Nothing Josh had done, nothing he had achieved—not even a hastily conceived and swiftly regretted marriage—had ever dulled the memory of that one night he’d spent with Grace. Still, in his dreams, his younger self reached out for her.

It had been unbearably worse during the last twelve months. Sleep was elusive, and when he did manage an hour he woke with an almost desperate yearning for something precious, something that was lost for ever.

This. This woman clinging to him. This child…

He brushed his lips against her temple and then, his head full of the warm, milky scent of baby, he kissed Posie—and for one perfect moment all the pain, all the agony of the last twenty-four hours fell away…

Liz Fielding was born with itchy feet. She made it to Zambia before her twenty-first birthday and, gathering her own special hero and a couple of children on the way, lived in Botswana, Kenya and Bahrain—with pauses for sightseeing pretty much everywhere in between. She finally came to a full stop in a tiny Welsh village cradled by misty hills, and these days mostly leaves her pen to do the travelling. When she’s not sorting out the lives and loves of her characters, she potters in the garden, reads her favourite authors and spends a lot of time wondering ‘What if…?’ For news of upcoming books—and to sign up for her occasional newsletter—visit Liz’s website at www.lizfielding.com

SECRET BABY, SURPRISE PARENTS

BY

LIZ FIELDING

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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With many thanks to Carol O’Reilly for her insight

into the legal aspects of surrogacy in the UK.

For more information visit http://www.surrogacyuk.org/

CHAPTER ONE

GRACE MCALLISTER restlessly paced the entrance to Accident and Emergency, punching yet another number into her cellphone in a desperate attempt to contact Josh Kingsley.

It would be Sunday evening in Australia and she’d tried his home number first. A woman had picked up.

‘Anna Carling.’

‘Oh…’ The sound of her voice, the knowledge that she was in Josh’s apartment answering his phone, for a moment drove everything else from her mind. Then, gathering herself, she said, ‘Can I speak to Josh, please?’

‘Who’s calling?’

‘Grace… Grace McAllister. I’m his…his…’

‘It’s okay, Grace, I know who you are. His brother’s wife’s sister, right?’

The woman was in his apartment and knew all the details of his personal life….

Grace gripped the phone tighter until it was hurting her fingers. ‘Could I speak to him, please?’

‘I’m sorry, Josh is away at the moment. I’m his personal assistant. Is there anything I can do to help?’

‘Do you know where he is?’

‘He’s moving about a lot. Hong Kong. Beijing. Can I pass on a message?’ she prompted when Grace didn’t reply.

‘No. Thank you.’ This wasn’t news she could ask a member of his staff—no matter how personal—to deliver second-hand. ‘I need to speak to him myself. It’s urgent.’

Anna didn’t waste time asking questions, playing the dragon at the door, but gave her a string of contact numbers. His cellphone. The number of his hotel in Hong Kong in case there was no signal. The private number of the manager of the Hong Kong office, since it was evening there. Even the number of Josh’s favourite restaurant.

There was no signal. She left a message asking him to call her, urgently, then called the hotel. He wasn’t there and the manager of the Hong Kong office informed her that Josh had flown to mainland China. Apparently Anna had already called the office and primed the manager to expect her call and again, when she wouldn’t leave a message, he helpfully gave her the number of Josh’s hotel there, and his partner in Beijing.

Beijing? He had a partner in Beijing? That was new since the last time he’d been home. Or maybe not. He hadn’t stayed for more than a few hours and no one had been talking about business…

Calling the number she’d been given, she was told that Josh was out of the city for a few days and that the only way to contact him was through his cellphone.

She felt as if she were going around in circles, but at least it helped take her mind off what was happening at the hospital, even if she was dreading the moment she found him.

This time it rang. Once, twice, three times and then she heard him. His voice, so familiar, so strange as he briefly instructed the caller to leave a message.

‘Miss McAllister…’

She spun round as a nurse called her name. Then wished she’d taken her time.

She’d been trying so hard not to think about what was happening to Michael. She’d only caught a glimpse of him lying unconscious on the stretcher while the emergency team worked on him before they’d rushed him away to the operating theatre and she’d been told to wait.

One look told her everything she needed to know. Her warm, loving brother-in-law had not survived the accident that had already killed her sister.

‘Josh…’ She forced his name out through a throat aching with unshed tears. There would be time for tears, but not yet. Not now. ‘Josh… You have to come home.’

A day, even an hour ago, the very thought of seeing him would have been enough to send her into the same dizzy spin that had afflicted her as a teenager.

Numbed with the horror of what had happened, she was beyond feeling anything but rage at the unfairness of it.

Rage at the cruelty of fate. With Josh for being so blind. For refusing to understand. For being so angry with them all.

She didn’t know what he’d said to Michael.

Remembered little of what he’d said to her, beyond begging her to think again.

All she could remember was his bloodless face when she’d told him that it was too late for second thoughts. That she was already pregnant with her sister’s child. She would never forget the way he’d lifted a hand in a helpless gesture, let it fall, before taking a step back and opening the front door, climbing into the car waiting to take him back to the airport.

The nurse, no doubt used to dealing with shocked relatives, put her arm around her. Said something about a cup of tea. Asked if there was someone she could telephone so that she would not be alone.

‘I’ve called Josh,’ Grace said, stupidly, as if the woman would understand what that meant. ‘He’ll come now.’ He had to come.

Then, realising she still had the phone clutched tightly to her ear as if she might somehow catch his voice in the ghostly static, she snapped it shut, pushed it into her pocket and allowed herself to be led back inside the hospital.

Josh Kingsley looked up at the majestic sight of Everest, pink in a freezing sunset.

He’d come here looking for something, hoping to recapture a time when he and his brother had planned this trip to Base Camp together. Older, a little wiser, he could see that it had been his big brother’s attempt to distract him from his misery at their parents’ divorce.

It had never happened. Now he was here alone but for the Sherpa porters, drawn to make this pilgrimage, take a few precious days out of a life so crowded by the demands of business that he was never entirely on his own. To find a way to come to terms with what had happened.

Now, overcome with the sudden need to talk to him, share this perfect moment, make his peace with the only member of his immediate family he cared about, he peeled off his gloves and took out the BlackBerry that he’d switched off three days ago.

Ignoring the continuous beep that signalled he had messages—work could wait, this wouldn’t—he scrolled hurriedly through his numbers. Too hurriedly. The slender black miracle of computer technology slipped through fingers rapidly numbing in the thin atmosphere. And, as if he, too, were frozen, he watched it bounce once, then fly out across a vast chasm, not moving until he heard the faint sound of it shattering a thousand feet below.

