Hard To Regret: Scarlet Bay Book 1 Read online

  “I sincerely hope that’s not you, Anna,” her father said, peering more closely at the streaky hair behind the kowhai blossoms. “We’ve a lot to lose if it is. My reputation doesn’t need a scandal like this.”

  “Your reputation?” Anna exclaimed, eyes wide. “The reputation of a - ”

  She was interrupted by the reporter’s phone blasting out a raucous ringtone. To his credit, Tiny Tim took a couple of steps away to check the screen, answer the call, and dismiss the caller while she grated in a lower tone, “The reputation of a baby-snatcher and thief. And probably a document forger as well.”

  “Anna!” Jossy exclaimed. And then, “Daddy?”

  Jason’s mind raced as he saw Sven bustling over to quell the disturbance. What had she said? He pointed toward Sven’s office door, and the gallery owner changed direction and opened it. Not knowing how else to get them out of the reporter’s hearing, he grasped Anna around the waist, and her father by his collar, and rushed them toward the office.

  “Daddy?” Jossy demanded, tottering along behind them. “What does she mean?”

  “You too,” Jason snapped. “Quickly. And tell them to keep the volume down in there while they sort it out.”

  He pulled the door closed on three astounded faces and turned to ensure Tim Hathaway stayed well out of earshot, and preferably left the premises.

  *

  Anna glared at her father who was rubbing his neck after rougher handling than he’d received in forty years. Jason’s unceremonious bundling of them all into Sven’s office now had them face to face with the uncomfortable truth suspended on a very slender thread.

  “What did you do, Daddy?” Jossy demanded.

  “What I believed was best for my daughter,” Michael Wynn said, spreading his hands as though the immense problem could be physically smoothed away.

  “I’m sorry about this, Jossy,” Anna said in a scratchy voice. “But I got pregnant when I was fourteen.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?” she wailed, forgetting Jason’s terse command to keep the volume low.

  “Quiet Jossy! You hadn’t even started your periods. How would you have understood?”

  “I knew about babies,” she said, pushing her lower lip out in a familiar childish expression. “Where is it?”

  “They gave it away. Before I’d seen it or touched it or had a chance to give it a cuddle. I don’t even know if it was a boy or a girl.”

  “A boy,” Michael Wynn admitted quietly. “A grandson. A boy after three daughters, but a boy we couldn’t keep. I had to ensure you were safe, Anna. You weren’t ready to be saddled with a child. You were still a child yourself. It’s hard to regret what we did.”

  “A boy?” Anna repeated, thunderstruck that the truth had emerged so suddenly. “You could at least have told me that much.”

  Her father reached across to touch her arm but Anna jerked away from him.

  “And have you making up stories in that inventive brain of yours?” he suggested. “Ruth and I thought it best to sever all contact between you and the baby. To encourage you to finish your education. To give you the chance to live a normal teenage life.”

  Anna made a noise of absolute exasperation. “But it wasn’t, was it! Not normal in any way. I was yanked out of school and made to feel I’d committed some enormous sin, even though I had no recollection of what happened. I’ve spent all my life since then trying to make up for it.”

  “Did someone drug you?” Jossy asked in a softer voice.

  Anna looked down at the floor, too ashamed to meet her sister’s wide-eyed gaze. “One of those date rape things, I guess. And the other horrible part is that I probably knew the boy.” She paused and screwed her face up. “Or boys. And their friends and sisters, too. It was at a party after tennis.” She took a deep breath. “A son,” she whispered.

  “What happened to him?” Jossy asked their father.

  “He was adopted as a newborn. He’s living in Australia.”

  Anna turned horrified eyes on him. “You know that for sure? Still?”

  Michel Wynn gave a slow, resigned nod. “His parents are in Adelaide.”

  “And does he know he’s adopted?”

  The nod turned into a shake. “I expect not. They went on to have a little girl. Strange how that can happen to a couple who’ve had no luck earlier.”

  Anna gulped, trying to swallow back the bile that had rushed up her throat.

