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‘Just carry on as normal. The professor will let one of you boys know when I’m back from the OR.’
Boys.
His father still referred to him and Abe as boys, when they were thirty and thirty-four respectively, but there was no affection in the term. If anything, it was said dismissively.
With the duty visit done, Ethan walked through the private wing and towards the elevator, turning right with little thought even though he’d never been there before.
Then he halted.
Ethanhadbeen there before.
Shards of memory felt as if they were working their way to the surface of his brain as he stood waiting for the elevator. He looked down the corridor and could almost see himself—five years old and dressed in his new school uniform, accompanied by his new nanny and walking beside Abe as they headed out from a waiting room to go and visit their mother.
To say goodbye.
He took the elevator, trying to banish the memory, yet as he stepped out into the brightly lit foyer he recalled it again. The press had been waiting outside, but their instructions that day had been different from usual—Don’t wave or smile. Look sad.
Who had told a couple of kids that? Ethan thought as he walked quickly to the waiting car. Who the hell had told them how to act, how toreact, on the day their mother died?
His long stride halted as the answer came to him—the new nanny had.
His driver was waiting, but Ethan dismissed him. He wanted to walk—to get rid of the hospital scent which still filled his nostrils.
Suddenly, twenty-five years on, he was back to that day and the utter bewilderment he’d felt.
The grief.
And the guilt—oh, yes, the guilt.
Because he hadn’t missed his mother as everyone had assumed he must.
Meghan.
It was his nanny, Meghan, he had missed at that time.
* * *
The gallery website was a constant thorn in Merida’s side.
Clint had been supposed to update it before he’d headed off to an art fair, though of course he hadn’t.
And with Reece being away Merida needed to change the opening times advertised there. Especially as she wouldn’t be here tomorrow morning because of her audition.
It was for a prime-time television show and, while excited, Merida was incredibly nervous about it. Shehadto get the part. Although theatre was her passion, Merida desperately needed credits to her name—and as well as that shelovedthe show. It would be a huge boost for her résumé as well, and who knew what doors it might open?
So she updated the opening and closing times on the website, and a few other things, and then, instead of clicking off and closing down the computer, Merida couldn’t resist looking Ethan up.
God, he was beautiful.
His dark, slightly hooded eyes were sobrooding, and in every photo she saw, that mouth utterly refused to smile.
Just as it had refused to smile with her.
For a moment she let herself wonder how it might feel to be in the path of his gentler gaze.
Merida drank the glass of champagne that Ethan hadn’t wanted and nibbled on the caviar blinis he’d declined as she gazed upon his image.
Then she ate dark-chocolate-covered blueberries and read about the man who quite simply intrigued her.