When he finally looked up, the snow had turned from pink to grey and, as the cold bit deeper, he shivered.

Josh would come, but not yet, not for twenty-four hours at the earliest. Now, numb with shock, incapable of driving, she let the nurse call Toby Makepeace. He was there within minutes, helped her deal with the paperwork before driving her home to Michael and Phoebe’s home and their three-month-old baby.

‘I hate to leave you,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t be alone.’

‘Elspeth’s here,’ she said, struggling with the simplest words. ‘She stayed with Posie.’ Then, knowing more was required, she forced herself to concentrate. ‘Thank you, Toby. You’ve been a real friend.’

‘I’m here. If you need anything. Help with arrangements…’

She swallowed, not wanting to think about what lay ahead. ‘Josh will be here.’ Tomorrow or the next day. ‘He’ll see to everything.’

‘Of course.’ He left his hand briefly on her arm, then turned and began to walk away.

Elspeth, a close friend of Michael and Phoebe, had answered Grace’s desperate call and stayed with Posie. Now she said nothing, just hugged her and made her a cup of tea and then shut herself in Michael’s study, taking on the task of calling everyone to let them know what had happened. She even rang Michael’s parents—his mother in Japan, his father in France.

Grace had never met either of them—Michael and Josh had only minimum contact with either parent since their divorce—but Elspeth had at least known them, could break the news without having first to explain who she was. Then she stayed to answer the phone, field the calls that came flooding in.

Calls from everyone but the one person she was waiting to hear from.

Friends arrived with food, stayed to give practical help, making up beds in the spare rooms in the main part of the house while Grace did the same in Josh’s basement flat. Even when her world was spinning out of control, she couldn’t bear to let anyone else do that.

Then she set about putting her own life on hold, leaving a message on the answering machine in the self-contained flat she occupied on the top floor, before taking her laptop downstairs.

Sitting in the armchair that had been a permanent fixture beside the Aga for as long as she could remember, Posie within reach in her crib, she scrolled through her schedule of classes, calling everyone who had booked a place, writing the cheques and envelopes to return their fees as she went. Anything to stop herself from thinking.

After that she was free to concentrate on Posie. Bathing her, feeding her, changing her, shutting out everything else but the sound of the telephone. She’d insisted that she tell Josh herself.

‘It’s night in China,’ Elspeth said, after the umpteenth time the phone rang and it wasn’t him. ‘He’s probably asleep with the phone switched off.’

‘No. My call didn’t go straight to the message service. It rang…’

‘Asleep and didn’t hear it, then.’

‘Maybe I should have told someone in his office—’

‘No. They’ve given you all the numbers they have and if you can’t get hold of him, neither can they.’

‘But—’

‘You’re the only person he’ll want to hear this from, Grace.’

‘Maybe.’ Was she making too much of that? What did it matter who gave him the news?

‘No question. You’re the closest thing he has to family.’

‘He has parents.’

Elspeth didn’t bother to answer, just said, ‘Come and have something to eat. Jane brought a quiche…’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t face anything.’

‘You don’t have the luxury of missing meals,’ Elspeth said firmly. ‘You have to keep strong for Posie.’

‘What about you?’ Grace asked. Elspeth had lost her best friend. She was suffering, too. ‘You’ve been on the go all day and I haven’t seen you eat a thing.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘No, you’re not.’ She lay Posie in the crib. ‘Sit down. Put your feet up while I boil us both an egg.’

‘Do I get toast soldiers?’ Elspeth asked, managing a smile.

‘Of course. It’s my turn to look after you, Elspeth.’

‘Only if you promise to take one of those pills the doctor left for you. You haven’t slept…’

‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘Not until I’ve spoken to Josh.’

‘But then?’

‘I promise,’ she said. And, because it was the only way to get Elspeth to eat, she forced down an egg, too, even managed a yoghurt.

She had a bath and might have dropped off in the warm water, but Posie was fretful. It was almost as if she sensed that something was out of kilter in her world and Grace put on Phoebe’s dressing gown so that she would have the comfort of her mother’s scent as she held her against her shoulder, crooning softly to her, walking the long night away—waiting, waiting, waiting for the phone to ring.

Finally, when she knew it was day on the other side of the world, she called again. Again, it was the answering service that picked up. ‘Where are you?’ she cried out in desperation. ‘Call me!’ All she got back was a hollow emptiness. ‘Michael’s dead, Josh,’ she said hopelessly. ‘Phoebe’s dead. Posie needs you.’

She covered her mouth, holding back her own appeal. Refusing to say that she needed him, too.

She’d always needed him, but Josh did not need her and, even in extremis, a woman had her pride.

‘Did Grace McAllister manage to get hold of you, Josh?’

He’d flown direct to Sydney from Nepal, stopping at his office to pick up urgent messages before going home to catch up on sleep.

‘Grace?’ He frowned, looking up from the list of messages his PA handed him. ‘Grace rang me?’

‘Last week. Sunday. I gave her the Hong Kong numbers but I knew you’d be on the move so I gave her your cellphone number, too,’ she said. ‘She said it was urgent. I hope I did the right thing.’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said, reassuring her.

Last week? On Sunday he’d been in the mountains, thinking about his brother. Thinking about Grace. There had been a message alert on his phone, but he’d ignored it….

‘I dropped the damn thing off a mountain. Can you get me a replacement?’ Then, ‘Did Grace say why she was calling?’

‘Only that it was urgent. It’s the middle of the night there now,’ she reminded him as he picked up the phone, hit the fast dial for her number.

‘It doesn’t matter. She wouldn’t have called unless it was…’ He stopped as the call went immediately to the answering machine.

“This is Grace McAllister. I’m sorry that I can’t take your call at the moment. Due to a family bereavement, all classes have been cancelled until further notice. Please check the Web site for further details.”

Bereavement?

He felt the blood drain from his face, put out a hand to grasp the desk. Posie…

It had to be Posie. Small babies were so vulnerable. Meningitis, cot death… After so many years of waiting, so much heartache.

‘Cancel everything, Anna. Get me on the next available flight to London,’ he said, dialling his brother’s number.

Someone whose voice sounded familiar, but wasn’t Michael, wasn’t Phoebe, wasn’t Grace, answered the phone.

‘It’s Josh Kingsley,’ he said.

There was a momentary hiatus and then she was there—Grace, her familiar voice saying his name.

‘Josh…’

It was all it took to stir up feelings that he’d done his level best to suppress. But this last year he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head….

‘Josh, I’ve been trying to get hold of you….’

‘I know. I rang your number. Heard your message,’ he said, ignoring her question. ‘What’s happened? Who died?’

He heard her take a long shuddering breath.

‘Grace!’