  “How did you get him to Australia?” Jossy asked. “How did you obtain the papers? The passport? All those immigration things?”

  “Not that difficult, Jossy. Look into it sometime.”

  “But don’t they have to match up passports with birth certificates?”

  “It’s possible to arrange if you’re careful.”

  Her mouth formed a soundless O while she considered that. “So this is why Anna said you were a baby-snatcher and forger? God…”

  One of his shoulders rose in a resigned shrug. “What would you have done… as a parent?”

  Anna looked at the man she’d held in such esteem for so long. The man she’d strived so hard to please. It was as though someone had punctured him and the air was leaking out. His face appeared older, his eyes paler, his frame more stooped.

  “Adelaide,” she repeated. “Is he findable? I might discover who raped me.”

  “Best not to know,” Jossy cautioned.

  Anna turned on her. “And if it was you? Wouldn’t you want to know? This has eaten me alive for damn near fifteen years. I lost hours of my life and worried everyone sick by staggering home far too late. In a hell of a state. And they blamed me.”

  Michael Wynn hesitated a moment, then drew a slim billfold from his breast pocket, opened it, and held it out to Anna. From the photo inside, a sandy-haired boy in school uniform grinned at her. “Leo,” he said.

  She gagged and clutched at her throat. She knew that face. Or knew a version two or three years older anyway. She dragged in a deep breath. Let it go in a rush. Dragged in another. Shook her head as though that would cause it not to be true, and then whispered, “Andrew Lyttelton did it. My friend Fiona Lyttelton’s brother. This boy is absolutely him. I’m going to be sick.”

  Jossy cast a panicked glance around the office and up-ended a container of pens and pencils, scattering them onto the desk and floor. She handed it to Anna who looked at it in disbelief.

  “Bathroom!” her father barked, regaining his usual authority. He opened the door, and Jossy started to scrabble the pens and pencils together again. Anna lurched out into the gallery and found Jason waiting for her, sombre-faced.

  “Bathroom?”

  He pointed. She dashed past him, and made it there with only seconds to spare before hurling Pinot Noir and fancy canapes down the toilet bowl.

  CHAPTER 20 – BACK IN THE BAY

  Jason didn’t believe how badly it had gone. In a split second her face had lost its excited glow. She’d stared at him as though he’d committed some hideous crime instead of showing her how he truly saw her. Beautiful. Graceful. The woman he loved.

  The joy of the exhibition had been totally eclipsed by her reaction.

  Sure, the photos had been admired, and had sold - especially to corporate clients. They’d brought him great satisfaction and pride until that terrible moment they’d all walked into the alcove and Anna had turned on him like a spitting cat.

  Then everything had gone up in flames. The hurt in her eyes had lashed him more fiercely than any whip.

  He’d made her a promise several weeks earlier - that he’d show nothing to identify her. And he’d kept it. He’d flipped the shots to add a little confusion and change which shoulder her unique mole appeared on. He wished he’d taken it out now, like her diamonds - but it was part of her body, part of her charm. He’d thought it desecration to do that.

  Surely no-one would have known it was her if she hadn’t admitted it herself? He’d blended her into the backgrounds subtly, and ensured her face was always turned away
or not included.

  It hadn’t helped having that fucker of a reporter hanging around, but the harm had been done before she noticed him. Harm he could never undo.

  He’d been dreaming too big to ever be important to Anna Wynn.

  Beautiful wealthy Anna Wynn.

  She’d dashed away without a word, made no effort to contact him, and when he was finally desperate enough to phone her, he found she’d turned her phone off. Plainly wanting no contact. He’d be damned if he’d grovel, but as he sat there glaring at the screens in his study he wondered about one last desperate attempt. Could he reach her through Jossy?

  He texted Cam. Did he have the number?

  “She’s in Australia,” Jossy said a few minutes later.

  Jason slumped back in his chair. “Gone. She didn’t say she was going.”

  “No, it was something unexpected.”

  “Business or pleasure?” he couldn’t help asking.

  “Umm… neither. A family thing, really.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Actually,” Jossy added, sounding harassed and worried, “She’s in Adelaide, looking for someone.”

