my invoice.’
‘I’ll get it seen to. Thank you.’
‘If there’s anything else you need, Mr Gallagher, any further information—’
‘I’ll be in touch.’
‘The woman in the post office told me Blake was away at the moment, if that helps,’ he added quietly, and opened the door.
Max stared down at the envelope, hardly daring to open it. But, when the door clicked softly shut behind the PI, he eased up the flap, tipped it and felt his breath jam in his throat as the photos spilled out over the desk.
Oh lord, she looked gorgeous. Different, though. It took him a moment to recognise her, because she’d grown her hair and it was tied back in a ponytail, making her look younger and somehow freer. The blonde highlights were gone, and it was back to its natural soft golden-brown, with a little curl in the end of the ponytail that he wanted to thread his finger through and tug, just gently, to draw her back to him.
Crazy. She’d put on a little weight, but it suited her. She looked well and happy and beautiful, but oddly, considering how desperate he’d been for news of her for the last year—one year, three weeks and two days, to be exact—it wasn’t Julia who held his attention after the initial shock. It was the babies sitting side by side in a supermarket trolley. Two identical and absolutely beautiful little girls.
His? It was a distinct possibility. He only had to look at the dark, spiky hair on their little heads, so like his own at that age. He could have been looking at a photo of himself.
Max stared down at it until the images swam in front of his eyes. He pressed the heels of his hands against them, struggling for breath, then lowered his hands and stared again.
She was alive—alive and well—and she had two beautiful children.
Children that common sense would dictate were his.
Children he’d never seen, children he’d not been told about, and suddenly he found he couldn’t breathe. Why hadn’t she told him? Would he ever have been told about them? Damn it, how dared she keep them a secret from him? Unless they weren’t his…
He felt anger building inside him, a terrible rage that filled his heart and made him want to destroy something the way she’d destroyed him.
The paperweight hit the window and shattered, the pieces bouncing off the glass and falling harmlessly to the floor, and he bowed his head and counted to ten.
‘Max?’
‘He’s found her—in Suffolk. I have to go.’
‘Of course you do,’ his PA said soothingly. ‘But take a minute, calm down, I’ll make you a cup of tea and get someone to pack for you.’
‘I’ve got a bag in the car. You’ll have to cancel New York. In fact, cancel everything for the next two days. I’m sorry, Andrea, I don’t want tea. I just want to see my—my wife.’
And the babies. His babies.
She blocked his path. ‘It’s been over a year, Max. Another ten minutes won’t make any difference. You can’t go tearing in there like this, you’ll frighten the life out of her. You have to take it slowly, work out what you want to say. Now sit down. That’s it. Did you have lunch?’
He sat obediently and stared at her, wondering what the hell she was talking about. ‘Lunch?’
‘I thought so. Tea and a sandwich—and then you can go.’
He stared after her—motherly, efficient, bossy, organising—and deeply, endlessly kind, he realised now—and felt his eyes prickle again.
He couldn’t just sit there. He crunched over the paperweight and placed his hands flat on the window, his forehead pressed to the cool, soothing glass. Why hadn’t he known? How could she have kept something so significant from him for so long?
He heard the door open and Andrea return.
‘Is this her?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the babies?’
He stared out of the window. ‘Yes. Interesting, isn’t it? It seems I’m a father, and she didn’t even see fit to tell me. Either that or she’s had an affair with my doppelganger, because they look just like I did.’
She put the tray down, tutted softly and then, utterly out of the blue, his elegant, calm, practical PA hugged him.
He didn’t know what to do for a second. It was so long since anyone had held him that he was shocked at the contact. But then slowly he lifted his arms and hugged her back, and the warmth and comfort of it nearly unravelled him. Resisting the urge to hang on, he stepped back out of her arms and turned away, dragging in air and struggling for control of the situation.
‘Goodness, aren’t they like you?’
She was staring down at the photos on the desk, a smile on her face, and he nodded. ‘Yes. Yes, they are. I’ve seen pictures of me—’
Was that his voice? He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘I must have been that sort of age. My mother’s got an album—’ And then it hit him. She was a grandmother. He’d have to tell her. She’d be overjoyed.
Oh, hell. His eyes were at it again.
‘Here, drink your tea and eat the sandwiches, and I’ll get David to bring the car round.’
The car. A two-seater, low, sexy, gorgeous open-top sports car with a throaty growl and absolutely nowhere to put baby seats, he thought as he got into it a few minutes later. Never mind. He could change it. He tapped the address into the satnav and headed out of town, the hood down and the icy February wind in his hair, trying to blow away the cobwebs and help him think—because he still had no idea what on earth he was going to say to her.
He still had no idea nearly two hours later, when the satnav had guided him to the centre of the village, and he pulled up in the dusk and looked at the map the PI had given him.
There was the bridge over the river, just ahead of him, so it should be here on the right, down this drive.
He dragged in a deep breath, shut the hood because he suddenly realised he was freezing and it was starting to mist with rain, and bumped slowly down the drive, coming out into an open area in front of the house.
He saw a pretty, thatched, chocolate-box cottage in the sweep of his headlights, and then he saw her walking towards the window in a room to the right of the front door, a baby in her arms, and his heart jammed in his throat.
‘Shush, Ava, there’s a good girl. Don’t cry, darling— Oh, look, there’s somebody coming! Shall we see who it is? It might be Auntie Jane!’
She went to the window and looked out as the headlights sliced across the gloom and the car came to rest, and felt the blood drain from her face.
Max! How—?
She sat down abruptly on the old sofa in the bay window, ignoring the baby chewing her fist