‘There was an accident. Michael, Phoebe… They were both killed.’

For a moment he was too stunned to speak. His brother was dead. ‘When? How?’

‘Last Sunday morning. I’ve been calling, leaving messages. When you didn’t get back to me I thought… I thought…’

‘No!’ The word was wrenched from him. He knew what she’d thought and why, but it didn’t hurt any less to know that she could believe him so heartless.

But then she already believed that.

She had been so happy that she was having a baby for her sister, couldn’t understand why he’d been so desperate to stop her. And he hadn’t been able to tell her.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘The police said that the car skidded on a slick of mud. It went through a fence and then it rolled. It happened early in the morning and no one found them…’

‘The baby, Grace,’ he pressed urgently. ‘Posie…’

‘What? No! She wasn’t with them. She was here with me. Michael and Phoebe were away for the weekend. It was their wedding anniversary but they left the hotel early. They couldn’t wait to get back….’

Long before she’d stumbled to a halt, he’d clamped his hand over his mouth to hold in the cry of pain.

‘Josh?’

‘It’s okay. I’m okay,’ he managed. ‘How are you coping?’

‘One breath at a time,’ she said. ‘One minute. One hour…’

He wanted to tell her how sorry he was, but in a situation like this words were meaningless. And in any case she would know exactly how he was feeling. They were faced with the same loss. Or very nearly the same.

Grace wouldn’t have to live with his guilt….

Instead, he kept to the practical. He should have been there to deal with this, make the necessary arrangements, but it had been over a week already.

‘Who’s with you? What arrangements have been made? When is the…’ He couldn’t bring himself to say the word.

‘We buried them on Friday, Josh. Your father insisted on going ahead and, when you didn’t call back, no one could reach you…’ He heard her swallow, fight down tears, then she furiously said,

‘Where were you?’

‘Grace…’

He looked up as his PA returned. ‘There’s a car waiting to take you to the airport. You have to leave now,’ she said, handing him a replacement BlackBerry.

‘Grace, I’m leaving now for the airport.’ Then, ‘Keep breathing until I get there.’

Grace let Elspeth take the phone from her as she leaned weakly against the wall.

‘Maybe you could get some sleep now,’ she said gently, handing her the pills the doctor had left when he’d called after hearing the news. ‘You’ve left plenty of milk in the fridge for Posie. I’ll manage if you want to take a rest.’

‘I know.’ She put the pills in her pocket, knowing she wouldn’t take them. She didn’t want to go to sleep because when she woke she knew there would be a moment when she’d think it was just another day.

Then she’d remember and have to live through the loss all over again.

But she didn’t say any of that. Instead, she hugged her and said, ‘Thank you.’

‘We’re here, Mr Kingsley.’

Josh glanced up at the façade of the tall Georgian town house that Michael had bought when he had married Phoebe McAllister. It was a proper family home with a basement and an attic and three floors in between. Endless rooms that they’d planned to fill with children.

Instead, they’d got him and Grace. A seventeen-year-old youth whose parents had split up and who, wrapped up in their own concerns with new partners, didn’t want a moody cuckoo in the nest. And a fourteen-year-old girl for whom the only alternative was to be taken into the care of the local authority.

Exactly what every newly-wed couple needed.

They’d taken on each other’s damaged siblings without a murmur. Had given him his own space in the basement, had decorated a room especially for Grace. Her first ever room of her own.

She’d been such a pathetic little scrap. A skinny rake of a kid, all straight lines when other girls her age had been testing out the power of their emerging attraction on impressionable youths. Only her eyes, a sparkling green and gold mix that could flash or melt with her mood, warned that she had hidden depths.

Like her nose and mouth, they’d been too big for her face. And, until she’d learned to control them, they’d betrayed her every thought.

Eyes like that should carry a health warning.

‘Is there anything I can do, Mr Kingsley?’

Josh realised that the chauffeur—a regular who his PA had arranged to pick him up from the airport—was regarding him with concern.

He managed a smile. ‘You can tell me what day it is, Jack. And whether it’s seven o’clock in the morning or seven o’clock at night.’

‘It was Tuesday when I got up this morning. And it’s the evening. But I’m sure you knew that.’

‘Just testing,’ he said, managing a smile.

He’d counted every one of the last twenty-four hours as he’d travelled halfway round the world, coming to terms with the loss of his brother. And of Phoebe, who’d been the nearest thing to a big sister he’d ever had. By turns motherly, bossy, supportive. Everything that he’d needed.

Knowing that he would have to live with a world of regrets for the hard words he’d said. Words that could never be taken back. For holding on to his righteous anger, a cover for something darker that he could never admit to…,

But the hair shirt would have to wait. Grace needed him. The baby would need them both.

He climbed from the car. Grace’s brightly painted ‘Baubles and Beads’ van was parked in its usual place but the space where he expected to see his brother’s car was occupied by a small red hatchback that underlined, in the most shocking way, the reality of the situation.

Realising that Jack was waiting until he was inside, he pulled himself together, walked up the steps to the front door as he had done times without number to a house that had always felt as if it were opening its arms to him. Today, though, even in the spring sunshine, with tubs of bright yellow tulips on either side of the front door, it seemed subdued, in mourning.

The last time he’d been here he’d tossed the keys to both the house and his basement flat on his brother’s desk—his declaration that he would never return. For the first time since he’d moved in here as a seventeen-year-old, he would have to knock at the door but, as he lifted his hand to the antique knocker, it was flung open.

For a moment he thought it was Grace, watching out for him, racing to fling her arms around him, but it wasn’t her. Why would it be? She had Toby Makepeace to fling her arms around, to offer her comfort. At least she had the last time he’d come home on a visit. He hadn’t been in evidence on the day he’d turned up without warning, but then discovering his girlfriend was pregnant with someone else’s baby must have put a crimp in his ardour.

The woman who opened the door was older, familiar—a friend of Phoebe’s. Elizabeth? Eleanor? She put her finger to her lips. ‘Grace is in the kitchen but she’s just dropped off. Try not to wake her. She hasn’t been sleeping and she’s exhausted.’

He nodded.

‘You must be, too,’ she said, putting her hand on his arm. ‘It’s a terrible homecoming for you. I’m so sorry about Michael. He was a lovely man.’ She didn’t wait for him to answer, just said, ‘I’ll go now you’re here, but tell Grace to ring me if she needs anything. I’ll call in tomorrow.’

‘Yes. Thank you…’ Elspeth. ‘Thank you, Elspeth.’

He watched her until she was in her car, then picked up the bags that Jack had left on the top step, placed them inside and shut the door as quietly as he could. Each movement slow, deliberate, as if he could somehow steady the sudden wild beating of a heart that was loud enough to wake Grace all by itself.

