by CC MacKenzie
Your loving father,
Christopher Rucker.
He had written his telephone number at the end of the letter.
Without giving herself time to change her mind, she grabbed her cell and keyed in the number.
The phone was answered on the first ring.
"Christopher Rucker?"
He had a deep and powerful voice, but it was the nerves in it that had her respond.
"It's Anastacia."
Chapter Twenty One
The next morning found Anastacia dressed in loose palazzo pants of black silk. And a black and white polka-dot sleeveless top, scooped at the neck and caught with a big black silk bow at the back. The outfit was fun, funky and professional, too. Black heels finished off the whole ensemble. Danni had very kindly styled her hair in a complicated twist. Strangely enough, after speaking to Christopher Rucker, she'd slept well in T.C.'s guest bedroom. Later today she'd meet her father for the first time, on her turf, in her office, and learn hard truths. And she'd deal with a man who was the lowest form of pond life that had ever crawled through a septic bog, Olivier Conti.
So this morning she was ready for anything that life was prepared to throw.
Little did she know that life was about to throw her more than one thing to deal with this morning. Life threw the kitchen sink in, too.
Ed Brookes strolled in with his team.
His cell was clamped to his ear and from the one-sided conversation, Anastacia deduced Ed's wife was having Braxton-Hicks contractions. Fair enough. She just hoped Ed's wife hung on for three more days. Linda arrived, plugged in their laptops and got right down to work, including supplying her fearless leader with a strong black coffee.
Mimi was next to come in, looking smug.
She whispered in Anastacia's ear she'd had, "Awesome morning sex."
Anastacia told her she was very pleased for her, but maybe it was too much information.
And while Mimi was cackling like a witch, Olivier strolled in hand in hand with the girl from the night before.
The red haze of fury that hit Anastacia, hit her hard.
She'd just opened her mouth to give Olivier a mouthful about bringing a bimbo to work, when said bimbo released him and made a beeline straight for Anastacia.
Anastacia's chin jerked.
Bring it on, Sista.
"You must be Anastacia," the Bimbo said in a beautifully lilting Italian accent. "My fratello has been telling me all about you. It is so lovely to meet you. I am Michelle, Olivier's sister."
Anastacia's jaw hit the floor, she felt it at around the time her eyes bugged from her head.
His sister?
As she stared at the girl the resemblance was more than obvious. The same hair, the same eye color, build. Siblings. Why on earth hadn't she seen it?
Now she turned to find an unsmiling Olivier standing with his feet apart and his arms folded, watching her with a look on his face that would scare small children and puppies.
Shitty, shit, shit.
He looked a little bit tired.
As if perhaps he hadn't slept well.
And why hadn't he slept well? a voice wanted to know.
She cleared her throat.
In the meantime, Michelle, his sister, was chattering away like a little bird about how wonderful London was and how she'd surprised her brother and how she'd broken up with her bastardo of a boyfriend.
"My sister," Olivier said in a silky voice that made Anastacia cringe inside. "Is interested in watching the filming today. I told her that it was up to you, since you are il boss and in control of all things. Is that not right, Anastacia?"
She was just about to respond, when the cavalry arrived in the shape of Ed who bustled up. "Right," said Ed. "Let's get this show on the road. I was thinking if we have time, we might do a gym shot. Olivier Conti working out in the state-of-the-art leisure facilities. We'd use shorts and a tight T-shirt, show off those pecs."
"Okay," Anastacia agreed, relieved to have dodged the bullet. For now. "He's got good legs, so we can focus on those. Muscled. Lean. Long. Nice legs."
For the next hour Olivier watched her, listened to her as his hair, his face, the way he moved, was picked apart again and again. And he found it hard, very hard, to be patient and long-suffering of the way Anastacia spoke about his body, his posture, his facial expressions. Again he found himself more than irked that they regarded him as a product. However, there was something... off, with her today. She was saying all the right things and doing all the right things, but it was as if she was going through the motions, as if her mind was not one-hundred-per-cent focused.
The discussions ran back and forth with Linda and even his sister's opinion on his hair style being analysed to death. He should be used to this sort of thing. After all he dealt with it on a daily basis by his coach and the technical team at Milan who analysed the way he moved, the way he played after every match. Plus, the sports press always had plenty to say, too. But he wasn't enjoying this. When Anastacia mentioned his legs again, he'd shot her a lethal side-look, which although she caught it, she ignored it. Even across the room he could smell her unique perfume. A subtle and sexy scent of the essence of woman. A scent that was driving him crazy.
