The Collector's Edition Volume 1 (38 page)

R
OWENA
hurriedly clicked off the television set and pushed herself to her feet. Phil—it had to be—come home. Yes, footsteps heading for the kitchen. What did it mean?

She glanced at her watch. Nine-forty. He’d waited until the children were asleep. Out of the way. Maybe he found it easier to face her without a watching audience, especially if he intended to admit a mistake.

She moved unsteadily towards the counter where Jamie had sat, instinctively wanting something solid separating her and the man who had betrayed his commitment to her and their family. She felt defensive, although she told herself she had no reason to be. It was he who had put their marriage under threat.

She also shied away from the thought of being touched. Phil had undoubtedly come from Adriana. If he reached out for her now…No, she couldn’t bear it, not with the image of Adriana so fresh in her mind.

Phil came into the kitchen in aggressive mode. It wasn’t hard to see he was not bent on reconciliation. He glared at her, his blue eyes ablaze with fury. “What the hell do you think you were
doing, going to Delahunty’s today?” he demanded in a voice laced with outrage.

It was like a punch in the stomach. Didn’t he realise how desperate she’d been to put herself on the line against his other woman? Didn’t it tell him how much their marriage meant to her? Was there no appreciation at all of what she was going through because of him?

“I wanted to see the woman you prefer to me and the children,” she answered, needing to focus his mind on the real issue.

It floated over his head. “To go to my boss…God damn it, Rowena! You put me in an invidious position, dragging Keir into this.”

The realisation hit her that this rage was about appearances. She had made him look bad in his boss’s eyes. That was what had brought him here. Not her and the children. Phil hated looking bad.

A great distance yawned between them as she totted up the clean-cut handsome face, the perfectly groomed dark blonde hair, the buttoneddown collar of his expensive white shirt, the silk tie perfectly in place, the smartly tailored double-breasted suit that was an up-to-date fashion statement. It had always been so very important to Phil to look good. She had been proud of him looking good. She hadn’t known it was more important to him than her and the children.

“Emily wanted to show you her latest painting,” she said, waving to the corkboard on the wall above the kitchen counter, hoping it would jolt him out of his self-centredness.

He didn’t spare it so much as a glance. “Don’t drag the children into this. I want to know what went on between you and Keir Delahunty.”

Jealous? Was Keir right about jealousy bringing Phil to heel? She frowned. It was so grubby, somehow.

“You were with him before and after you saw Adriana,” he went on in fuming accusation.

Rowena instinctively minimised what had happened. “We met accidentally in the car park. He knew about you and Adriana. He guessed why I’d come. He offered his office for privacy.”

“Why should he do that?”

“To prevent an unpleasant scene. More gossip.”

“Adriana said he was holding your hand. And he took your side. I’m one of his top executives, and he’s hardly met you. Why should he care about you? Tell me that!”

Had Keir really cared, or was he an opportunist like Adriana? Rowena felt wretchedly confused about Keir’s motives. Perhaps he regretted not having pursued her. And the attraction was still there. If he hadn’t lied…That was the killing point.

“He knows me from a long time ago,” she said quietly, trying to defuse Phil’s anger and suspicion. “Our families were once friends.”

A fierce resentment flared. “You never mentioned this before. I’ve been working with him for almost two years, and neither you nor he has ever referred to having known each other.”

She shrugged. “I imagine he didn’t want to remember it any more than I did. The friendship ended when my brother died in Keir’s car. My parents blamed Keir.”

“Was he guilty?”

Rowena hated the speculative spark in Phil’s eyes. Did he want to hold something over Keir? “No, he wasn’t. It was an accident. Brett was driving. My parents were too distraught to accept that it was Brett’s fault. As they saw it, if Keir’s parents hadn’t given him a sports car and if he hadn’t let Brett drive it, the accident wouldn’t have happened.”

“Then he should feel bitter towards you, not—Hold on a moment.” He was clearly struck by another train of thought. “Weren’t you seventeen when your brother died?”

“Yes. As I said, a long time ago.”

“When was it exactly?”

