would dare suggest anything different.’
Did she realise how lucky she was? How envious he felt when he thought about how empty his life had been of the kind of family love she’d been gifted with. He’d used to think he could start his own family, his own traditions, but his ex-wife had disabused him of that particular dream. It involved trust and trust was not a thing that came easily to him. Not when it came to women. ‘I can’t imagine you would want to change a tradition.’
‘If truth be told, we’d be furious if he wanted to change one little thing,’ she said, her voice warm with affection for her father. She knew.
He could see where she got her confidence from—that rock-solid security of a loving, supportive family. But now he knew she’d been tempered by tragedy too. He wanted to know more about how she had dealt with the loss of her boyfriend. But not until it was appropriate to ask.
‘What about you, Dominic—did you celebrate Christmas with your family?’ she asked.
This never got easier—which was why he chose not to revisit it too often. ‘My parents died when I was eleven,’ he said.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she said with warm compassion in her eyes. ‘What a tragedy.’ She paused. ‘You were so young, an only child...who looked after you?’
‘We lived in England, in a village in Norfolk. My father was English, my mother Australian. My mother’s sister was staying with us at the time my parents died. She took me straight back with her to Australia.’ It was difficult to keep his voice matter of fact, not to betray the pain the memories evoked, even after all this time.
‘What? Just wrenched you away from your home?’ She paused. ‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t my call to say that. You were lucky you had family. Did your aunt have children?’
‘No, it was just the two of us,’ he said and left it at that. There was so much more he could say about the toxic relationship with his aunt but that was part of his past he’d rather was left buried.
Wrenched. That was how it had been. Away from everything familiar. Away from his grandparents, whom he didn’t see again until he had the wherewithal to get himself back to the UK as an adult. Away from the dog he’d adored. Desperately lonely and not allowed to grieve, thrust back down in Brisbane, in the intense heat, straight into the strategic battleground that was high school in a foreign country. To a woman who had no idea how to love a child, though she had tried in her own warped way.
‘I’d prefer not to talk about it,’ he said. ‘I’m all grown up now and don’t angst about the past.’ Except when it was dark and lonely and he couldn’t sleep and he wondered if he was fated to live alone without love.
‘I understand,’ she said. But how could she?
She paused to leave a silence he did not feel able to fill.
‘Talking about my family,’ she finally said, ‘you’re my mother’s new number one favourite person.’
Touched by not only her words but her effort to draw him in some way into her family circle, he smiled. ‘And why is that?’
‘Seriously, she really liked you at dinner on Wednesday night. But then, when you had flowers delivered the next day, she was over the moon. Especially at the note that said she cooked the best lasagne you’d ever tasted.’
‘I’m glad she liked them. And it was true about the lasagne.’ Home-made anything was rarely on the menu for him so he had appreciated it.
‘How did you know pink was her favourite colour in flowers?’
‘I noticed the flowers she’d planted in her garden.’
‘But you only saw the garden so briefly.’
‘I’m observant,’ he said.
‘But the icing on the cake was the voucher for dinner for two at their local bistro.’
‘She mentioned she liked their food when we were talking,’ he said.
‘You’re a thoughtful guy, aren’t you?’ she said, tilting her head to the side.
‘Some don’t think so,’ he said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.
She lowered her voice to barely a whisper so he had to lean across the table to hear her, so close their heads were touching. Anyone who was watching would think they were on a date.
She placed her hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort which touched him. ‘Don’t worry. The party should change all that. I really liked Rob’s idea that no media would be invited to the party. That journalists would have to volunteer to help on the day if they wanted to see what it was all about.’
‘And no photographers allowed, to preserve our guests’ privacy. I liked that too.’
‘I really have a good feeling about it,’ she said. She lifted her hand off his arm and he felt bereft of her touch.
He nodded. If it were up to him, if he didn’t have to go ahead with the party, he’d cancel it at a moment’s notice. Maybe there was a touch of Scrooge in him after all.
But he didn’t want Andie to think that of him. Not for a moment.
He hadn’t proved to be a good judge of women. His errors in judgement went right back to his aunt—he’d loved her when she was his fun auntie from Australia. She’d turned out to be a very different person. Then there’d been Melody—sweet, doomed Melody. At seventeen he’d been a man in body but a boy still in heart. He’d been gutted at her betrayal, too damn wet behind the ears to realise a teenage boy’s love could never be enough for an addict. Then how could he have been sucked in by Tara? His ex-wife was a redhead like Melody, tiny and delicate. But her frail exterior hid an avaricious, dishonest heart and she had lied to him about something so fundamental to their marriage that he could never forgive her.
Now there was Andie. He didn’t trust his feelings when he’d made such disastrous calls before. ‘What you see is what you get,’ she’d said about her family.
Could he trust himself to judge that Andie was what she appeared to be?
He reined in his errant thoughts—he only needed to trust Andie to deliver him the party he needed to improve his public image. Anything personal was not going to happen.
‘ANDIE, I NEED to see you.’ Dominic’s voice on her smartphone was harsh in its urgency. It was eight a.m. and Andie had not been expecting a call from him. He’d been away more than a week on business and she’d mainly communicated with him by text and email—and only then if it was something that needed his approval for the party. The last time she’d seen him was the Friday they’d had lunch together. The strictly business lunch that had somehow felt more like a date. But she couldn’t let herself think like that.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I just have to—’
‘Now. Please. Where do you live?’
Startled at his tone, she gave him the address
