come from some high-flying meeting, she guessed grudgingly, where he’d made multi-million-pound decisions that would increase his global fortune tenfold! But his nearness was stifling, and Sienna took a step back—which was so obvious that he couldn’t have failed to realise why.
Apart from the lift of an enquiring eyebrow, however, fortunately he made no comment.
‘My mother needs to see Daisy,’ he stated as the cloakroom door closed quietly behind him. ‘So do I.’ Sombre lines were etched around his mouth and jaw and a deep groove corrugated the healthily tanned skin of his forehead. ‘My mother hasn’t been herself lately …’ He couldn’t bring himself to tell her what was really wrong, how worried he was about Avril Ryder; he wasn’t going to beg. ‘And I feel she would benefit from a visit from her only grandchild. She hasn’t seen her since she was eighteen months old. Neither of us has.’
‘And you think you can just come here and take Daisy away? Just like that? That I’d even allow it?’ Fear rose in her again but she forced it back. ‘She doesn’t know you, Conan.’
‘And whose fault is that?’
‘She doesn’t know you,’ she reiterated, ignoring his censuring demand. ‘Neither of us does.’ Or did, she amended bitterly, reminded of his heartlessness, his lack of compassion—not just towards her, but towards his own brother.
‘I’m the child’s uncle, for Pete’s sake! Not that you’ve ever given her the chance to find out. There have been no photos. No contact. Do you know what that’s been like for Avril? Her grandmother? Don’t you think she’s had enough to contend with in losing Niall—without losing his baby daughter as well when you took her away?’
‘I was driven away,’ she breathed fiercely. ‘And you seem to forget … I lost something too.’ Her eyes were shielded, their lids heavy with the pain of remembering. ‘I lost a husband. And I had to contend with a lot of accusations and blame. Don’t you think I felt bad enough without being made to feel I was responsible for what had happened to him? That I was responsible for his drinking and getting into debt? I knew what you thought of me—both of you. You made it clear often enough that you thought Niall had married beneath him.’
‘I’ve never said that.’
‘You didn’t have to! It was there in every last criticism of everything I said—everything I did. Your mother could scarcely contain her shock at him marrying a barmaid! Albeit a temporary one, until I could get my career on track! But that was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? You were determined not to like me from the start.’
‘I’m not responsible for my mother. As for me, I only acted on what I observed with my own eyes.’
‘And what was that? Besides my supposed infidelity, that is?’
Condemnation set his features in harsh lines, so that he looked like one of the warring Celts whose blood still pumped through his proud, pulsing veins. ‘You know very well. Niall was weak where money was concerned. He was living above his means and you did nothing but encourage him.’
Because she hadn’t known. Because she’d been too young to recognise the signs: his irritability, his drinking too much, his mood swings.
‘“Bled him dry”,’ she reminded him. ‘That was the phrase I believe you used.’
He didn’t negate or deny it. How could he? Sienna thought grimly. He wasn’t a man to pull his punches, or hide behind lies and subterfuge—as she had—whatever else he might have done.
‘I can’t talk about this now,’ she uttered quickly, hearing the last track on the album she’d selected earlier come to an abrupt end. ‘I’ve got to get back to my class.’ This meeting with Niall’s brother was more traumatic than she’d ever have imagined possible, and it was with aching relief that she pulled herself away.
‘You’ll do as I ask, Sienna.’
She stopped in her tracks, swinging round to face him again, her eyes wide with defiance and disbelief.
‘Oh, will I? And what do you intend to do to try and bully me into it? Concoct some tale about my being an unsuitable mother and get an injunction to try and take Daisy away from me, as you threatened before?’ Beneath her bravado was a sick anxiety that he might try to do just that—somehow use his power and influence to get even with her for how he believed she had treated Niall.
‘I didn’t come here for that.’
‘No. You just want me to hand her over without all the hassle. Well, I’m sorry, Conan, but the answer’s still no. Daisy’s not going anywhere without me, and I’m certainly not putting myself back into the lion’s den, thank you very much!’
‘Oh, I think you will, Sienna.’
‘And what makes you so sure?’
‘Conscience, sweetheart. If you have one.’
Her small chin came up as she said bitterly, ignoring the patronising way in which he had addressed her, ‘Like you, you mean?’
She didn’t wait to catch any sniping response.
Making sure Daisy was asleep, Sienna kissed the little girl’s soft cheek before extinguishing her bedside lamp, unable to resist stroking the silky chestnut hair that curled against the pillow.
Like Niall’s, she thought poignantly, pulling the duvet up over the chubby arm wrapped around her pink hippopotamus. Daisy had inherited her father’s colouring, not hers.
Going back downstairs, she opened the back door to let in a big bouncing bundle of white shaggy fur, filled a bowl with the dog’s supper, and then started the ironing—normal things she did every day, except tonight things felt anything but normal.
Meeting Conan again had opened up all the unhappiness of the past, forcing her to dwell on wounds she’d thought had healed, forcing her to think, to remember.
She had been just twenty when she had met Niall.
With her parents having sold their UK home to live abroad, Sienna had chosen to stay in England on her own. Her parents had always done their own thing. They liked sun, sea and sand, and Sienna had been happy for them, while relishing the prospect of occasional holidays in Spain.
She had been working as a receptionist at her local gym when she had met Niall. He had been a regular member there, and had often come into the bar where she had sometimes helped when it was short-staffed. She had instantly warmed to his wicked sense of humour. He’d been witty and charming, and just a little bit crazy, and she’d been swept off her feet before she had known what hit her.
Her parents had flown over for the wedding, which had been a short civil ceremony after a whirlwind romance. Faith and Barry Swann and Niall’s mother—a barrister’s widow—were poles apart, and while they’d tried to befriend her new mother-in-law it was clear that Avril Ryder hadn’t really warmed towards them. It had also been clear to Sienna from the start that the woman believed she had trapped her youngest son into marriage by getting pregnant, which was something over which Sienna had been silently smug, proving her wrong when Daisy had arrived exactly a year to the day that they had married.
Conan had been at the wedding, interrupting some important business conference he’d been attending in Europe, and the cool touch