“New Year’s Day.” The memory was still stark, the shock, the grief—Brett and Keir, and the guilty relief that Keir was still alive. Still alive now, and making more trouble for her. She shouldn’t have gone to his office, shouldn’t have stayed talking to him.

Phil’s fist crashed down on the counter. “He’s the father, isn’t he?”

The yelled words rang in her ears. She looked at Phil’s furiously pugnacious face and was too stunned to make any reply.

“Jamie’s birthday is in September, nine months after the accident that killed your brother. Oh,
it adds up now, doesn’t it?” Phil jeered. “That’s why Jamie’s father didn’t stand by you. Your parents blamed Keir Delahunty for your brother’s death and sent you off to your aunt in Queensland.”

He flung up his hands and swung away from her, marching around the kitchen, smacking his fist into his other hand. “And you let me take a job with the father of your son,” he shouted at her in savage condemnation.

Rowena snapped herself out of the shock of Phil tying Keir to her pregnancy. “Jamie is your son.
Your
son,” she cried in a desperate attempt to set things straight. “You’re the only father he’s known. Please stop this. It has nothing to do with—”

“Nothing?” he shouted. “You call it nothing for you to fob Keir Delahunty’s son onto me?”

“Jamie is my son. And you adopted him as yours,” she countered fiercely.

“Well, he’s not any more.”

She couldn’t believe this. How could he turn on Jamie as though their father-and-son relationship had meant nothing? “That’s very convenient, Phil. Are you going to suggest the girls have other fathers, too?” she demanded heatedly.

“Leave them out of this.”

“You keep saying that, but you can’t leave them out. Or is that what you really want? Not to think about them. Grasping any excuse not to think about Jamie.”

“All these years, keeping it a secret from me…”

“All these years you haven’t been the least bit concerned about who Jamie’s biological father is. You looked after him, cared about him, played with him. You were proud to own him as your son. How do you wipe it all out, Phil? Tell me that!”

He flushed, evading her gaze for a moment, then swinging back to turn guilt into anger again. “You had no right not to tell me before I accepted the job at Delahunty’s.”

“You wanted the job. It was a feather in your cap. I wanted you to be happy. If I’d known it would lead to your meeting Adriana Leigh and deserting all of us for her—”

“I have every intention of remaining a father to Emily and Sarah.”

At least he had that much conscience, Rowena thought, wondering where the rest of it was. “So it’s only Jamie you’re going to dump,” she said, wanting to bludgeon every shred of his conscience into reviewing what he was doing. “Is it because Adriana doesn’t want to be bothered with him? Little girls are much more malleable for a woman like her. Or maybe you haven’t got the guts for answering sticky questions from Jamie.”

The flush deepened. “I haven’t heard you deny he’s Keir Delahunty’s bastard kid.”

Rowena seethed over that demeaning phrase. She barely held herself back from flying at him tooth and claw. “I don’t have to deny anything,”
she fired at him. “You adopted Jamie in good faith. You just want to muddy things up so you’ll feel justified in what you’re doing, and you have no justification. None at all!”

He slapped his hands on the counter and leaned towards her in belligerent challenge. “Look me straight in the eye, Rowena, and deny that you and Keir Delahunty were lovers and that Jamie is his natural son.”

She stared at him, hating the feeling of being cornered, hating all the connotations he was putting on a love affair that ended long before she had met Phil and married him, and hating his evasion of responsibilities he had willingly taken on.

Even so, she couldn’t bring herself to lie. In some strange way she felt a pride in Jamie’s natural heritage and didn’t want to deny it. After all, Keir Delahunty had certainly made his way in the world. He was also Phil’s boss, hardly a comedown in the genetic pool. Yet to make a claim…

“Keir doesn’t know. He doesn’t know,” she repeated with passionate emphasis.

“Well, maybe he ought to know.” Phil straightened up, a triumphant gleam in his eyes. “Maybe he should take over the support of the boy I’ve been supporting all these years.”

“No,” she gasped, appalled that he should even think it.

He looked smug, in control. “Stay out of my business, Rowena. That’s my territory. And Adriana’s. And I don’t want you messing with it.”

“So it’s all right to keep working for Keir now, is it?” she snapped bitterly.

“He doesn’t know, and you don’t want him told. That puts me in the driver’s seat.”

