by Valerie Parv
“And Big Ted that Santa brought you before that?”
“When I was little,” Genie confirmed so seriously that Zoe had to make an effort not to laugh.
“Do you love Big Ted any less because I didn’t make him for you?”
Genie looked affronted at the very idea. “’Course not. I love both my teddies zackly the same.”
Zoe enveloped the child in a hug, feeling her eyes threatening to brim again. “Now you know how I feel about you. You’re my special little girl and it doesn’t matter one bit that you didn’t grow inside me.”
“Or if Santa brought me.” Genie finished on a triumphant note. Then she added more hopefully, “Maybe if I asked Santa—”
“Santa doesn’t bring children,” Zoe interjected before Genie could embellish the notion. “Any more than he brought you.”
Genie chewed her lower lip. “I know, but it would be fun if he could bring me a baby brother or sister.”
A pang gripped Zoe. She knew just how Genie felt. Maybe she was getting greedy, but sometimes her arms ached to hold a baby and feel its mouth nuzzling against her breast. The desire for another child to grow with Genie, to share her games and discoveries, and the outpouring of maternal love Zoe knew she had to offer was almost more than she could bear. Not for the first time she made herself count her blessings. She had Genie to love and care for, and it was more than she had ever dreamed would be hers. She managed a tremulous smile. “Speaking of fun, isn’t it time you got ready to go to playgroup?”
To Zoe’s intense relief, the distraction worked as it usually did. “Are you coming, too?” Genie demanded, all thoughts of Santa and babies miraculously forgotten.
Zoe wished she could distract herself so easily. She shook her head. “Simon’s mummy is taking you both today.” Simon’s mother, Julie, lived next door and was Zoe’s friend and self-appointed morale officer. “I have to show a house to a nice man who’s coming all the way from the country to see it.”
Genie made a face. “Do you have to? Why can’t he look at a house by his own self?”
Zoe laughed at the child’s persistence. “Because he can’t, that’s why. Now scoot. Auntie Julie will be here any minute.”
The child scampered off down the hall to her bedroom. In minutes she was back, carrying her koala backpack and favorite Barbie doll, just as the doorbell pealed. As soon as Zoe opened it, Genie launched herself at Simon and his mother, who were waiting outside. Amid promises to be good and hugs all around, they left in a flurry of chatter and excitement.
Zoe barely had time to assemble the documents she would need for the house inspection when the doorbell pealed again.
James Langford waited with barely leashed impatience. When he had asked his secretary to arrange the appointment with Zoe Holden, he had not expected to meet her at what was obviously her own home. He had been fully prepared to spin some tale that would end in her inviting him home after they had inspected the Strathfield mansion.
Being invited here was beyond all his expectations and he could barely suppress a shiver of anticipation. He was so close to finding his daughter he could practically taste his success.
The signs of a child in residence made him catch his breath, his chest tightening painfully. A battered tricycle lay on its side on the front lawn while a ball made a splash of scarlet beneath a rosemary bush. In the report which had awaited him on his desk after he returned from the doctor’s office the investigators had noted these signs and more.
A good deal more.
The child living with Zoe Holden was unquestionably Genevieve Langford.
It had taken James half an hour before he recovered sufficiently to read beyond that simple statement to the proof the investigators had amassed, and the background they had supplied on the Holden woman.
It seemed she hadn’t always worked as a property manager. Until she obtained her real estate agent’s license, she’d been a live-in nanny. Her late husband had lived next door to her employer, which was how they’d met. After the husband died, she’d supported herself by looking after other people’s children in her home, while she studied for her present career.
According to the report, Ruth had left their child with Zoe frequently while she made a new life for herself under a false name. Thinking of what sort of life she’d chosen, James felt his features tighten. Freed of the constraints of their marriage, she had thrown herself into all sorts of wild adventures, trying everything from parachuting to whitewater rafting and, finally, to sailing on Sydney Harbor. She hadn’t survived her last escapade.
James’s jaw muscles worked as he considered what could have driven his wife to do such crazy things. Was she trying to prove something to herself? Or was she thumbing her nose at James himself, knowing he would never approve of her life-style?
Damn it, he wasn’t a tyrant, expecting his wife to sit at home and be a meek little wife and mother. But he did believe that parenthood conveyed some responsibilities, not least of which was surviving to see your child grow to adulthood.
He dragged in a strangled breath. Even though it had happened eighteen months before, finding out about Ruth’s death so abruptly had hit him harder than he had expected. Not because he still loved her. He wasn’t that much of a fool. But because her death had been so senseless. Like the proverbial candle in the wind, she had burned herself out long before her time. And because she had never discussed her feelings with him, he had no idea what part he himself might have played in the tragedy.
By hiding herself and Genevieve under a false identity, Ruth had left the authorities no way to trace him after her death. According to the investigator’s report, all avenues of inquiry had been tried, many of them by Zoe Holden herself. When any family had proved impossible to trace, she had finally fostered the little girl.