After his sister had poured her heart out about her latest romantic disaster, Michelle was a magnet for the wrong type of man, he'd tried unsuccessfully to contact Anastacia last night. Finally giving up after Linda had informed him she'd no idea where Anastacia was and her phone was turned off. Of course he knew what had happened. As the taxi had driven away, he'd turned and seen Anastacia standing absolutely still with a stunned look on her face as she'd watched them. She'd seen him with Michelle and put one and one together to make two and assumed that his sister was a girlfriend, or worse. Instead of giving him a chance to introduce his sister to her last night, she'd ignored his calls, his texts and run. Why she'd run was a question he'd tormented himself with all night. Did it mean that she cared enough about him to be hurt if she thought he had another woman in his life? He didn't know whether to be happy or want to throttle her that she could have for one minute considered he was a two-timing fucking dog. That he was the type of man who would treat her with disrespect. Then he'd reminded himself, at three thirty in the morning, Anastacia hadn't had a chance to get to know him. Not properly. Maybe she could be forgiven for assuming the worst. But after what he'd seen today, the way her face went radioactive with sheer temper when she'd seen him arrive with a stranger, and then the way it had paled when she'd found out Michelle was his sister, he knew Anastacia seriously believed he would cheat on her with another woman.
How dare she?
Olivier promised himself that Anastacia Morgan was going to find herself in fucking deep water at the end of the day.
Three hours later, he managed to drag a very reluctant Anastacia out into the corridor.
"I hate the way you all talk about me as if I am a thing instead of a human being."
Her blue eyes were wary and puzzled all at the same time.
"You are the product."
"No. The Ferranti Boutique hotels are the product," he snapped.
Her smooth brow creased.
"Okay," she said in a reasonable tone that made him want to strangle her. "I suppose it's a matter of perspective. From yours, from ours, from our target audience, the hotels are the product. From the perspective of Ferranti Communications, Ed Brookes and everyone who's involved in producing the ad campaign, you are the hook that sells the product. If you didn't look good, sound good and move well then we'd sell nothing."
Olivier understood the sense of it, but that didn't mean that he had to like it. "I do not like feeling like a piece of merchandise."
"You are a piece of merchandise every time you step onto the pitch, every time you score a goal, every time you wear your sponsor's watch, your kit. Don't be so self-righteous about something that is actually very simple."
"I think we can agree to disagree over how we view my r
ole in this endeavour."
He watched the wary look and something like concern enter her eyes.
"I told you that working together and seeing each other would not be easy."
His eyes stayed on hers, recognizing the signs of a barrier being erected. Now he lifted his hand to gently brush his knuckles down her hot cheek. Her tiny quiver of response pleased him. It pleased him a lot. "I told you I am not looking for easy." Then he lowered his head and whispered a kiss over her soft mouth. "Maybe we both have a point. Will you join Michelle and me for dinner?"
Her blue eyes were still wary when she nodded, but the concern had gone.
"I can't."
"Work?"
The hesitation and the way her brow creased made him study her carefully.
"No. It's personal."
Olivier decided personal could mean many things, including a man.
"Hot date?" he shot back.
Her chin lifted.
Those blue eyes flashed with temper. "Nothing romantic. It's strictly personal. And it's none of your business."
Fair enough.
But something told him she was avoiding him.
"Okay, after your dinner... meeting, we will get together."
She folded her arms, cocked her hip.
"I don't know when we'll finish."
Yep, he recognized an avoidance tactic when he saw it.
"No problem. Tonight you will be sleeping in my bed."
Anastacia jerked her chin higher.
"You're too damned sure of yourself, Olivier."
"What I am, thanks to you, Anastacia, is sexually frustrated. And we are going to have a very long talk about why you ran away last night."
Her eyes went wide, then sulky.
"But, I..."
"I saw your face from the taxi. You ran. Do not deny it."
Her sulky mouth matched her sulky eyes.
And just like that all annoyance with her simply drained away.
How could he remain angry with a woman he adored?
Now he wondered how he was going to make her his.
At every turn she challenged him and never gave an inch.
As they moved to rejoin the rest of the team, he grinned.
When had Olivier Conti ever failed to get his heart's desire?
Never.
Anastacia didn't stand a chance.
Chapter Twenty Two
Sitting across the large desk in Anastacia's spacious office, Christopher Rucker closed his eyes.
Nearly twenty-four years had passed since he'd seen her, but he remembered the exact moment he'd handed his daughter into her mother's arms with complete clarity. He remembered the unique scent of his baby girl fresh from the bath, the quick infectious giggle showcasing two milk teeth, the jet curls - whisper soft - the huge blue eyes that had stared into his, filled with trust and an unconditional love.
Those memories were so vivid and so clear that when Christopher opened his eyes again he was almost convinced he was looking at his ex-wife, Alicia. His heart took a wild leap into his tight throat. A leap that was part shock, part fear.
But standing behind her desk, shoulders rigid, and staring right through him, was Anastacia.
How could he possibly forget Alicia, he wondered, when he had only to look at Anastacia to see her?
Dear God, she'd turned into a beautiful young woman.
Without asking permission, Christopher rose to the wet bar in the corner of the office and poured two Cognac from a crystal decanter into crystal glasses.
He wasn't surprised that his hands, his legs, were not quite steady.
Shock, he told himself.
"I don't know what to say to you. For years I've practiced what I'd say when we met..."