He was feeling good again. It was crazy. He was disowning a son who had done nothing to deserve rejection, and believing he held some kind of trump card over her and Keir. What kind of twisted thinking was that? Rowena couldn’t relate to it.

He shook a finger at her. “No more putting Adriana on the spot. Keep out of our lives, Rowena. I told you last night you can keep this house. You’ve got a home for yourself and the children. That’s more than fair.”

She supposed she had to concede it was generous, though there was no telling how long the spirit of generosity would last once Adriana got to work on him.

“I’ll be seeing a solicitor tomorrow,” he informed her. “I don’t want any hassle about reasonable access to my daughters.”

Her heart bled for Jamie, but what could she do against such unfair intransigence? What more could she say? “That’s it, is it, Phil? All that we had together has come to an end?”

Guilt flickered briefly in his eyes. “You were the wrong woman for me, Rowena. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth.”

“How was I wrong? You didn’t think I was wrong when you married me. When did I change?”

“You didn’t change.”

“Then explain it to me, Phil. I need to know where I failed.”

He heaved a discomforted sigh. “You were what I thought I wanted in a wife. It just didn’t turn out how I visualised it.”

“I don’t understand,” she pleaded.

He grimaced but went on reluctantly. “Well, you represented the ideal I had in my mind. You were happy for me to be the breadwinner, happy to have children and make a home for us, looking after everything on the domestic side.”

“You saw me as the old-fashioned housewife.”

“With the family. The whole bit. I hadn’t had it. You know my parents were divorced,” he said tersely.

And he was about to visit that upon his own children, Rowena thought grimly.

“And you’re quite beautiful in your own way,” he grudgingly conceded. “I was proud to have you at my side.”

“Then why? Why let it all go?” she cried in anguished bewilderment.

“I told you. It was good for a while, but it’s not what I want now.”

“You believe Adriana is better for you?”

“It’s not just Adriana,” he said petulantly. “I want freedom. I want stimulation, excitement, the fun of doing things with spontaneity instead of having to live up to your ideals.”

“By fun I assume you mean infidelity.”

Anger bloomed again. “You expected too much of me. I’m tired of it. I want out. Is that clear enough for you?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

It all made sense now. She had been Phil’s fantasy. His mistake was in underestimating how much he needed to put into his role for the fantasy to become real. Looking good wasn’t enough.

“So you’re just walking out and leaving me to it,” she said flatly, having had any last bit of caring for Phil drained out of her.

He shrugged. “You’ve gained a home, remember. And you’ll find someone else. You’re still young and attractive.” He turned his back on her and walked towards the door as though she’d never been anything to him.

It struck a vengeful streak in Rowena. “Maybe I’ll find Keir Delahunty. How will you like that?”

He stopped, his back rigid. Rowena knew he didn’t like it one bit. He swung a glittering gaze to her. “Try it, Rowena, and this house won’t be yours. It will be sold, and I’m entitled to half the proceeds.”

She bit down on her wayward tongue. She had to consider the children’s welfare. Wild threats
were only self-defeating. She had no intention of inviting Keir Delahunty back into her life.

Satisfied he had won his point, Phil walked out. Rowena didn’t follow him to the front door. She wouldn’t follow him anywhere anymore. He had severed the last sense of bonding with him.

K
EIR
D
ELAHUNTY
gave up trying to concentrate on work. There was too much on his mind, and telling himself that none of it was his business didn’t help one iota. He rolled his chair away from the drawing board, stood up and strolled around his office, ending up where Rowena had been yesterday, behind the table, looking down at the streets of Chatswood.

He’d had to tell Phil about her visit. It would have been unnatural not to when he’d come to give his report on the Pyrmont warehouse. Adriana would have had no qualms about telling him. Phil’s embarrassment, the barely suppressed anger in his eyes did not bode well for Rowena.

Had she suffered a backlash from him last night?

Keir groaned inwardly. The frustration of not being able to help, not being able to go to her was eating into him. Phil didn’t want her. Rowena had no reason to still feel committed to him and their marriage. How could she keep loving him in the face of such demeaning infidelity? Surely it was impossible.