  “Big place,” Jason responded gloomily. “More than a million people. I went there with some mates a couple of years ago.”

  “Yes, but she knows where to look. I just wish she hadn’t gone.”

  “You and me both.” He took a deep breath. “You’re starting to spook me. Why do you think she shouldn’t have gone? Who’s she looking for?”

  “Jason, I can’t tell you. Sorry. It’s something private that even I didn’t know about until the exhibition. She’ll have to tell you herself. If she wants to.”

  He gave a bleak laugh. “Fat chance of that. She doesn’t want to see me or talk to me.” He was on the point of disconnecting, but asked anyway. “HHHHHHhDo you think this is fixable, Jossy?”

  She left a short silence before saying, “I never thought I’d get another chance to fix things between me and Cam.”

  “You knew him before?” His tone was too sharp, but he’d had no inkling of any previous connection. Cam hadn’t mentioned anyone called Jossy among the dozens of women who’d paraded through his life - which either made her unimportant or super special.

  “Early days yet, and it might still fall to pieces,” she conceded. “But people have to try or they get nowhere. Don’t give up on Anna yet. I thought you were great together. Tell her you’re hurting. She has a tender heart under that protective shell.”

  Dimly through the phone he heard the distinctive clarion of Cam’s jokey car horn.

  “Sorry, I need to go,” Jossy said, and clicked off.

  He continued to sit in front of the screens.

  Tell her you’re hurting.

  Yeah, right. In a galaxy far, far away, maybe. Not what men like him did. Feelings and emotions were off the menu. He’d already told Anna more than he’d told any other woman. About his family. His ambitions. He’d be damned if he’d add ‘hurting’ to the mix, especially if she could bolt off like that, ignoring everything they’d shared, leaving him with no proper explanation and no time frame to try and put things right.

  He scrolled through to the lewd shots she’d taken of him, grimacing as he remembered the joy they’d shared that night. His beautiful naughty girl. She’d ripped out his heart and left a bloodied aching hole there.

  He sat back in his chair and let his imagination run wild. Okay, so telling her wasn’t an option, but showing her just might be.

  He set to work adding new elements to one of the photos. If he could combine her body and the birds, he could do the same with his.

  *

  Anna found it easier than expected to get the name and address out of her father; maybe the secret had weighed on him so heavily it finally needed to be shared. A phone call to Adelaide had bought a grudging invitation to a barbecue at the family’s home in return for the guarantee she wouldn’t tell the boy he was her mother.

  It had been a surreal experience; the parents twitchy, the daughter charming, Leo a typical boisterous teenager with two noisy mates and no time for his mother’s visiting ‘friend’. She’d spent two hours in his company and felt not the slightest spark of affection. He was Andrew Lyttelton reborn, brash and over-tubby. Her only contribution might have been his slightly lighter hair.

  Once she returned home she started a slow climb up the grand staircase to her apartment, dragging her bag beside her. Nothing was right any more. She’d upset her parents, offended Jossy, and been so vile to Jason and so rude about his photographs she had little hope of resurrecting that relationship any time soon - if at all.

  Why hadn’t she taken more time to look? To see how truly talented he was and how honourably he’d stuck to his promise not to reveal her identity?

  On her way to the airport the morning after the opening she’d slunk back to the gallery for a quieter, more considered look. Yes, there were more nude backgrounds than she’d expected, but each was discreet and decent and unidentifiable. Indeed ‘a perfect fusion of form and feathers’ as one of the critics had said.

  And had she admired them? No. She’d lashed out at him in a rage, fuelled by her father’s unfortunate comment about ‘his reputation not needing scandal’, and the sudden unexpected appearance of obnoxious Tim Hathaway blurting suggestive remarks at top volume.

  Well, she’d proceed in her usual systematic way. She’d now put the yearning for her baby to rest after all those harrowing years. Next, she’d phone Jossy and apologise. Maybe let her parents know she was back so they could stop worrying about her stirring up ‘the unfortunate situation’. And tomorrow she’d try and find the courage to contact Jason and make amends.

