Her Secret, His Child. Miranda Lee

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СКАЧАТЬ clapping, however, her hands twisting in her lap as she watched Nicolas mount the short flight of steps then walk across the stage to where Felicity and Fred Tarleton were standing.

      He looked magnificent, dressed in a charcoal-grey suit which must have cost a small fortune. Not only did it fit his body to perfection, but there also wasn’t a single wrinkle where the sleeves met his broad shoulders. His shirt was blue, about the same colour as his eyes. His tie was dark blue and grey striped. Only his collar-length blond hair spoiled his image as a millionaire businessman. That, and the inherent sensuality in his face.

      Serina heard a few soft sighs from the women in the audience.

      In a way, those sounds provided a degree of comfort. How could she blame herself for being besotted by the man when perfect strangers were affected by him?

      But it wasn’t his sex appeal that was causing her hands to be wrung. Or her stomach to be hopelessly in knots. It was the fear that he might have seen the truth during Felicity’s astounding performance just now.

      Surely he must have seen what was so obvious to her. That this was his own flesh and blood playing up there. His genes, not Greg’s.

      She leant forward in her seat to get a closer look at the expression on his face when he approached Felicity. When his daughter smiled up at him, he smiled back, just as happily, without hesitation, without even a hint of distress or anger.

      He hadn’t seen! He didn’t even suspect!

      Perversely, any relief Serina felt was tinged by a bitter resentment. What was it about men that they had no sensitivity, or intuition? He should have seen what was obvious. But no, they only saw what they wanted to see. Or what their male ego let them see, and believe.

      Nicolas had believed she didn’t love him all those years ago, and he believed it once again today. Yet she’d shown him in that bedroom this afternoon how much she did.

      She shook her head and sank back into her seat.

      ‘He hasn’t changed much,’ Mrs Johnson said from where she was sitting on the right side of Serina.

      ‘No,’ Serina agreed with considerable irony. He was still a blind fool!

      ‘Hush up, you two,’ her mother said impatiently from the other side of Serina.

      Nicolas took the microphone from Fred Tarleton and faced the audience.

      ‘Firstly,’ he said, ‘my heartiest congratulations, Felicity, for what was, indeed, a spectacular performance. I know I could not have done better myself at your age. Such prodigious talent is a tribute to the dedication and skill of her teacher, Mrs Johnson, who was my own first teacher. Mrs Johnson… ’ He bowed gallantly towards the old lady. ‘I salute you.’

      ‘I take that back,’ Mrs Johnson murmured. ‘He has changed. The boy I taught had no charm whatsoever.’

      A swift sidewards glance showed Serina the old lady was preening under his praise and that well-learned charm.

      Her teeth clenched down hard in her jaw.

      She sat there, silently fuming—which was insane!—as he went through the process of allotting the prizes, exerting more of his charm and gaining more approval from the audience as he awarded not one but two runner-up prizes. It had been a foregone conclusion that once Felicity was out of the running that Isabella would win. Not that Serina minded that. Isabella was a delightful girl with a truly lovely voice.

      Serina tried telling herself she should be grateful that Nicolas hadn’t twigged to the truth. Possibly she would be, in time.

      Just not right now!

      ‘I have one last presentation to make before today’s event comes to a close,’ Nicolas said, everyone in the hall falling silent and snapping to attention. ‘Felicity, I think you should be the one to receive this.’ And he extracted from the breast pocket of his suit jacket what looked like a cheque. ‘It was your lovely letter that brought me here. A touching letter, folks, about her dad’s tragic death in the Victorian bushfires. As you all know, this afternoon was a fund-raiser for the local bushfire brigade of which her dad was president. Now as much as you have all turned out in wonderful numbers and paid your money at the door, I made enquires about what it would cost to buy just one of those new firefighting trucks that Felicity told me about and I don’t think you’re going to make it today, not unless I give things a helping hand. So here you are, dear girl. I think it should be enough.’

      Serina watched her daughter’s eyes widen as she stared at the cheque, watched her daughter then throw her arms around Nicolas. By the time Nicolas disengaged her, Felicity’s big brown eyes were dancing with happiness.

      ‘It’s for three hundred thousand dollars!’ she shouted to everyone.

      Everyone began to clap. Everyone, that is, but Serina, who was crying. Her mother put an arm around her shoulders.

      ‘There there, love. I know. It’s still hard. But I’m sure Greg must be happy tonight, looking down at his daughter from heaven. Happy and proud.’

      Serina cried all the harder…

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      THE after-concert party was in full swing, with Nicolas being bombarded with both finger food and conversation. People kept coming up to him to congratulate him on a job well done and to say thank you, the girls from Serina’s office included—though not Serina, he noted ruefully. She kept her distance, even when her own mother and Mrs Johnson were chatting to him.

      Felicity brought along her paternal grandparents, Franny and Bert Harmon, whom he’d never met before. They looked like they were in their late seventies and rather an odd couple: Bert was tall and thin whilst Franny was very short and plump. But both of them had grey hair and dark, gentle eyes.

      ‘Nanna and Pop bought your old house, you know,’ Felicity said after she’d introduced them.

      ‘Really?’

      ‘And your old piano. That’s what I first learned to play on.’

      Nicolas was quite startled by this news. He’d imagined that her having piano lessons had been Serina’s doing, that Felicity would have learned to play on her mother’s piano. Serina had had her own instrument long before Nicolas acquired his, courtesy of a competition he’d won. Till then he’d always practised on Mrs Johnson’s piano.

      ‘Whenever I went to stay at Nanna and Pop’s,’ Felicity went on, ‘I could hear the kids having lessons next door at Mrs Johnson’s. Her music room was just over the fence from my bedroom window. I used to love to lie in bed and listen.’

      Nicolas could hardly believe what he was hearing. Talk about coincidence!

      ‘Then, one day, when I was about three,’ Felicity continued, ‘I can’t actually remember this… but Pop tells me he came downstairs and I was trying to play. He decided then and there I should have lessons. To tell the truth, Mum wasn’t all that keen but Dad was, even though he wasn’t musical at all.’

      ‘Tone deaf Greg was,’ Franny said with a nod. ‘But he was so proud of you, love. I’m sure he would have been СКАЧАТЬ