and his gaze was that of a rabbit caught in headlights.
They were both stuck.
She might as well turn and watch the tableau in front of her.
The penthouse had been decorated for Christmas. A massive tree sparkled behind them. There were tasteful bud lights hanging from the windows, and through those windows the lights of Sydney Harbour glittered like a fairy tale.
The two centrepieces in this tableau were also like something out of a fairy tale. Yes, Max looked exhausted, but this man would look good after a week in the bush fighting to survive. The warrior image suited him—business clothes seemed almost inappropriate.
And Isabelle? She was wearing a silver-sequined frock that would have cost Sunny a year’s wages or more. How had she got into it so soon after giving birth? There must be a whalebone corset somewhere under there, Sunny thought. Her blonde hair was shoulder-length, every curl exquisitely positioned. Her crimson mouth was painted into a heart shape. Everything about her seemed perfect.
Except the pram behind her. The wail coming from its depths was growing increasingly desperate.
But Isabelle seemed oblivious to the wail. She was focusing on Max, her glower designed to skewer at twenty paces.
‘She’s yours,’ she spat and Sunny watched Max react with blank incredulity.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Do you think I want her?’ Isabelle’s voice was vituperative. ‘I never wanted her in the first place. Your father... “Have a baby and I’ll marry you,” he said. “You’ll be taken care of for life. You’ll never have to work again.”’ Her voice was a mock imitation, a vicious recount of words obviously said long ago. ‘And now...your father’s will... Yeah, he changed it, like he promised he would. His whole fortune for this kid, held in trust by me until the age of twenty-one. But he never said anything to me about a son! I would have aborted. No, I’d have never got pregnant in the first place. So now he’s dead and the will says everything goes to his youngest son. But there’s only one son, and that’s you. You get it all, and my lawyer says I’ll even have to file a claim for this one’s maintenance. Do you think I slept with a seventy-eight-year-old egomaniac and carried his kid for maintenance?’
Her voice ended on a screech. She sounded out of control, Sunny thought—there was real suffering under there. Real betrayal.
She looked again at Max and saw blank amazement.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he managed.
‘So welcome to the real world,’ Isabelle snapped, fighting to get her voice back to a reasonable level—which was tricky seeing she was talking over a baby’s screams. ‘She was born last week. Two days after your father’s heart attack. You can do a paternity test if you like—I don’t care. She’s your father’s. Her papers are with her. Everything’s in the pram. Her name’s Phoebe because Phoebe’s the midwife who delivered her and when I said I didn’t care she sounded shocked so I said I’d call her after her. But now...if you think I’ll sit at your father’s funeral like a grieving widow you have another think coming. My lawyers will be contacting you for compensation.’
‘Isabelle...’ Max sounded gobsmacked. ‘I’m so sorry...’
‘I don’t want your sympathy,’ Isabelle hissed. ‘Your father lied through his teeth to persuade me to have this kid and I might have known... But it’s over. There’s a house party up north starting tomorrow, with people who really matter. I have no intention of taking that...’ she gestured at the howling pram ‘...with me. You inherited everything your father possessed, so she’s yours.’
‘You’re planning to abandon your baby?’ Max’s voice was filled with shock, but also the beginnings of anger. ‘Yours and my father’s baby?’
‘Of course I’m abandoning it. It was a business contract and he broke it.’
‘So he planned a son—why? To keep me from inheriting?’
‘If he’d told me that I might have even done something,’ Isabelle snapped. ‘For the amount of money he promised me, I could have fixed it. Sex selection’s illegal in this country but he had enough money to pay for me to go abroad. But the stupid old fool didn’t even have the sense to be upfront.’
‘You know he had a brain tumour. He died of a heart attack but he had cancer. You know he wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘I don’t know anything and I care less,’ Isabelle snapped. ‘All I know is that I’m leaving. My lawyers will be in touch.’ She whirled back to the door, blocked now by the goggling Nigel and the pram. ‘Get out of my way.’
Nigel, shocked beyond belief, edged the pram aside so Isabelle could shove her way past. She stalked the four steps to the elevator and hit the button.
The elevator slid open as if it had been waiting.
‘Isabelle!’ Max strode forward, but the terrified Nigel had swung the pram back into the doorway and bolted, straight through the fire door.
The pram held Max back for precious moments.
The elevator doors slid closed and the fire door slammed.
Isabelle and Nigel were gone.
THE FIRE DOOR looked very, very appealing.
Cleaning staff were supposed to be invisible.
‘Enter discreetly. If guests are present, act as if you’re a shadow. Listen to nothing and if there’s the slightest sense of unease disappear and go back later. If there’s a problem call Housekeeping and have a guest relations manager handle it.’
That had been the mantra drilled into her two years ago when she’d taken this job and Sunny liked it that way. There was too much drama and worry in her personal life to want any more at work.
So, like Nigel, she should bolt for the fire door. Except that would mean pushing past Max, pushing past the pram, possibly even dripping her mop on both.
He’d have to move. He’d have to tug the pram inside, so she could edge out.
Meanwhile, she tried melting against the wall, acting like part of the plaster, hoping he wouldn’t notice her.
Though there was a sneaky little voice that was thinking, Whoa, did I really see what I just saw? Where was a camera when she needed it? The media would go nuts over what had just happened.
Right. And she’d lose her job and she wouldn’t get one again in the service industry and what else was she trained for? She’d left school at fifteen and there’d only been sporadic attendance before then. She was fit for nothing except blending into the wall, which she’d done before and she had every intention of doing now.
Max didn’t seem to notice her. Why would he? He’d just been handed a bombshell.
He walked cautiously forward and peered into the pram. The wails increased to the point of desperation and the look on
