THE snow had stopped falling by the time Nicolas alighted the cab outside his apartment block, but the air was bitterly cold.
‘Don’t know how you stand it, Mike,’ he said to his favourite doorman as he hurried up the front steps.
‘I’m used to it, Mr Dupre. But then I’m a New Yorker. Not an Aussie like you. Better get yourself inside now, before you catch your death.’
An Aussie, Nicolas was thinking as he stepped into the invitingly warm lobby. He’d actually stopped thinking of himself as Australian. Till his recent return to the country of his birth.
Now he couldn’t stop thinking about the place. And the daughter he had there. The daughter he would never see again.
He’d once loved Christmas in New York. He’d even loved the cold. This year he’d hated it all. He’d wanted to be back there in Rocky Creek, with Serina and Felicity. He’d wanted to shower them both with gifts. Wanted to kiss them and hug them and just…be with them.
Instead, he’d spent the day, alone, in his apartment, having refused several last-minute invitations to Christmas dinner. He hadn’t even bought any presents, though he did give his usual cash gifts to Mike and Chad. He spent Boxing Day alone as well, and the twenty-seventh.
Today, he’d forced himself to go out. He’d attended the matinee show of a play that had just opened—and he found deadly dull—after which he’d had a bite to eat before heading home. What he would do tomorrow he had no idea. Go jogging in the park, maybe… Something that would put a bit of life back into him.
Because he felt dead. Dead inside.
I should never have cut Serina out of my life like that, he realised grimly. Being bloody black-and-white was a recipe for depression of the worst kind.
‘Mr Dupre!’ Chad called out to him as he made his way with his head down across the lobby.
Nicolas took a deep breath as he ground to a halt. Don’t take it out on the lad, he lectured himself. It’s not his fault that you want to strangle him, just for talking to you.
He tried not to scowl as he turned back in the direction of the reception desk. ‘Yes, Chad?’
‘There’s another pink letter for you. From Australia.’
‘What?’
A stunned Nicolas hurried over to the desk where Chad was indeed holding out a bright pink envelope to him. It was exactly the same as the last one. Though there were several important differences. There was nothing written on it except his name.
He flipped it over. Nothing on the other side as well.
‘I don’t get it,’ he said, totally thrown. ‘How did you know this was from Australia? There’s no stamp on it or any sender’s name and address. In fact, there’s no damned address on the front, either. So how on earth did it even get here?’
Chad looked a little sheepish. But not too worried. ‘It was…um…hand-delivered.’
‘Hand-delivered?’
‘Yes,’ a woman’s voice said behind him. ‘By me.’
Nicolas’s chest tightened. Dear God, he knew that voice.
He whirled and there she was: his Serina.
‘Felicity sent me,’ she said simply as she walked slowly towards him from the lobby’s lounge area. ‘That’s from her.’ And she nodded towards the pink envelope.
‘I don’t understand….’ And he didn’t. But the beginning of a wonderful hope was clawing its way into his, till then, dead heart.
Serina glanced over his shoulder at Chad, who, no doubt, could overhear their conversation.
‘Come over here,’ she said quietly, and drew him towards a lounge in a far corner of the lobby, next to which sat a small suitcase and a very large handbag.
Nicolas’s heart was pounding in his chest by the time they were sitting down together.
‘Tell me what’s going on, for pity’s sake!’
‘I told Felicity the truth, Nicolas. I told her you were her father.’
Nicolas literally stopped breathing at this astonishing piece of news. ‘And?’ he choked out.
Her smile would have melted the arctic. ‘She didn’t hate me.’
‘What…what about me?’ Never in his life had Nicolas stammered the way he did at that moment.
‘Oh, Nicolas, how could she possibly hate you? None of it was your fault. The guilt was all mine.’
‘That’s not true, my darling,’ he said as he took her hands in his.
‘Oh, yes it is. Please, Nicolas, let me own my sins. I should have told you, way back then. I took the easy way out. But I paid for it and so did you. Felicity took me to task for the way I’ve treated you.’
‘She wasn’t too upset about Greg not being her real father?’
‘She was very upset at first. But I made her see that Greg was her father, in every way but genetically. A wonderful father.’
‘Which he was,’ Nicolas agreed.
‘Yes. I hope you don’t mind, my darling, but neither of us want to tell anyone else the truth, especially Greg’s parents. They’d be shattered.’
‘Yes, they would be. I could see that.’
‘They’re very elderly, you know. There will come a day in the not too distant future when it won’t matter so much who knows the truth.’
‘I don’t mind other people not knowing,’ he said, ‘as long as my daughter knows.’
‘She asked me to ask you to open that letter in front of me.’
‘Did she now?’ He ripped open the pink envelope with some trepidation. The letter was computer-generated as before.