He told himself that he should wait.

Go down to the basement flat, take a shower. But to do that, he’d need the key and the key cupboard was in the kitchen.

For the first time for as long as he could remember, he was frozen in indecision, unable to move. Staring down at the hall table where a pile of post—cards, some addressed to Grace, some to him—waited to be opened. Read.

He frowned. Cards?

He opened one, saw the lilies. In sympathy…

He dropped it as if burned, stepped back, dragged his hands over his face, through his hair as he looked down the hall. Then, because there was nothing else to do, he turned and walked slowly towards the kitchen.

He pushed the door very gently. It still squeaked. How many times had he heard Michael promise Phoebe that he’d do something about it?

He’d offered to do it himself, but Phoebe had just smiled. She liked the warning squeak, she’d told him. Liked to have something to complain about once in a while. It wasn’t good for a man to believe he was perfect.

He could have told her that Michael didn’t believe that. On the contrary. But that had been a secret between the two of them and, somehow, he’d managed to smile back.

He paused, holding his breath, but there was no sound and he stepped into the room that had always been the hub of the house. Warm, roomy, with a big table for everyone to gather around. An old armchair by the Aga that the fourteen-year-old Grace had taken to like a security blanket, homing in on it when she’d arrived clutching a plastic bag that contained everything she possessed under one arm, a small scruffy terrier under the other.

The pair of them had practically lived in it. And it was the first place she’d taken the puppy he’d given her when old Harry had died a few months later and he’d been afraid her heart was going to break.

The puppy, too, had finally died of old age, but now she had a new love. Posie. The baby she had borne with the purest heart as surrogate for the sister who had given her a home and who was now lying, boneless in sleep, against her shoulder.

Michael, hoping that if Josh saw the baby he would finally understand, forgive him even, had e-mailed him endless photographs of Posie, giving him a running commentary on her progress since the day she’d been born, refusing to be deterred by Josh’s lack of response.

There had been no photographs of Grace until the christening and then only in a group consisting of Grace, as godmother, holding Posie, flanked by Michael and Phoebe. A happy picture in which everyone had been smiling and sent, he suspected, with just a touch of defiance. A ‘see what you’re missing’ message.

He hadn’t cared about that. He’d only cared about Grace and he’d cropped the picture so that it was only of Grace and Posie. He’d had it enlarged and printed so that he could carry it with him.

Her face had been outwardly serene, but a photograph was just a two-dimensional image. It was without warmth, scent. You could touch it, but it gave nothing back. But then it had been a very long time since Grace had given anything back to him. Keeping her distance, her eyes always guarded on his visits home.

At least he’d had time to get over his shock that, some time in the last year, she’d cut her beautiful long hair into a short elfin style. He’d come to terms with the fact that her boyish figure had finally filled out in lush womanly curves.

But this scene was not a photograph.

This was an intimate view of motherhood as only a husband, a father would see it and he stood perfectly still, scarcely daring to breathe, wanting to hold the moment, freeze this timeless image in his memory. Then, almost in slow motion, he saw the empty feeding bottle that had dropped into her lap begin a slow slide to the floor.

He moved swiftly to catch it before it hit the tiles and woke her, but when he looked up he realised that his attempt to keep her from being disturbed had failed.

Or maybe not. Her eyes were open and she was looking at him, but she wasn’t truly awake. She wasn’t seeing him. He froze, holding his breath, willing her to close them again and drift back off to sleep.

She stirred. ‘Michael?’ she said.

Not quite seeing him, not yet remembering. Still he hoped…

She blinked, focused, frowned.

He saw the exact moment when it all came flooding back, and instinctively reached out to her as he had a year ago. As if he could somehow stop time, go back, save her from a world of pain. ‘Grace…’

‘Oh, Josh…’

In that unguarded moment, in those two little words, it was all there. All the loss, all the heartache and, sinking to his knees, this time he did not step back, but followed through, gathering her into his arms, holding her close.

For ten years he’d lived with a memory of her in his arms, the heavy silk of her hair trailing across his skin, her sweet mouth a torment of innocence and knowing eagerness as she’d taken him to a place that until then he hadn’t known he had wanted to go.

He’d lived with the memory of tearing himself away from her, fully aware that he’d done the unforgivable, then compounded his sin by leaving her asleep in his bed to wake alone.

He’d told himself that he’d had no choice.

Grace had needed security, a settled home, a man who would put her first while, for as long as he could remember, he’d had his eyes set on far horizons, on travelling light and fast. He’d needed total freedom to take risks as he built an empire of his own.

But nothing he had done, nothing he had achieved, not even a hastily conceived and swiftly regretted marriage, had ever dulled the memory of that one night they’d spent together and still, in his dreams, his younger self reached out for her.

It had been unbearably worse during the last twelve months. Sleep had been elusive and when he did manage an hour he woke with an almost desperate yearning for something precious, something that was lost for ever.

This. This woman clinging to him, this child…

He brushed his lips against her temple and then, his head full of the warm, milky scent of baby, he kissed Posie and for one perfect moment all the pain, all the agony of the last twenty-four hours fell away.

Grace floated towards consciousness in slow, confused stages. She had no idea where she was, or why there was a weight against her shoulder, pinning her down. Why Michael was there, watching her. Knowing on some untapped level of consciousness that it couldn’t be him.

Then, as she slowly, unwillingly surfaced, he said her name. Just that.

‘Grace…’

Exactly as he had once, years and years ago, before gathering her up in his arms. And she knew that it wasn’t Michael, it was Josh. Josh who had his arms around her, was holding her as if he’d never let her go. A rerun of every dream she’d had since he’d walked out of her life, gone away ten years ago without a word, leaving a vast, gaping hole in her world. And she clung to him, needing the comfort of his physical closeness. Just needing him.

She felt the touch of his lips against her hair as he kissed her. The warmth of his mouth, his breath against her temple. And then she was looking up at him and he was kissing her as he had done every night of her life in dreams that gave her no peace.

There was the same shocked surprise that had them drawing back to stare at one another ten years ago, as if suddenly everything made sense, before they had come together with a sudden desperate urgency, his mouth branding her as his own, the heat of their passion fusing them forever as one. A heat that had been followed by ten years of ice….

Now, as then, it was the only thing in the world that she wanted.

It was so long since he’d held her.

Not since he’d left her sleeping. Gone away without a word. No, ‘wait for me’. Nothing to give her hope that he’d return for her. Not even a simple goodbye.

He had come back, of course, full of what he’d seen, done, his plans. Always cutting his visits short, impatient to be somewhere else, with someone else.