He wished he could walk right over to her, touch her, take her in his arms and just hold her close. But he knew she would reject him. He wished he could just be alone, to bury his face in his hands, to weep for everything she had lost, they had lost. But that would be pitiful behaviour by a father in front of his daughter.
Christopher wished he could go back to that moment twenty-three years ago and do something... anything... to stop Alicia leaving that room with his child. But that was an impossible dream.
This moment, right now, was reality.
And reality hurt.
Anastacia angled her head, stared up at him.
It was a look that singed him down to the marrow.
"I want to know why you left us."
His hand jerked, splashed liquid on the table, if he didn't tell her truth he'd lose her. But he knew, as much as it pained him, that the truth was going to hurt her.
"Of course you do. You want the truth."
"Truth?" The sting of tears she'd been driving back flowed perilously close to the surface. "You have no idea how much my mother suffered. How much I..." She shook her head. Suffered, in his mind he finished the sentence for her.
He offered her a glass, but she shook her head. He took a sip because he needed the burn deep in his belly to melt the ice, needed something to stop the terrible shaking of his hands. Again he sat in front of the huge desk that sat between them. The gulf that had opened between them was as wide as the Atlantic Ocean.
Now he wondered if anything he could say or do would ever bridge that divide.
"You do not have to listen to what I have to say, if you don't want to," he told Anastacia.
"It depends on what you have to say."
Her arms folded, her hip cocked, and her chin rose.
She was the living image her mother, so much so that his fingers tightened on the crystal glass. The tiny and delicate build, the dark curls raining down her back, her clear skin flushed with anger and pulled tight across delicate cheekbones. Many women looked fabulous when their temper was high. Alicia had looked amazing. So did Anastacia.
She was her mother reincarnate.
Except for her eyes.
Her eyes were his.
"And I warn you now that if you disrespect or demean my mother I will throw you out."
His daughter was a fighter and loyal to the bone.
So he was between a rock and a hard place.
Lie to his daughter and be unable to live with her loathing and disdain.
Or tell the truth and lose her.
Christopher went with the latter.
"Your mother lied to you. I never walked away from you. And as you can see, I'm very much alive."
"You divorced her."
"Yes."
"Why?"
He sighed.
The sound sounded too weary to his own ears.
"Please, Anastacia, sit down."
With a reluctance that squeezed his heart, his daughter sank to the ergonomic chair behind her desk and folded her arms, crossed her legs. One little foot tap, tap, tapped in an agitated fashion.
He opened a briefcase and took out a large envelope and pushed it across the desk.
She stared at it as if it was an improvised explosive device.
"What's that?"
"Photographs. Of your mother and I. When we met, our wedding, your birth."
Her smooth brow creased as her hand stretched out to take the envelope. She emptied the pictures over the desk, trembling fingers sliding the photographs and separating them. For a never-ending moment she simply stared before selecting two. One of his wedding day and one of him and Alicia smiling and deliriously happy holding the new born Anastacia.
"You were both so terribly young. You really are my father. A part of me still believed this whole thing was a big mistake."
"We were madly in love. I believe first love is an irresistible force. I married your mother in the face of fierce opposition. My parents did not approve."
"They didn't like my mother."
He shook his head.
"My parents believed we were too young and not ready or mature enough to look after a baby. But I was earning decent money. We lacked for nothing."
"So, if you were both madly in
love and lacked for nothing... why did it go wrong?"
"Your mother had a very... difficult and complicated childhood. When she was four, her parents abandoned her with her grandmother. A woman who was cold, withheld affection but didn't spare the rod from her only daughter. And she repeated the same mistakes with her granddaughter. When I look back at the girl Alicia was, I realize she never really stood a chance. Her behaviour was erratic. Too high one minute and depressed the next. I loved her deeply, Anastacia, you need to understand that. She had a wildness in her, a recklessness that I found exciting. All I wanted was for her to be happy. Of course we were both shocked to learn she was pregnant. She was seventeen and I was eighteen. We married the day she turned eighteen and six months later she gave birth to you."
He decided not to tell her about the living hell of her delivery, how he nearly lost his wife and his baby, about the dark postpartum depression Alicia sank into after the birth. In those days the illness was not understood and many women lacked the support they badly needed.
"We were young. We liked to party. But once we had you, the partying stopped. I was playing in the first team and training hard and playing at weekends. Alicia found being alone with a new baby difficult to cope with. And she started drinking. Heavily.
"You were four months old and one afternoon I returned home early. You were crying and the house was empty. She'd left you in your cot. I found out later she'd left the house at nine-thirty in the morning to meet girlfriends for an early brunch. You were hungry, dirty and screamed when I changed your soiled nappy. Your little bottom was raw and bleeding and you were whimpering in pain. I didn't know what to do so I phoned my mother. I tried to contact Alicia. At one point I thought she'd been in an accident. I was worried sick. But then I learned she was in a wine bar in town drinking and partying with her girlfriends. I packed my bags, your bags, and I took you and left to stay with my parents. God knew I needed the support. And I got a lawyer."
His daughter's vivid blue eyes never left his.
She was pale.