Dear Nicolas
Sorry, but I don’t feel right calling you Dad. I already have a dad. But I think it’s kinda cool that you are my father. No wonder I play the piano a bit like you. Anyway I’m glad Mum told me the truth, because I reckon I might have figured it out some day. Now look, Nicolas, it’s Mum I’m really writing to you about. She’s been very sad since you left. I mean seriously seriously sad. She still loves you and she says you still love her. Which I sure hope is true, because if it’s not, I will never speak to you again as long as I live. Which would be a tragedy of the highest order as I like you heaps. So please please ask her to marry you again. And come back to Australia to live.
Bye for now,
Your secret daughter,
Felicity Harmon.
PS. Please email me the very second Mum says yes. (Which she will.)
PPS. I’d like a baby brother or sister please. ASAP.
PPS. I still don’t want to become a concert pianist.
Nicolas couldn’t help laughing.
‘What is it?’ Serina demanded to know. ‘What did she say?’
He just handed her the letter.
Serina groaned. ‘Oh, dear. She is terribly precocious, isn’t she?’
‘I think she’s marvellous,’ Nicolas said.
‘She’s the one who found out your actual address. From that program you did on television a few years ago. She got the phone number somehow as well and rang the desk to make sure you were staying here and not in London before she booked my flights. She insisted I come in person. She said it would be cowardly of me to just email, or ring.’
‘You’re no coward. I think you are the bravest lady I’ve ever met. So will you marry me, my darling?’
‘Need you ask?’
‘Had to. Or my daughter said she wouldn’t speak to me for the rest of her life.’
‘Then yes, Nicolas. I’ll marry you.’
He smiled then hugged her. ‘So what do you think about her other request for a baby brother or sister, ASAP?’
Serina’s eyes sparkled. ‘I’m willing, if you’re willing.’
‘In that case I think we’ll go upstairs and get started on that project straight away. But first… Chad!’ he called out across the lobby as he stood up. ‘Am I right in assuming you and Serina are already acquainted?’
‘Er…yes, Mr Dupre. We had quite a long chat earlier on. That’s how I knew she was from Australia. Though I already guessed, from her accent.’
‘We’re getting married, Chad.’
‘That’s wonderful news, Mr Dupre. Mike will be thrilled. He’s been a bit worried about you. I’ll go tell him right away.’
‘You do that. Now we’ve got something we’ve got to do straight away,’ he said to Serina as he picked up her luggage.
‘Yes, I know,’ she said, standing up, too. ‘The email.’
‘The email can wait. I can’t. Come on.’
They reached the lifts, where Nicolas was about to press the up button, when Serina stopped him. ‘There’s something I want to say first.’
‘Do you have to?’
‘Yes. I want to say that I love you, Nicolas Dupre. I’ve never stopped loving you. When I was a young girl, before you even noticed me, I used to dream that one day we would get married, and have a family together. And now that dream is going to come true. Thank you, Nicolas. For still loving me. And for asking me to marry me again. Thank you.’
Nicolas couldn’t speak for a long moment.
He dropped the luggage and reached out to curve his hands over her shoulders.
‘It’s I who should be thanking you,’ he said, his voice husky. ‘For still loving me, after all these years. Do you remember my saying that there was a woman once whom I wanted to marry but it didn’t work out?’
Serina nodded.
‘You were that woman, my love. You. Never anyone else.’
‘Oh, Nicolas…’
‘No. No more tears. From now on we’re not going to look back. Our new life together is just beginning. We’re going to be the happiest couple to ever live in Rocky Creek.’
Serina’s eyes widened. ‘Rocky Creek?’
‘Yes, damn it. Rocky Creek. If we’re going to have more children, I can’t really drag them all over the world all the time, can I?’
‘But you won’t be happy living in Rocky Creek all the time!’ Serina protested.
‘Who said?’
‘You said.’
‘True. Okay, I’ll buy that penthouse in Port Macquarie and do a bit of commuting. That sound feasible enough for you?’
‘Very feasible. Felicity wants to go to school in Port Macquarie next year. They’ve not long opened a new high school there. It has a great reputation already. It is rather expensive. But she said you could afford it.’
‘What? That girl! She’s incorrigible!’
‘Indeed. I wonder where she gets her ruthlessness from?’
‘Hey, don’t blame me for everything. She has half your genes, you know.’
‘You didn’t say that about her piano playing! You claimed all those genes.’
Suddenly, Nicolas grinned. ‘We’re arguing over our kid already.’
‘Parents always argue over their children.’
‘Do they? I rather like it.’
‘You won’t once the boys start calling. Which will be any day now.’
Serina almost laughed at Nicolas’s horrified expression. ‘She’s not old enough for boys.’
‘She’ll be thirteen next year. In two years she’ll be fifteen. I was fifteen when I went to your graduation.’
‘My God. Where is she now? Who’s she staying with whilst you’re over here?’
‘Kirsty’s parents.’
‘What? She’s back out there in bushfire land?’
‘We can’t mollycoddle her, Nicolas.’
‘Oh, yes I can. I’m her father. I can mollycoddle her all I like! You’re going home, Serina, and I’m coming with you.’
‘Really, Nicolas, are you quite sure about that?’ And sliding her arms up around his neck, she kissed him.
They didn’t fly home till after the New Year.