But she’d never let her guard down again, had never let him see how much he’d hurt her, never let him get that close again. She’d avoided the hugs and kisses so freely bestowed on the prodigal on his increasingly rare visits home, keeping away until all the excitement was over. Making sure she had a date for the celebratory family dinner that had always been a feature of his homecoming—because there had always been some new achievement to celebrate. His own company. His first international contract. His marriage…

Yet now, weakly, she clung to him, drinking in the tender touch of his lips, the never-to-be-forgotten scent of his skin.

Needing him as he’d never needed her. Knowing that even now, in his grief, he would be self-contained, in control, his head somewhere else.

He was holding her now, not because he needed comfort, but because he knew that she did. Just as she had all those years ago.

He’d hold her, kiss her, lie with her even if that was what she wanted. It was how men gave closeness, comfort to women.

That was all it had ever been, even then. When, after years of keeping her feelings to herself, doing a pretty good job of being the teasing friend who criticised his choice in clothes, girls, music, she’d finally broken down the night before he’d gone away—not to university this time, or on some backpacking gap year adventure with his friends—but to the other side of the world to start a new life.

Distraught, unable to express her loss in mere words, she’d thrown herself at him and maybe, facing the risk of the unknown, he’d been feeling a little uncertain, too.

She didn’t blame him for taking what she’d so freely offered, so freely given. It was what she had wanted, after all. Had always wanted. Her mistake had been in believing that once he understood that, he’d stay.

He couldn’t do it then and he wouldn’t now.

He’d comfort her. He’d deal with the legal stuff and then, once everything had been settled, made tidy, the tears dried away, he’d fly off to Sydney or Hong Kong, China or South America. Wherever the life he’d made for himself out there in the big wide world took him. He’d go without a backward glance.

Leave her without a backward glance.

At eighteen she’d been so sure she could change him, that once she’d shown him how much she loved him he would never leave her.

At twenty-eight she knew better and, gathering herself, she pulled back, straightened legs that, curled up beneath her, had gone to sleep so that Josh was forced to move, sit back on his heels.

But, try as she might, she couldn’t look away.

It was as if she were seeing him for the first time in years. Maybe she was. Or maybe she was looking at him for the first time in years instead of just glancing at him as if he was someone to be remembered only when he passed through on his way to somewhere else, forgotten again the minute he was out of sight.

She’d perfected that glance over the years.

Now she was really looking at him.

He seemed to have grown, she thought. Not physically. He’d always been a larger-than-life figure. Clever, with a touch of recklessness that lent an edge to everything he did, he’d not only dominated the school sports field but stood head and shoulders above the crowd academically, too.

He’d had those broad shoulders even then, but he’d grown harder over the years and these days he carried himself with the confidence of a man who’d taken on the world and won. And the close-clipped beard that darkened his cheeks—new since his last brief, terrible visit—added an edge of strangeness to a face that had once been as familiar to her as her own.

But this Josh Kingsley was a stranger.

She’d known him—or thought she had—and for one shining moment he had been entirely hers. But dawn had come and she’d woken alone, her illusions shattered beyond repair.

Older, wiser, she understood why he’d gone. That it had been the only thing he could do because if he’d stayed ten years ago, he would, sooner or later, have blamed her for his lost dreams. It was so easy for love to turn to hate. And nothing had changed.

He was home now, but once everything was settled, tidied away, he’d go away again because Maybridge was—always had been—too small for Josh Kingsley.

CHAPTER TWO

‘GRACE,’ he said, repeating her name. Calling her back from her thoughts, her memories. That was all. Just her name. Well, what else could he say? That he was sorry about his last visit? Sorry he’d got it all so wrong?

It was far too late for that and, without warning, she found herself wanting to slap him, yell at him for being such a fool. For staying away when coming home would have made his brother so happy. When it would have meant something.

‘Where were you?’ she demanded.

Josh shook his head. ‘In the mountains. Everest. I was so close that I took a few days to go to a place with no work, no phone…’

He looked so desolate that she wanted to reach out and gather him close. Comfort him. Instead, she turned to the baby at her shoulder, kissed her precious head.

How two brothers could be so different—one gentle, caring, the other so completely cut off from emotional involvement—was a total mystery to her and falling in love with him had been the biggest mistake of her life. But, too young to know better, how could she have done anything else?

He had been her white knight.

Fourteen years old, in a strange town, faced with yet another school—when school had only ever been a place of torment—it could have been, would have been a nightmare if Josh hadn’t ridden to her rescue that first terrifying day.

He’d seen her fear and, by the simple action of tossing her a spare crash helmet and taking her into school on the back of his motorbike, he’d turned her life around. He’d made everything all right by giving her instant street cred, an immediate ‘in’ with the cool girls in her class, who’d all wanted to know Josh Kingsley. And with the cool guys, who’d wanted to be him. At this school there had been no shortage of girls who’d wanted to be her friend.

Not that she’d been stupid enough to believe that she was the attraction.

She’d known it was Josh they all wanted to be near, but that had never bothered her. Why would it when she’d understood exactly how they felt? Not that she had worn her heart on her sleeve. A ride was one thing, but a sixth-form god like Josh Kingsley was never going to stoop to taking a fourth-year girl to a school dance.

She’s almost felt sorry for the girls he did date. Each one had thought that her dreams had come true, but she’d known better. He’d shared his dreams with her and she’d always known that he couldn’t wait to escape the small-town confines of Maybridge. Discover the life waiting for him beyond the horizon.

Not that it had stopped her from having the same foolish fantasies. Or, ultimately, making the same mistake.

Maybe he read all that in her face—she was too tired to keep her feelings under wraps—because he stood up, took a step back, placed the baby feeder he was holding on the table beside her.

‘It was about to fall,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want it to wake you. Elspeth warned me not to disturb you when she let me in.’

Too late for that. Years too late.

‘Has she gone?’

He nodded. ‘She said to tell you that she’ll call in the morning.’

‘She’s been wonderful. She’s stayed here, manned the phones, organised food for after the funeral. But she’s grieving, too. She needs to rest.’ Not that Josh looked particularly great. He might have had the luxury of a first-class sleeping berth to take the edge off the long flight to London, but there was a greyness about his skin and his eyes were like stones. ‘How are you?’

‘I’ll think about that later.’

‘When you’re back in Sydney?’ she asked, reminding herself that this, like all his visits, was only a break from his real life.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said. ‘Not until everything is settled.’

‘Everything?’

‘I’m Michael’s executor. I have to arrange for probate, settle his estate.’

‘A week should do it,’ she retaliated, and immediately regretted it. He had to be hurting, whether he was showing it or not. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t! Don’t apologise to me.’ He looked up, took another deep breath. ‘You and Phoebe were so close. She was like a mother to you.’

