Brodie rang the buzzer again. When no one answered he looked in through the window, cupping his hands to try and see better. The piles of washing were still on the stairs. He went back down the porch steps and turned to look up at the upstairs windows.
“They’re not in,” came a voice from the neighboring garden.
Brodie turned to look at who was speaking and saw a gray-haired woman eyeing him with suspicion. Presumably Carole, the babysitter, whose house Zoey had appeared from the day before. “Do you know where they are?” he asked, flashing her his best smile.
She folded her arms across her ample chest and didn’t smile back. “I imagine they’re at school and work.”
Brodie often forgot about normal life. Jobs, school, commitments.
The neighbor watched till he was off the property and back in his Aston Martin. For some reason, the sports car felt childishly showy under her gaze, so he slipped on his sunglasses and pulled away without looking back. Headed straight in the direction of Jackson General Hospital.
ChapterSeven
“Brodie, I’m at work, you can’t just turn up here.” Maeve stood with her arms crossed in front of the double plastic doors of the ER. She was exhausted. She had barely slept since she last saw him, terrified of this very moment.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Brodie didn’t seem to care where he was. He had that air about him that he breezed into places and got what he wanted without even trying.
Maeve glanced round the room, every eye in the place was on Brodie. The people waiting to be seen, the nurses at the desk, the janitor, even a patient on an IV drip waiting to be wheeled to the elevator. He mesmerized people. She closed her eyes for a second, then, with a resigned sigh, ushered him to follow her into one of the side rooms. Shutting the door she glanced at her watch and said, “I don’t have much time.”
He nodded. Then repeated his question. “Why didn’t you tell me about her?”
Maeve swallowed. “I tried.”
Brodie seemed surprised by that, as if he’d already played out how the conversation would go. “When?”
“When I found out. I asked Piper to get your number from Ethan. I rang you, I left you a message to tell you to call me, that it was important. You never called back.”
Brodie laughed, incredulous. “Do you know how many women leave me messages telling me it’s important and to call back?”
Maeve looked up, met his eyes.
The words hung in the air between them. As if Brodie properly heard what he’d just said, he ran a hand through his hair.
“I left loads of messages,” she said.
Brodie paced the exam room, which was set up with a couple of chairs, a bed and a desk. He stopped by one of the chairs, rested both hands on the back and said, “You could have told my mom, she would have got hold of me.”
“Why should I?” Maeve bashed the desk without thinking. “I wanted to tell you!”
Brodie turned away and looked down, tight-jawed, at the bland hospital floor. “If I’d known why, I would have called back.”
“And then what? Your PA would have rung me and sorted out logistics? Brodie, my life literally imploded when I found out I was pregnant with Zoey. You weren’t my top priority. I tried. I tried to reach out to you and you didn’t get back to me.” She could feel her heart thumping. That wasn’t what she’d meant to say. She’d rehearsed this, she’d feared it. She thought she’d come to terms with it, she’d waited for the moment, knowing it would happen one day, but now it was just a muddle of words. How could any of it convey what the last eight years had been like for her. “So, to be honest, Brodie—” she shook her head “—I wasn’t really thinking about you at the time. And then—” she crossed her arms “—well, I guess I watched you get more famous, and then you got married and you lived in that big house and had everything anyone could want.”
She remembered his wedding announcement. Him and a fellow pop star. Everyone said it wouldn’t last, some claimed it was a publicity stunt, but for Maeve it was another reason to keep away from him. He was rich, married, and lived in a mansion. In contrast, she had very little to offer.
She glanced out the window at the trees and the blue sky. It was hard admitting her own fears and mistakes but she had promised herself that if he ever asked she’d be frank. “I didn’t want you to swoop in and take Zoey away.” She looked over and met his gaze. Eyes that she’d seen on posters and on the TV, eyes of a celebrity that she could convince herself,hadconvinced herself, weren’t really real. “I had nothing, you had everything. I was young and I was afraid.”
He stared at her for a moment, frowning. He was so good-looking that when he frowned it was hard to believe he was actually annoyed, more that he was acting the part of annoyed.
It was hard to believe that he was the father of her child. If there wasn’t such a serious issue between them, she would find herself tongue-tied in his presence. Yet the existence of Zoey was like a shield against his stardom.
She looked at her watch again. “I have to go.” She started walking to the door, then paused and turned back. “Listen, if you want, you can come for dinner tonight. But I don’t want you to fly into Zoey’s life, go,‘Wa-hey I’m your dad,’ bamboozle her and fly out again. I won’t let that happen, Brodie.”
“That wasn’t what I was going to do,” he replied but from his telltale swallow before he answered, she knew it was exactly what he would do and that he knew it, too.
“If you want to get to know her, that’s fine,” she continued, forcing herself to be matter-of-fact when really she wanted to run home, wrap Zoey in her arms and lock all the doors. “But you’re not telling her who you are yet. You decide first what you’re going to do. This is not one of your conquests, Brodie. This is a little girl who has no idea you’re her dad.”
Brodie nodded to show that he’d heard but then instead of answering, he looked away. He squeezed his temples with his fingers. “This is all too fast for me,” he said, eyebrows drawn together, almost pleading. She noticed the honeycomb tan, the expensive sneakers, the fun red sunglasses looped at his collar. “I can’t think straight.”
