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Now he couldn’t stop thinking about the place. And the daughter he had there. The daughter he would never see again.
He’d once loved Christmas in New York. He’d even loved the cold. This year he’d hated it all. He’d wanted to be back there in Rocky Creek, with Serina and Felicity. He’d wanted to shower them both with gifts. Wanted to kiss them and hug them and just…be with them.
Instead, he’d spent the day, alone, in his apartment, having refused several last-minute invitations to Christmas dinner. He hadn’t even bought any presents, though he did give his usual cash gifts to Mike and Chad. He spent Boxing Day alone as well, and the twenty-seventh.
Today, he’d forced himself to go out. He’d attended the matinee show of a play that had just opened—and he found deadly dull—after which he’d had a bite to eat before heading home. What he would do tomorrow he had no idea. Go jogging in the park, maybe… Something that would put a bit of life back into him.
Because he felt dead. Dead inside.
I should never have cut Serina out of my life like that, he realised grimly. Being bloody black-and-white was a recipe for depression of the worst kind.
‘Mr Dupre!’ Chad called out to him as he made his way with his head down across the lobby.
Nicolas took a deep breath as he ground to a halt. Don’t take it out on the lad, he lectured himself. It’s not his fault that you want to strangle him, just for talking to you.
He tried not to scowl as he turned back in the direction of the reception desk. ‘Yes, Chad?’
‘There’s another pink letter for you. From Australia.’
‘What?’
A stunned Nicolas hurried over to the desk where Chad was indeed holding out a bright pink envelope to him. It was exactly the same as the last one. Though there were several important differences. There was nothing written on it except his name.
He flipped it over. Nothing on the other side as well.
‘I don’t get it,’ he said, totally thrown. ‘How did you know this was from Australia? There’s no stamp on it or any sender’s name and address. In fact, there’s no damned address on the front, either. So how on earth did it even get here?’
Chad looked a little sheepish. But not too worried. ‘It was…um…hand-delivered.’
‘Hand-delivered?’
‘Yes,’ a woman’s voice said behind him. ‘By me.’
Nicolas’s chest tightened. Dear God, he knew that voice.
He whirled and there she was: his Serina.
‘Felicity sent me,’ she said simply as she walked slowly towards him from the lobby’s lounge area. ‘That’s from her.’ And she nodded towards the pink envelope.
‘I don’t understand….’ And he didn’t. But the beginning of a wonderful hope was clawing its way into his, till then, dead heart.
Serina glanced over his shoulder at Chad, who, no doubt, could overhear their conversation.
‘Come over here,’ she said quietly, and drew him towards a lounge in a far corner of the lobby, next to which sat a small suitcase and a very large handbag.
Nicolas’s heart was pounding in his chest by the time they were sitting down together.
‘Tell me what’s going on, for pity’s sake!’
‘I told Felicity the truth, Nicolas. I told her you were her father.’
Nicolas literally stopped breathing at this astonishing piece of news. ‘And?’ he choked out.
Her smile would have melted the arctic. ‘She didn’t hate me.’
‘What…what about me?’ Never in his life had Nicolas stammered the way he did at that moment.
‘Oh, Nicolas, how could she possibly hate you? None of it was your fault. The guilt was all mine.’
‘That’s not true, my darling,’ he said as he took her hands in his.
‘Oh, yes it is. Please, Nicolas, let me own my sins. I should have told you, way back then. I took the easy way out. But I paid for it and so did you. Felicity took me to task for the way I’ve treated you.’
‘She wasn’t too upset about Greg not being her real father?’
‘She was very upset at first. But I made her see that Greg was her father, in every way but genetically. A wonderful father.’
‘Which he was,’ Nicolas agreed.
‘Yes. I hope you don’t mind, my darling, but neither of us want to tell anyone else the truth, especially Greg’s parents. They’d be shattered.’
‘Yes, they would be. I could see that.’
‘They’re very elderly, you know. There will come a day in the not too distant future when it won’t matter so much who knows the truth.’