‘A lot better than the real thing.’

‘Yes.’ He looked at her, and for a moment she thought he was going to say something she’d find hard to forgive. In the end he just said, ‘Have you managed to contact your mother? Let her know what happened?’

She shook her head.

Her mother turned up occasionally, stayed for a week or two before drifting off again, a constant wanderer. Phoebe had bought her a mobile phone, but she had refused to take it and there was never anything as substantial as an address.

‘There was a card from somewhere in India a couple of months ago. Whether she’s still there…’ She shook her head. ‘Elspeth rang the consulate and she left messages with everyone who might be in contact with her, but she’s even harder to get hold of than you.’

‘I’m sorry, Grace. I flew back to Sydney from Nepal so I missed any messages you left at the office.’

‘Nepal?’ Then she remembered. ‘Everest. What on earth were you doing there?’

‘Making a pilgrimage.’

And if she felt lost, he looked it.

‘I was going to call Michael, tell him I was looking at the sun setting on the mountain, but my hands were so cold that I dropped the phone.’ He pushed his hands deep into his pockets as if, even now, he needed to warm them. ‘We once planned to take that trip together.’

‘Did you? I never knew that.’

He shrugged. ‘It was when our parents first split. Before he met Phoebe.’

She frowned. ‘She wouldn’t have stopped him going.’

‘Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to leave her, even for a month. She was everything he ever wanted.’

While he’d had nothing, Grace thought. At least her mother did, occasionally, put in an appearance. It was disruptive, unsettling, but it was better than the nothingness that Josh had been left with when his parents had chosen to follow their own desires.

‘Michael would have been happy to know that you finally made your dream trip,’ she told him.

‘Yes, he would. He wanted everyone to be happy. While I suspect all I wanted to do was make him feel bad…’

‘No…’ Her hand was on his arm before she could even think about it, but he stared at the floor as if unable to meet her gaze. ‘Why would he feel bad? You were there. You were thinking of him.’ Then, ‘Did it match the vision?’

‘The mountains were beyond anything I could describe, Grace. They made everything else seem so small, so unimportant. I wanted to tell him that. Tell him…’

‘He knows, Josh,’ she said, swallowing down the ache in her throat. ‘He knows.’

‘You think?’ Josh forced himself to look up, face her. ‘I should have been here. I can’t bear the thought of you having to go through all this on your own….’

‘I wasn’t on my own. Everyone helped. Toby was wonderful.’

Toby.

Josh felt his guts twist at the name.

Toby Makepeace. Her ideal man. Reliable. Solid. Always here.

‘Michael’s partners took care of all the arrangements for the funeral. And once your father arrived and took charge—’

‘He’s here?’

‘He flew back straight after the funeral. There was some big debate at the European Parliament that he couldn’t miss.’

About to make some comment about his father’s priorities, he thought better of it. Who was he to criticise?

‘And my mother? Has she raced back to the toy boy in Japan?’

‘She’s staying with friends in London.’

‘Waiting for the will to be read,’ he said heavily.

‘Josh!’ Then, ‘She said she’d come back when you got here. I sent her a text.’

‘I refer to the answer I gave earlier.’ Then he shook his head. His issues with his family were solely his concern. ‘I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.’ He pushed his parents from his mind and said, ‘Thank you for sticking with it, Grace. Not just leaving a message with the Sydney office.’

‘I wanted to tell you myself, although if I’d realised how long it would take…’

‘It must have felt like a year.’

‘A lifetime.’ Then, quickly, ‘Your staff were terrific, by the way. Will you thank them for me? If I’d thought about it, I’d have anticipated resistance to handing out contact numbers to someone they don’t know.’

‘Of course they know you,’ he said. ‘Do you think I don’t talk about you all?’ Then, almost as if he were embarrassed by this brief outburst, ‘Besides, they have an any time, anywhere list.’

‘And I’m on that?’

‘We both know that the only time you’d ever call me would be with news I had to hear.’

Once Grace would have laughed at that.

If only he knew how many times she’d picked up the phone, her hand on the fast dial number, not to speak to him, but simply to hear his voice. How she’d longed to go back to the way it had once been, when they had been friends…teased one another…told one another everything.

Almost everything.

‘Grace—’

‘I’m going to miss Michael so much,’ she said quickly. Taking a step back from the memory of a night that had changed everything. When she’d thrown all that away. ‘There wasn’t a kinder, sweeter—’

‘Don’t.’ He closed his eyes for a moment, then, gathering himself, he opened them and looked straight at her. ‘Don’t put him on a pedestal, Grace. Michael wasn’t perfect. He had his faults like the rest of us.’

Grace was too angry to answer him. Even now he wouldn’t let go of whatever had been driving him…

Instead, she held Posie close as she got to her feet, supporting her head with her hand. Then, when she didn’t stir, she laid her in the crib beside her chair.

For a moment her tiny arms and legs waved as if searching for her warmth and her face creased up, as if she was about to cry. Grace laid her hand on her tummy until, reassured by the contact, the baby finally relaxed.

Once she was settled, Grace crossed to the kettle, turned it on, not because she wanted something to drink, but because anything was better than doing nothing.

‘Your flat is ready for you,’ she said, glancing at him. ‘The bed’s made up and you’ll find the basics in your fridge. It’s too late to do anything today and I’m sure you need to catch up on your sleep.’

‘I’ll hang on for a while. The sooner I slot back into this time zone, the sooner I’ll beat the jet lag.’

‘Is that right? As someone whose only trip overseas was the Isle of Man, I’ll have to take your word for it.’

‘The Isle of Man isn’t overseas, Grace.’

‘Isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘I wouldn’t advise walking there.’

That earned her one of those smiles that never failed to light up her insides and, feeling instantly guilty, she looked away.

‘There’s a casserole in the oven and I’m just about to eat. I’m not sure what meal time you’re on but, if you’re serious about keeping local hours, you’d be wise to join me.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Oddly enough,’ she said, ‘neither am I, but unlike you I can’t indulge in the luxury of missing meals.’

She stopped herself. His body clock must be all over the place and while snapping at him might make her feel better, would certainly help distract her from an almost irresistible urge to throw caution to the winds, fling herself at him and beg him to make it better, it wasn’t fair on him.

‘Look, why don’t you go and take a shower? Maybe have a shave?’ she suggested. ‘See how you feel then?’

He ran a hand over his chin. ‘You don’t like the beard?’

‘Beard?’ Under the pretext of assessing the short dark beard that covered his firm chin, cheeks hollowed with exhaustion, she indulged herself in a long look. Finally shaking her head as if in disbelief, she said, ‘Are you telling me that the stubble is deliberate?’