There was no doubt that his search was almost over, but he couldn’t let himself accept it. Not yet. Until he was reunited with Genevieve, he was reluctant to trust any amount of evidence. But he would trust his instincts. They had urged him to follow just one more hopeless lead and not to give up. Thank providence he hadn’t, or he wouldn’t be standing here now with his throat drying and his palms sweating while his heart raced a mile a minute. Setting up a modern telecommunications network for a volatile Middle Eastern country hadn’t reduced him to this state.
Drawing in a steadying breath, he let his hand edge toward the doorbell again. Before he could press it, the door swung open and he was confronted by the woman whose face he had been studying in photographs all day.
The first thing he realized was that she was more attractive by far than the grainy picture had suggested. She was slighter, too, and as he had suspected, he could have spanned her waist with both hands. What the photo hadn’t revealed was the determined lift to her chin and the flash of challenge in her amber eyes which made him feel as if he’d been king-hit. The crackle of awareness arced through him again, stronger now that she was before him in the flesh. It was even more of an effort to gain control of his vocal cords. Only years of top-level business negotiations gave him the skills to conceal her effect on him. “Zoe Holden?” he made himself ask, although he already knew the answer.
She swallowed hard, looked away and then back at him. Could he possibly be having a similar effect on her? To her credit, she sounded composed when she said, “You must be James Langford.”
The woman’s eyes had widened at the sight of him and although he was used to the reaction, he felt a perverse satisfaction at knowing he had impressed her. He knew his six-foot-two height could be intimidating. His sister accused him of working out deliberately to pack solid muscle around nature’s formidable packaging. She was wrong, of course. These days fitness was a business asset. If it made his rivals think twice about crossing him, it was an added bonus.
Intimidated or not, the woman extended her hand and James felt a quick flaring of respect for her. Although her hand was swamped by his larger one, her grip was firm and businesslike. “I’m Zoe, pleased to meet you.”<
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The musical cadence of her voice was as startling as her handshake, although not quite as startling as the mass of golden curls, which crowned an almost classically sculptured head and neck. She was beautiful enough to take a man’s breath away. If he had been no more than a client she was to show over a house, he would have been seriously tempted to invite her to discuss the deal with him over dinner that night.
He was seriously tempted, he admitted to himself, but was stopped by the certainty that she would want nothing further to do with him once she knew the real reason he was here. “Call me James,” he said and she nodded.
She opened the door wider. “Fine, James. I’ll get the paperwork for the Strathfield house and we can be on our way.”
James waited at the door while Zoe gathered the papers together and slid them into a leather document case. She was aware of his dark eyes following her movements. The attention had an odd, uplifting effect on her mood.
Most of her clients were elderly investors who treated her like a daughter, sometimes inviting her to their family gatherings. It wasn’t often she dealt with a man of the caliber of James Langford. She knew him by reputation, of course, as most people did. His company had pioneered satellite communications in Australia and now operated all over the world. He presided over a pay-television network, radio stations and something to do with computer software. The office had supplied her with some background details on him as soon as he showed an interest in the Strathfield mansion.
However, no amount of research could prepare her for the sheer physical impact he had on her. It wasn’t only his size, although it was daunting to discover that she only reached his shoulder even in high heels. His eyes were an arresting blue which would have given Paul Newman tough competition.
Coming on top of a long, lean body which had serious athlete written all over it, the effect was thoroughly arresting. But it was more than his appearance that made her catch her breath. He projected a sense of elemental power that was almost mesmerizing. It wasn’t hard to see why he was so successful. His air of command had struck her like a physical force as soon as she opened the door. Yet he bore the mantle of power so easily she had the sense that his genes must go all the way back to Alexander the Great in an unbroken line.
She almost laughed aloud at herself. After her disastrous marriage, what did she know about men and their genes? Alexander the Great, indeed. The man was a client. A rich, successful, incredibly virile and attractive one, but still a client. She had no business constructing an entire fantasy around a greeting and a handshake.
Her friend Julie was probably right. She was spending too much time either on her own or with Genie. Maybe she should make the effort to circulate more. If she allowed the memory of her marriage to Andrew to sour the rest of her life, she would let him defeat her twice.
Circulating was one thing, she knew. Allowing herself to get involved with a man, especially a take-charge man like James Langford, was quite another. Nobody knew better than Zoe that getting involved meant giving up control of your life. In Andrew’s case, it had meant giving up every shred of control, becoming accountable to him for every minute of her time. She had no intentions of putting herself in such a position again.
By the time she rejoined James, document case under her arm, her smile was coolly professional. “Shall we go? My car’s parked outside.”
“We’ll be more comfortable in mine.” He indicated a sleek black Branxton Turbo that managed to make her sedan, of which she was normally quite proud, look positively shabby. How did you make a car gleam like this anyway?
“But I know the way,” she countered, wondering why it was suddenly important to her to win this round. She told herself she was being practical, insisting on her own transportation, but the reason went deeper. For some reason, James Langford set her senses on automatic alert, although she couldn’t think why.