His mind replayed every minute he’d spent with her yesterday, the words spoken, the tension, the
eye contact. When he’d held her, he’d had such a strong sense of connecting with her again, but her rejection had been so swift, so vehement, maybe he’d been fooling himself.

Nevertheless, he didn’t believe her conflict with Phil was entirely responsible for her intensely emotional responses to him. She might not want to acknowledge it, but the attraction was still there, surging between them.

Liar
…

He shook his head. The word kept ringing in his ears, a death knell to any hope of recapturing what he’d once had with Rowena. But it wasn’t true. If there had been a lie, it wasn’t his.

He could still remember the sickening emptiness he’d felt when Rowena’s mother had shown him the photograph, a totally devastating reinforcement of her father’s insistence that their daughter didn’t want him in her life and to stay right out of it and not bring her any more grief.

He’d stared disbelievingly at the photograph, Rowena with a baby on her lap, a man crouched adoringly beside them. Married, her parents had said, married to a good man, mother of a fine baby boy and happily settled in Queensland. There was no place for Keir Delahunty in any of their lives.

It had to have been a lie if Rowena had waited years for him. And he couldn’t disbelieve her. He couldn’t forget the blazing passion in her eyes as she had accused him, condemned him for having
done what Phil Goodman was doing to her now, betraying her love, deserting her.

It must have been someone else’s baby she’d been holding, simply a fortuitous photograph her parents had maliciously used to get rid of him. Or to give him the pain of loss they felt. As though losing his best friend and suffering through all those operations to walk again wasn’t enough, Keir thought bitterly. They’d made him lose Rowena, too.

Vengeance, indeed. And for what? Brett had almost killed him, as well as himself. If that dog hadn’t run onto the road…Keir shut his eyes tight, wanting to erase the memory of the last frantic moments before the car had crashed. Better to forget everything. But he couldn’t.

Liar…

Would Rowena believe him about the photograph? Did she believe he’d written to her? He had no evidence to back up either claim. At least she didn’t blame him for Brett’s death. That was one small comfort, although it didn’t balance the rest of the ledger against him. Was his word enough to get past her distrust?

The telephone on his desk rang.

He swung around in irritation. He’d told Fay to take all his calls this morning. Why wasn’t she handling this? He was tempted not to answer, but there had to be a cogent reason for her to disobey his instructions, and he trusted Fay’s judgment. He strode to his workstation and snatched up the receiver.

“What is it?”

“You have a visitor.”

“I said no appointments.”

“Keir, you remember yesterday when I brought in the coffee and sandwiches?”

“What are you getting at Fay?”

“I’m very sensitive to vibrations, you know. I think you’ll want to see this visitor.”

“Who is it?”

“Mrs. Goodman’s son. He’s come to see you. Very specifically you, Keir. He does not intend to go away until he does see you.”

That knocked the wind out of any further protest and triggered a buzz of questions. Why would Rowena’s son come here? To him? Where was Phil? What was happening to Rowena?

“Bring him in, Fay.” The quiet command belied the turmoil in his mind.

He put down the receiver, hesitated over where best to place himself to meet the boy, then moved out of the workstation to greet him as he entered.

Fay opened the connecting door to her office and waved forward a schoolboy—eight, nine, ten? Surely too tall to be any younger. Black hair like Rowena’s. He didn’t have her green eyes. They were similar in shape but they were hazel. He was smartly dressed in a school uniform and carrying what was obviously his school bag.

He should be in his classroom right now, Keir thought. His parents undoubtedly believed he was. Yet there was no trace of guilt or concern in the boy’s expression about having his truancy
found out. He looked directly at Keir, curiously, assessingly, as though measuring him against some preconceived image.

“Jamie, this is Mr. Delahunty. Jamie Goodman, Keir.” Fay introduced them, giving Keir a roll of her eyes that clearly said, Well, the fat’s in the fire now, and this is what you get for involving yourself in other people’s intimate problems.

Keir stepped forward, smiled encouragingly and offered his hand. “How do you do, Jamie?” Rowena’s son. Another chance to reach her?

The boy put down his bag and gravely took his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you, sir.”