And for a moment, just for a moment, his mouth twitched into a whisper of the smile that had once reduced the hearts of teenage girls to mush. If her heart-racing response was anything to go by, it had much the same effect on mature and otherwise sensible women.

But then she was a long-lost cause.

‘I’m sorry, Josh,’ she added. ‘I just assumed that you’d forgotten to pack your razor.’

‘If that were true, you’d have had no doubt about the beard, but I’m still carrying the bag I had with me in China and Nepal so I hope the washing machine is up to the—’

He broke off as a tiny mewl emerged from the crib. A tiny mewl that quickly grew into an insistent wail.

Grace sighed. ‘I thought it was too good to be true. She’s been so fretful for the last couple of days. Clingy. It’s almost as if she knows there’s something wrong.’

Josh took a step towards the crib and, very gently, he laid his hand, as she had done, on the baby’s tummy.

Posie immediately stopped crying and, eyes wide, stared up at the tall figure standing over her. Then, as if demanding more from her uncle, she reached out a tiny fist and Grace caught her breath as Josh crouched beside the crib and touched her hand with the tip of one finger.

He’d been beyond angry when she’d told him that he was too late to stop the surrogacy, that she was already pregnant with her sister’s baby. News that she hadn’t even shared with Phoebe, determined not to raise false hopes until the doctor had confirmed it.

She hadn’t known how he would react to Posie. As a youth, a young man, he’d been adamant that he would never have children of his own. His marriage to a girl he’d never even mentioned had been so swift, so unexpected that it seemed at the time as if everyone was holding their breath, sure that only the imminent arrival of a baby could have prompted it. But there had been no baby and within a year the marriage had been over.

Now, as he gazed down at this small miracle, she waited, heart in her mouth, for his reaction. For the inevitable question.

How could she do it?

How could she have felt the first tiny movements, watched that first scan, listened to the squishy beat of her heartbeat, cherished the baby growing inside her for nine long months, only to surrender her to her sister and his brother?

Other people had asked.

Not friends, true friends. They had understood. But a reporter from the local paper who’d somehow picked up the story had called her, wanting to know the whys, the hows, the financial deal she’d signed up to. If the woman had done her research, she’d have known that anything but expenses was against the law and Grace hadn’t needed or wanted even that. It was the people who didn’t know them who’d seemed most indignant that she could do such a thing. People who clearly had no concept of unselfish love.

None of those people had mattered, but she so wanted Josh to understand. Even though he disapproved of what she’d done, she needed him to understand, without asking, why she’d done it.

Don’t, she silently begged him. Please don’t ask….

‘Michael rang me minutes after Posie was born,’ he said, after what felt like an eternity. ‘He was almost incoherent with joy.’ For a moment he too seemed to find difficulty in speaking. ‘I was in the back of beyond somewhere, the line was terrible but even through the static it came through loud and clear. His world was complete.’ He looked up, looked at her. ‘You gave him that, Grace.’

She let out a breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding. He understood.

Then, catching up, ‘Michael phoned you?’

‘He didn’t mention it?’

She shook her head. Why wouldn’t he have told her? Had Phoebe known?

‘What did you say to him, Josh?’ she demanded.

‘I asked him if you were all right and, when he assured me that you had sailed through the whole thing, I asked him if he was sure you had no doubts about giving up the baby. Urged him not to rush you…’

She waited, sure there was something else, but he shook his head.

‘I didn’t,’ she said. ‘He didn’t.’

Why had it mattered so much to him? And why wouldn’t they have told her that he’d cared enough to ask about her? Had been concerned that she was all right. Hadn’t Phoebe known how much it would have meant to her?

Or was that it?

Had her sister suspected what had happened between them all those years ago? Had they been afraid that, in the hormonal rush after Posie’s birth, a word from Josh might have been enough to change her mind?

Not wanting to think about that, she crossed to the crib, picked Posie up, cradled her briefly, cherishing the weight of her in her arms, the baby scent of clean hair, warm skin. Then she turned and offered her to Josh.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘Take her. Hold her.’ When he didn’t move, she looked up to find him staring, not at the baby but at her. ‘What?’

He shook his head. ‘I thought you’d be married to your Toby by now, Grace. With a home, children of your own. Wasn’t that what you always wanted?’

‘You know it was.’

She’d wanted what her sister had wanted. A settled home, a good man, children. She also wanted Josh Kingsley and the two were incompatible. No one could have everything they wanted.

Her sister had never borne the children she had yearned for.

And she had never found anyone who could erase her yearning for a man for whom risk was the breath of life, the horizon the only place he wanted to be.

‘Unfortunately,’ she said, ‘life isn’t that simple.’

‘Maybe men just have it too easy these days. All of the comforts with none of the responsibility.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Well, it wasn’t for lack of choice, was it? You appeared to be dating someone different every time I came home.’

‘Not every time, surely?’ Her well-schooled, careless tone was, she knew, ruined by a blush.

‘You don’t remember?’

She remembered.

Given a few days warning of his arrival, it hadn’t been difficult to drum up some hungry man from the crafts centre who was glad of a home-cooked meal. Camouflage so that it wouldn’t look as if she was living in limbo, just waiting for Josh to come home and sweep her up into his arms, tell her that he’d been a fool. Pick up where they’d left off.

These days, only Toby was left. He’d been brighter than most, quickly cottoning on to what she was doing and apparently happy to play the possessive suitor whenever Josh came home.

Why she’d still been going through the motions after so long she couldn’t say. Unless it was because she still wanted it so badly. That it was herself she was fooling rather than him….

Whatever, she could hardly get indignant if he’d been fooled by her deception. Assumed that she’d fallen into bed with every one of them as easily as she’d fallen into his.

‘Maybe they could sense the desperation,’ she said, burying her hot cheeks in Posie’s downy head, before holding her out to Josh. ‘Here,’ she said, placing the baby in his arms. ‘Say hello to Phoebe Grace Kingsley. Better known as Posie.’

Josh held her awkwardly and Posie waved her arms nervously.

‘Hold her closer to you,’ she said, settling her against Josh’s broad chest, taking his arm, moving it, so that it was firmly beneath the baby. ‘Like this. So that she feels safe.’

She was desperately anxious for him to bond with this little girl who would never know her real father. For whom Josh, no matter how reluctantly, would have to be the male role model.

‘She has a look of Michael, don’t you think?’ she suggested. ‘Around her eyes?’

‘Her eyes are blue. Michael has…had brown eyes.’

