‘I didn’t tell you,’ she rushed in hurriedly, ‘because I knew that it would put you off sleeping with me. You’d be surprised how many guys are put off the minute they hear that. When I went to Ibiza, I guess I felt I needed to try and be a different person. University had prepared me for the big bad world out there, but, for the first time, I no longer had my dad to back me up and I suppose I wanted to do something out of my comfort zone. Taking a gap year...working at that hotel...dealing with an everyday life that wasn’t planned out...it was all new to me. I was frightened and alone and desperate fornewto distract me from what I’d been through, what I wasstillgoing through.’
‘A vicar...’ Abe murmured a second time, almost as shocked by that admission as he had been by the bombshell baby news.
And now many things slotted into place—from her shy charm, which had bewitched him, to her conviction that he should know about his daughter, without any hidden agenda aside from the fact that she was ‘doing the right thing’.
And then several other considerations fell into place and by far the one outweighing all others was his recognition of just how devastated and abandoned she would have felt when he’d left. She would not have had the usual armour in place that many women of her age might have had. She hadn’t taken any knocks in her life before, and then he had come along and unwittingly delivered a whole series of them...and just after she’d lost her beloved father.
Guilt and shame that he’d been the cause of even more hurt twisted his insides and he almost couldn’t bear it when she continued.
‘So I just can’t believe that I’m in this place, with a child from a guy who didn’t want me, who doesn’t know who I am.’ She shook her head. ‘At any rate, I’ve managed very well for the past three years, whatever you may think.’
What Abe thought was that never had he felt so badly positioned on the back foot or so determined to make things right for both Georgie and Tilly.
‘You make a very good point,’ he acknowledged, mind now firmly made up on the only way forward that he could see for the time being. ‘Wedon’tknow one another, but that doesn’t detract from the reality that we share a daughter and, as someone guided by having to do the right thing, wouldn’t you agree that the right thing would be for us to remedy that oversight as quickly as possible?’
Georgie shot him a dubious look from under her lashes. ‘Of course, we will have to be on speaking terms...’ she agreed.
Abe swept aside her interruption to continue, levelly, reasonably...but determinedly. ‘Tilly has a heritage that she has every right to know, a grandfather who would be overjoyed to meet her, a country which she should, I’m sure you would agree, get to know as it is, at least in part,hercountry too...’
‘Yes...well...’
‘Ourduty, Georgie, is to make that possible, wouldn’t you agree?’ He left the question dangling persuasively between them, challenging the moral codes she lived by, demanding the one and only response she could give.
The sort of half-in, half-out relationship she envisaged for them wasn’t going to work but he knew full well that breaking that news to her right here and now wouldn’t be wise. He had hurt her badly, and it was time to put things right in the only way he knew how. He was positive Georgie was already an excellent mother, and he wanted to prove both to her and to himself that he could be just as good a father to Tilly. In fact, the increasing drive to do so kept sending shockwaves deep inside him, and he was forced to keep a tight rein on his self-control. Becoming emotional had never worked well for anyone, particularly his father, and he utterly refused to go down that road himself. It only led one way, to certain loss and pain.
‘So the first thing we need to do,’ he murmured, ‘is to start by getting to know one another much better.’
‘You mean...we become friends? After everything that’s happened between us? I think that might be asking a lot but I’m willing to keep the channels of communication open.’
‘Tilly is only three. Would you be prepared to let her see my country, without you there as chaperone?’ He made an expansive gesture with his hands that implied the prospect of that was just fine with him.
‘Tilly wouldn’t go anywhere without me,’ Georgie said, sounding alarmed at the disturbing picture being painted of her daughter ferried out of the country to be surrounded by strangers who spoke a different language.
‘Nor should she. So perhaps you would like to hear what I propose?’ He ignored her scepticism and carried on soothingly, placatingly...the very voice of reason. ‘I suggest youbothcome to Qaram with me, then. It is urgent that I return and, rather than rushing my first contact with my daughter here, on borrowed time, I will be able to devote time and space to getting to know her in Qaram. We need to work on this as a unit if we are to do what’s best for her, as parents. So...are you in agreement?’
He found himself holding his breath, waiting for her response. Everything in him was urging him to make her his wife, but for once, he would have to be satisfied with settling for this small step forward.
CHAPTER FOUR
HOWCOULDGEORGIEargue with the calm logic of a guy who wanted to do what was right? She couldn’t. So she would go.
She hated to leave Duncan in the lurch and wondered what she should say about taking a chunk of time away. Should she come clean and explain the situation to him? That was an option she dismissed as fast as it raised its head. Why would she do that? Whatever the outcome of the talks she and Abe might have, she would end up back in London and would want to continue with her career at the hotel, irrespective of what financial arrangements were made regarding Tilly. She and Tilly were two separate entities and she was smart enough to realise that, while he would feel duty-bound to support his daughter, he certainly had no obligation to support a woman he had walked away from, whatever justification he might feel he had had for doing so. Nor did she have any intention of trying to squeeze any money out of him for herself.
Yet money would have to be something to be discussed because that was the world he lived in.
They were different people with different dreams, different goals, differentstandards. If there was some ridiculous, lingering physical attraction towards him, then it could be explained away easily enough by the fact that he was her first lover and, as things had turned out, her last. He’d shown up out of the blue and, of course, nostalgia had swept aside the years and deposited her right back to that place where she had only had eyes for him. She hadn’t had any experiences with anyone else and so could not call upon a present to help eradicate the past.
She would visit his country because it made sense to do so but she would maintain distance between them, would discuss future arrangements in a businesslike fashion.
He had asked if he could look at Tilly once again as she had slept and had remained standing by the side of the low bed for a lot longer than Georgie had expected, gazing at his daughter intently, almost as though he could will her awake, then he had finally left, having given her a million and one instructions as to what would happen next.
The trip. What to expect. What she should bring with them. How she would get there. The driver...the flight...
She had agreed to meet him in Qaram and so it was something of a surprise when she opened her door the following evening to see him standing outside, minus bodyguards and casually dressed in a pair of jeans and a jumper with his coat hooked over one shoulder.
‘Why are you here?’
Acutely conscious of the fact that she was in her pyjamas even though the clock had yet to strike nine, she remained defensively by the door, before relenting and letting him in with a sigh.