  When she reached her door she found a large flat package leaning against it. It was tightly tied, with several courier labels slapped haphazardly onto the waterproof wrapping. No return address. Unreadable scrawl indicating what it contained.

  She shrugged and set it aside, heaved her bag into the apartment, and returned for the package.

  After making a cup of coffee, she found her scissors and sat in one of the big chairs to tackle the mystery. And gasped at the photo she found.

  Birds. A round-eyed owl - Ruru for sure – a couple of cruel talons just visible grasping a shining perch. Below that, the unfurled wings of a feeding tui; surely one of the pair from the exhibition, but this time its sharp beak wasn’t attacking golden kowhai blossoms. She shuddered and clutched a hand to her breast as she recognised the tattoo on Jason’s thigh.

  There was no note, and no need for one. Message crystal clear. She’d hurt him.

  *

  In the end, Anna called nobody. Simply crept up to bed exhausted, with her emotions in turmoil. Somewhere in the long night she fell asleep, waking later than expected for her trip to Scarlet Bay.

  She dressed quickly but carefully - in a stretchy red crop-top over black linen shorts, wanting every advantage with Jason. Every way to make herself attractive to him. Surely that strip of skin around her midriff wouldn’t hurt? After making the calls to Jossy and her parents, giving away none of her plans, she hit the road.

  The highway north was busy, but Jason worked Saturday mornings. As long as she reached Scarlet Bay before noon she should be okay. It seemed important to face up to him in person and not just return his phone messages. He deserved everything she could give him by way of apology, and she hoped the element of surprise would work in her favour. She knew from Jossy that he wasn’t away anywhere with Cam. She also knew he’d picked up more work at the campground, and hoped he’d be there.

  His white van wasn’t easy to spot amongst the big RVs and caravans and tents, but Anna lowered her window and listened for construction noises as she crawled along the lanes between the campsites. And sure enough - the scream of a circular saw rent the air somewhere ahead.

  After pulling onto an empty sun-baked wedge of grass, she stepped out of the car and approached the mesh safety fence around a block of three half built ca
bins. The concrete floor slab was down and timber framing was going up. Behind her, breakers crashed on the shore - the soft, incessant background to the squeals of children playing and the commentary of a distant cricket match. In front of her, an old Robbie Williams’ number poured from the builders’ concrete-spattered radio.

  She pushed her fingers into the mesh of the fence, sagged against it, and scanned the site. A few seconds later, two big hands closed over hers, holding her prisoner. She tried to turn, but Jason’s urgent whisper of “Stay,” held her in place.

  She didn’t want to stay. She wanted to turn and look into his eyes, bury herself against his hard hot chest, smell his skin, beg forgiveness any way she could. When she tried to twist her head to see him, he pushed his face down onto her shoulder to prevent it, biting her hard enough to make her gasp. “Stay,” he repeated through clenched teeth. Then he relaxed his fierce hold and pressed a line of kisses up to her ear. His beard brushed against her face, surprisingly soft.

  “I need to tell you things,” she said. “Why I reacted like that. Why I left. Did you know I’d gone to Aussie?”

  “Jossy told me.” His voice was flat and unforgiving.

  “Did she tell you why?”

  “Said it was private.”

  “Mmm… big secret finally revealed.” She tried to press back against him but he held himself rigidly away. “Jason, let me turn around.”

  “If you turn around I’ll do you right here against the fence.”

  A huge rush of warmth invaded her, making her tingle and burn and throb all over. Being done against the fence didn’t sound like rejection, even though his manner was still brusque in the extreme.

  “The photo you sent… destroyed me,” she whispered. “How could you even think about doing that to yourself?”

  “You’d already done it to me, Frosty. I wanted to show you how it felt.” He nipped her earlobe and then sucked it into his mouth, swiping his tongue to and fro until she groaned. He released it with a gusty sigh. “I went into this with no hope of long term success. A few days of fun, if I was lucky. And then it got so unbelievably good. And deep.”