‘All babies have blue eyes, Josh, but it’s not the colour.’ The tip of her finger brushed the little tuck in Posie’s eyelid. ‘It’s something about the shape. See?’

She looked up to see if Josh was following her and found herself looking at the same familiar feature, deeper, stronger in the man. Remembered the still, perfect moment ten years ago when, after a long, lingering kiss, a promise that all her dreams were about to come true, she’d opened her eyes and that tuck had been the first thing she’d seen.

Josh felt as if he were carrying a parcel of eggs. Just one wrong move and they’d be crushed. Maybe Grace was just as anxious because she’d kept her arm beneath his, laid her long, slender fingers over his hand, as if to steady him.

This was so far from anything he’d imagined himself doing. He’d never wanted children. Had never wanted to be responsible for putting children through the kind of misery he’d endured. The rows. The affairs. The day his father had walked out and his mother had become someone he didn’t know.

After a while, as he became more confident, Grace stepped back, leaving him holding this totally unexpected baby, who bore not the slightest resemblance to his brother.

If she looked like anyone, it was Grace, which was strange since she didn’t much resemble her sister. He’d always assumed that they were half-sisters, although Michael had said not. The little tuck in the eyelid was familiar though, and he said, ‘So long as she hasn’t got Michael’s nose.’

Grace laughed at that and the sound wrapped itself around his heart, warming him, and he looked up.

‘I wish…’ he began, then stopped, not entirely sure what he was wishing for.

‘Michael never gave up hoping you’d turn up for the christening,’ she said. ‘He so wanted you to stand as her godfather.’

‘He knew why I couldn’t be there.’

‘Too busy conquering the world?’ Then, when he didn’t answer, didn’t say anything, ‘Here, let me take her,’ she said, rescuing him. ‘I’ll change her and put her to bed while you have a shower. Then we’ll eat.’

He lifted his head and, glad of a change of subject, said, ‘Actually, something does smell good. How long have I got?’

‘Oh, half an hour should do it,’ she said, not waiting to see whether he took her advice, but heading for the stairs and the nursery.

Josh let the shower pummel him, lowering the temperature gradually until it was cold enough to put the life back into his body, wake up his brain.

Doing his best to forget the moment when he’d come so close to breaking the promise he’d made to his brother. A promise he’d refused to free him from. Would never be able to free him from.

To forget the look on Grace’s face as she’d looked up, and for just an instant he could have sworn that she’d seen the truth for herself.

He stared in the mirror. He favoured Michael—no one would have doubted they were brothers—but there were not by any means identical. Still he could have sworn she’d seen something.

He tugged on an old grey bathrobe that had been hanging behind the bathroom door for as long as he could remember, waiting for him whenever he was passing through London and could spare a little time to visit Maybridge, see his family.

He tied the belt and crossed to the alcove that still contained the desk he’d used when he was at school. Where he’d plotted out the future. Where he’d go. What he’d do.

His old computer was long gone, but the corkboard was still there. He reached over and pulled free a picture, curling with age, that Phoebe had taken of Michael and him building a barbecue in the garden years ago, when his brother had been about the same age he was now.

The likeness was striking, but Michael had more of their mother, her brown eyes.

He tossed the photograph on the desk and, turning to the wardrobe, hunted out a pair of jeans that weren’t too tight, a sweatshirt that didn’t betray his adolescent taste in music.

Then he checked his new BlackBerry for messages, replied to a couple that wouldn’t wait. By then it was time to go back upstairs—to Grace, and to the miracle and disaster that was Posie.

Grace took her time putting Posie to bed.

She hadn’t been so close, so intimate with Josh in years and she needed to put a little time and space between them. Get her breathing, her heart rate back under control.

She didn’t hurry over changing her, washing her hands and face, feeding her little arms and legs into a clean sleep suit, all the time talking to her, tickling her tummy, kissing her toes. Telling her that she was the most beautiful baby in the world, just as Phoebe would have done.

Using the sweet little smiles to distract herself from vivid memories of Josh, naked in the shadowy light from a single lamp. His grey eyes turning molten as that first kiss had turned into hot, feverish, desperate need.

He’d been so beautiful. So perfect…

Posie waved a foot at her and she caught it, kissed it, peered into her eyes. Did all babies really have blue eyes? People said that, but was it true? Weren’t Posie’s a little bit grey? Then she saw the tiny flecks of brown and smiled.

‘You’re a beautiful, clever girl,’ she said, doing up the poppers, then picking her up and nuzzling her tummy before putting her in the cot, ‘and you’re going to be just like your daddy.’

She carried on talking to her as she wound up the musical mobile, teasing, laughing and, once she’d set it gently turning, singing to her, very softly.

Upstairs, Josh stopped at the open door to his brother’s small study. As always, it was immaculately tidy, with only his address book and an antique silver photograph frame on the desk.

He picked it up, stared at the picture of Phoebe cradling her new baby daughter. It looked perfect, but it was all wrong. A lie.

Even his perfect brother, who everyone had loved and thought could do no wrong, had one, unexpectedly human, frailty.

He carefully replaced the picture and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Later. He’d go through his papers later. Not that it would take long. He knew that all bills would be paid, life insurance up to date, will filed with the family lawyer.

Then he frowned. Had he changed it since Posie had been born? There hadn’t been much time but Michael had never, in the normal way of things, believed in leaving a mess for other people to clear up. But playing fast and loose with life, keeping secrets, even with the best of intentions, had a way of coming back to bite you. And that tended to make things very messy indeed.

Whatever he’d done, it seemed likely that Grace would be the person most affected.

He wondered if she had the least idea how her life was about to change. How, on top of the loss of her closest family, she might also lose the home she loved. The baby who she’d so selflessly surrendered and yet hadn’t totally surrendered, knowing that she would always be close to her. That she would still be hers to comfort. To hold.

He wiped those thoughts from his mind, took a breath, pushed open the kitchen door.

‘Sorry,’ he began. ‘I had to make…’

He stopped. Looked around. He could have sworn he’d heard her talking to Posie but the kitchen was empty.

He shrugged, crossed to the cutlery drawer, planning to lay the table. He’d barely opened it when he heard her again. ‘Night-night, Rosie Posie…’ she said, laughing softly. ‘Daddy’s gorgeous little girl.’

He spun around, then saw the baby monitor on the dresser. Was it two-way? Could she hear him? No, of course not. But even so he stepped away from the drawer, planning to escape before she came down and found him eavesdropping on her private conversation with her baby.

There was the sound of something being wound up, the gentle tinkling of a lullaby.

‘Night-night, sweetheart. Sleep tight…’

His imagination supplied the vivid image of her bending over to kiss this very precious baby.

And then she began to sing and nothing could have torn him away.

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