Drilled in good manners. He didn’t show any pleasure in the meeting. No responding smile. He seemed caught up in studying Keir’s face, feature by feature.

“Please see that we aren’t interrupted, Fay,” Keir instructed and gave her a nod of approval for making an exception to orders for Rowena’s son. “Thank you.”

She left them together.

Jamie withdrew his hand and his scrutiny and cast his questing gaze around Keir’s office. “Is this all yours?” he asked.

“All mine,” Keir affirmed. “I designed it, as well. Would you like a tour?”

A flash of keen interest. “Yes, please.”

Keir wondered how many tests he had to pass before Jamie Goodman revealed why he was here.

He proceeded to explain the purpose of all his architect’s tools in his workstation, demonstrated how the drawing board could be adjusted, showed how he drew visualisations of his designs on the computer and answered a comprehensive range of intelligent questions. The boy was extremely bright.

“How old are you, Jamie?” Keir asked as he ushered him over to the model display.

It earned another speculative look. “How old are you?”

Keir had to smile at such a direct retort. “I’m thirty-five.”

Jamie frowned, “That makes you older than—” He clamped down on whatever comparison he had been about to make and turned to examine the models.

Apparently the subject of age was not to be pursued, yet Keir was tantalised by it. Rowena had stated she had waited years for him. If that were the case, this boy could only be eight at most, yet he looked and sounded older.

“I’ve seen this one. It’s been built at Manly,” Jamie remarked, pleased at recognising the town houses Rowena had commented on yesterday.

“Yes. Your mother said she liked the design.”

Jamie moved on to the next model. “Do you like my mum?”

The question sounded offhand but Keir knew intuitively it wasn’t. “Yes, I do. We were close friends once. Unfortunately, your mother’s brother was killed in a car accident. I was injured
in the same crash. My parents flew me to the United States for special medical treatment, and I didn’t see your mother again for a long time.”

The boy was still, not looking at Keir, but the sense of him weighing every word Keir said was very strong. “What did you need treatment for?” he asked.

“My pelvis and both my legs were broken in many places. There was some doubt I would ever walk again.”

Jamie turned and looked at Keir’s legs. “How long did it take for you to mend?”

“Eighteen months.”

Jamie nodded as though the answer met whatever check list he had in his mind. “You must have been badly smashed up,” he remarked sympathetically.

Keir grimaced. “It wasn’t much fun.”

“No, I guess it wasn’t.” Jamie’s eyes travelled up in open assessment of Keir’s physical condition. “You’re okay now, though,” he decided.

“In top shape,” Keir agreed.

Jamie pointed to the glass wall across the room. “Do you mind if I have a look at the view?”

“You’re welcome.”

Keir watched him walk around the table and stand where his mother had stood, looking out. It was uncanny. He wondered how close the bond was between mother and son.

“You sure can see a lot,” the boy said appreciatively.

“It also gives me plenty of natural light,” Keir answered, playing along with the game of not hastening to the purpose of the visit.

“Are you and Mum friends now?”

The question caught Keir unprepared, and it was loaded with pitfalls. What was behind it? Had there been an argument between Phil and Rowena last night, heated words that Jamie had overheard and possibly misconstrued? Keir swiftly decided that honesty was the best policy.

“I would like to be friends, Jamie,” he said slowly, “but I don’t think your mother feels the same way.”

“Why not?”

As an inquisitor, Jamie Goodman was excelling at putting Keir on the spot. “Well, there’s your father,” Keir started tentatively.

“He’s not my father.”

The hard, vehement denial stunned Keir into turbulent silence. His mind leapt into overdrive. Rowena had had an illegitimate child? When? By whom? The man in the photograph? His back had been turned to the camera, unidentifiable. But if he was the father, Rowena had not waited. Unless the pregnancy had resulted from…from an act of rape.

Keir was inwardly recoiling from this last thought when Jamie swung around, an oddly adult look of set determination on his young face. Keir was reminded of not Rowena but…

“I’m ten years old.”

“Ten,” Keir repeated, still trying to pinpoint the familiarity.

“My birthday is the twenty-eighth of September,” the boy stated with portentous emphasis.

The date sent Keir’s mind reeling.

“And
you
are my father.”