Ewan heard his messages notification go off, but left his phone in his pocket as he pushed Poppy on the swing.
He’d never imagined one little girl could entrap his heart so quickly. His thoughts went briefly to her mother and conceded, well, maybe,exceptfor Kenzie. But this was different, a whole new experience.
‘Higher, Daddy!’ She laughed now as he pushed her again. He wondered if there would ever come a time when hearing that word wouldn’t make his throat thicken. It still managed to catch him off guard.
‘Push me higher,’ she continued when the swing began to slow down.
He remembered last time they’d been doing this and how anxious Kenzie had been. He hadn’t really got it then, but now, he sort of did.
Kenzie wasn’t a natural risk-taker. She liked things to be calm and orderly and planned out. She liked to feelsafe. The fact that the night they met, shehadn’tbeen in her usual comfort zone was an even bigger deal now that he’d got to know her. If she had been, they’d probably never have met.
Thank God for small mercies.Poppy wouldn’t have existed. He’d probably have gone on to marry Sasha. His mind tried to digest all that for a minute before his phone beeped again, dragging his thoughts away. He closed the door firmly on the what-ifs, grateful that somehow all the little happy accidents had conspired to lead him to where he was right in this very moment.
When his phone beeped a third time, he swore quietly and dug it from his pocket to see who was so determined to get his attention … and then his stomach dropped as a name came up on the screen.Sasha.
With a heavy feeling of trepidation, he opened the messages and then swore again, this time slightly louder.
‘Mummy doesn’t like that word,’ Poppy said, tipping her head back to look at him as she swung backwards and forwards.
‘Sorry. That is a bad word. I just need to …’ He stared at the image on the next message and bit back an even worse word he waspositiveKenzie wouldn’t like.
A series of screenshots of some photos, from both the vineyard’s Facebook page and Floss’s personal one, of himself and Kenzie and one taken by Floss the day before yesterday of himself, Kenzie and Poppy stared back at him with the publiccaption underneath of,Now it all makes sense, from Sasha’s own Facebook account.
The text message that followed was a series of unhinged accusations.Now I get it. It was her. She was the woman who contacted you about the baby.
You slept with our wedding planner! There’s no use denying it. Her daughter looks just like you! I feel like such an idiot. And to think I begged her to be our wedding planner.
Well, when it gets around that she’s a backstabbing whore who likes to sleep with her clients’ grooms, she’s not going to have a business for very much longer.
Ewan felt sick. ‘Sorry, Poppy, we have to go. I’ve got to see Mummy about something.’
‘Okay, but can I have one more go on the flying fox? Mummyalwayslets me have one more go on something before we leave the park,’ she added, and he suspected she was absolutely playing his weakness right now, and she was absolutely right. He followed her across to the platform to lift her up and send her flying across to the other end of the ride, until she bumped and bounced her way backwards.
He was distracted for most of the drive back to the property, but grateful that Poppy was such a chatterbox and really only required the odd,Really?orWowhere and there to keep her happy.
Sasha was more than capable of trying to destroy Kenzie’s business, and he wasn’t sure he could do anything to stop it.
This is all my fault.
Kenzie had just finished with a client call when she noticed a new notification on her phone and opened her Facebook page, smiling when she saw that she’d been tagged on the vineyard’s page.
The photo was of her and Ewan laughing at something Floss had said, a bottle of the shiraz strategically placed on the table for prime promotion. The photo had captured Ewan’s smile and everything that she loved about it—the little crinkles around his eyes as well as the slightly lopsided grin that somehow managed to look both adorable and sexy as hell.
She noticed there was one comment and wondered if it was from him. Her smile abruptly slid from her face as she saw Sasha’s name, and her blood went cold inside her veins:Now it all makes sense.
As the shock wore off, it was quickly replaced by dread. This was what she’d been fearing right from the very start: Sasha finding out about Ewan and her having a past. It was every bit as horrible as she’d imagined it.
She’d posted her comment on social media, where everyone would see. It wasn’t going to take long before other people she knew heard the story, and then everything was going to explode.
Floss’s name came up on the screen, momentarily covering the photo and she answered, her lips feeling stiff.
‘I need to tell you something,’ she started.
‘I’ve seen it,’ she said quietly.
‘I’m so sorry, Kenzie,’ she said. ‘I had no idea she even followed my page. I’m taking the photo down, there’ll be nothing there anymore.’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Kenzie said, crossing to the window to see Ewan and Poppy had returned from town. ‘I’ve got to go, Ewan just got home.’