It wasn’t his stature or his wealth. In the property management business she’d learned to operate at all levels. And oddly enough, she felt her honor was safe with him, although he’d probably find such an old-fashioned notion laughable, if not a slight to his manhood.
No, there was something else about him which counseled caution, even if it was only her imagination, which seemed to be working overtime today.
She was mildly surprised when he slid into the passenger seat of her car without further discussion, reaching across to open her door from the inside. He seemed to take up a great deal of space inside the compact car, she noticed.
“Have you inspected many properties in Sydney?” she asked, trying to switch into professional mode before her thoughts ran away with her again. Around James it seemed all too easy.
“My deputy has looked at a number of them, but none entirely suits the company’s needs.”
She cast a sidelong look at him, almost disappointed that the conversation had switched to business so readily. “What are your company’s needs exactly?”
“A top location, naturally. A substantial parcel of land. And a property that has heritage value so our visiting executives gain some sense of the Australian character while they’re here.”
“Then you’re not buying for yourself?”
He shook his head. “Not to live in, no. I already keep a penthouse in the city and my main residence on the border of the Watagan State Forest, a few miles north of Sydney.”
Her eyes widened with delighted surprise. “I know it. My grandparents lived not far from Wollombi. I used to hand-feed kangaroos outside their back door.”
His interest was clearly piqued. “Perhaps I know them.”
A pang shot through her. “They died some years ago, within months of each other. I haven’t been up that way in a long time.”
She couldn’t have been more than fourteen the last time she stayed with her grandparents, although she’d visited them often as an adult. The memory of walking through lush green rain forests and trying to carry on a conversation over the summer evening anthem of cicadas remained with her.
Was it because her grandparents’ house was the only real home she’d known as a child? Her parents had been botanists, well enough known in their respective fields, but genteelly impoverished. Most of their time had been spent out in the field while their only daughter was farmed out to relatives, since they couldn’t afford boarding-school fees.
After her father succumbed to a rare tropical disease on an expedition to South America, her mother had retired to the south coast of New South Wales, amid a jungle of a garden where she grew medicinal herbs.
By then mother and daughter were so estranged that Zoe couldn’t imagine living with her mother. Fortunately by then she was working as a nanny, living with her charge’s family, so the question never arose. Her mother wouldn’t have enjoyed an enforced family existence any more than Zoe herself would.
“And your husband?”
James’s voice snapped Zoe back to the present with a jolt, banishing the floodgate of memories opened by his mention of her childhood home. “My husband died two years ago in a car accident,” she said quietly.
She accepted James’s murmured condolences with a nod, not feeling inclined to explain to him that the only sorrow she felt on Andrew’s behalf was over his untimely death, not to any sense of loss of her own.
It had taken her months to stop feeling guilty because Andrew’s death had freed her from his obsessive jealousy. At first she had wondered what sort of woman she was, not to grieve for her husband, until Julie had reminded her sternly that Andrew himself had killed her love for him.
“I noticed the toys on your front lawn,” James went on. “How many children do you have?”
Surprise shot through her. Usually male clients weren’t the slightest bit interested in her domestic affairs once they established whether or not she was married. She told herself James was only making polite conversation.
She paid attention to the road. The turnoff to the Strathfield place wasn’t far. Then she became aware that James
was regarding her steadily, awaiting her answer.
“I don’t have any children of my own,” she said flatly, wondering at the same time why she was telling him more than he probably wanted to know. “I have a foster daughter, Genie, who’s at playgroup this afternoon.”
He moved restively, his athletic body tensing against the restraining seat belt. Already regretting his interest in her family, she concluded. Well, he needn’t worry. She wasn’t about to drag out a sheaf of baby pictures.
His next comment caught her off guard. “I had a little girl of my own. They can be a source of great joy.”
His use of the past tense didn’t escape her. Had his child died? Her own all-consuming love for Genie made it easy to understand the anguish the loss of a child would mean. “Did something happen to her?” she asked gently.
Her sidelong glance caught the hardening of his jaw. “Yes, but it wasn’t some childhood ailment. That would have made some sense.”
Her knuckles whitened around the steering wheel. Oh, no, not a kidnapping. His prominence in the business world made the possibility frighteningly real. “Then what?”
“My wife decided our marriage wasn’t to her liking,” he said. “She took my daughter to another country and used an assumed name to make sure I couldn’t find them.”
The pain in his voice vibrated through Zoe. Although she and Andrew had never had a child, she could imagine her despair if he had done such an awful thing to her. She blinked hard. “Do you know where they are?”
Her peripheral vision caught his taut nod. “It’s taken me a long time, but I do now.”
He added no more details, leaving her to speculate that wherever his wife had gone, there was no chance he could retrieve his daughter. Otherwise, she suspected, he would move heaven and earth to do so.
“How old is your foster daughter?” he asked.
The strain in his voice tugged at her. Far from being a polite question, it suggested that he wanted to discuss her child, perhaps to distract himself from thinking of his own loss.
