed the early morning sights and smells of the harbour once in the entire trip. In Macquarie Street, she broke into a run, not easy in a pencil-slim skirt.
Thank goodness Security had already unlocked the building’s heavy glass doors. Once inside, she pressed the button for the lift, but then decided she couldn’t spare the time it took for the creaking cage to descend, and took the stairs instead.
The great domed skylight let in the morning, lighting the tiers of galleries where the doctors had their rooms. Tall, stained-glass windows at either end of the building tinctured the weak morning light with the faintest hues of rose and lavender.
Few people were in evidence this early, although the rich fragrance of coffee as she sprinted past the second gallery, mingled with the aromas rising up from the basement café, suggested that Millie, her friend and colleague, was there already, establishing herself in her new room.
Millie’s old room was right next door to hers. It was bound to be unlocked, waiting to be refurbished. If she didn’t find the envelope in the mothers’ room, or even the washroom, it would have to still be safe in there.
At the top of the stairs she paused to regain her breath, and was faced with the sight of Millie’s door, firmly shut. With a shock she saw a new sign emblazoned on it.
Connor O’Brien.
The words leaped out at her, bold and alive like a confrontation.
Connor O’Brien. Who was Connor O’Brien?
She flew along to the ladies’ room, praying Security had unlocked it. To her relief the heavy mahogany door gave at once. Turning first to the washroom, she pushed through the swing door and scanned all the wash units, checked the bins, then strode through to the innermost room and peered into all the cubicles. Nothing.
Disappointing, but no surprise. The odds were still on the mothers’ room.
She hurried across the tiny foyer, swung open the door to the mothers’ room and was brought to a sudden standstill. For a confused instant she was confronted by what looked like a dark pillar shimmering in the white-tiled space, until she blinked and her vision cleared.
It was a man.
Naked to the waist, he was tall and lean, with strongly muscled arms and pitch-black hair. He was standing at the sink, his face half covered with shaving cream. A jacket and shirt were draped over a briefcase at his feet. His powerful torso was tanned, as if he’d spent real time in the sun, and as he performed his task small ripples disturbed the sleek, satin skin of his back.
His feet were as firmly planted on the floor of the mothers’ room as if they had every right to be there. Didn’t the man have a bathroom?
As he leaned further in she caught a glimpse of an angry, jagged scar across the ribs on his right side. A breathless sensation shook her, like the moment of sudden uplift on a ferris wheel. The door escaped from her paralysed fingers just as he was laying bare a swathe of smooth, bronzed cheek. His hand halted in mid-swipe, and in the mirror his gaze collided with hers.
His eyes were dark, deeper than the night, and heavy-lidded, fringed with black lashes beneath strong black brows. What grabbed at her, though, and shook up her insides, was their expression.
At that first instant of connection a sardonic gleam had shot through them. As if he’d recognised her.
Except… She didn’t know him. Why should he recognise her?
He half turned and she caught a glimpse of his profile, a devastating sweep of forehead and long straight nose. Then he faced her full on and…
Gorgeous. Even half coated with foam, strength and masculine assurance declared themselves in the symmetrical bone structure of his lean, handsome face.
‘Hi. Connor O’Brien.’
His
