Throat dry, he swallowed, then moistened his lips, glancing around to make sure nobody was likely to overhear them. “How old is she?”
“Five.”
Satisfaction—and more than a little fear—flared within him. He’d been right. “Is her dad in the picture?” There was always a chance she’d gotten pregnant immediately after aborting his niece or nephew.
“You know what?” Bex straightened and stalked back to the desk, where she snatched up the paperwork and stuffed it into a drawer. “That’s really none of your business.” She plucked out a key and tossed it at him. “Go home and make some dinner, Michael. You can start training tomorrow.”
He didn’t move. Couldn’t if he’d wanted to. The soles of his feet were glued to the floor.
“Is that little girl Wesley’s daughter?” he whispered, holding his breath for an answer.
She widened her eyes and her gaze darted around the others in the room, but she didn’t hesitate before answering, “No.”
He deflated. He’d been so certain.
She grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled him over to the exit. “Izzy is my daughter,” she hissed. “She’s my parents’ granddaughter. We’re all the family she has, and needs. Got it?” Her midnight eyes burned into his with an intensity that had flames licking at his skin. He noticed she hadn’t mentioned the girl’s father, which raised his suspicions again.
“Izzy.” He tasted the name on his tongue. “Cute.”
“It’s short for Isobel.” Beads of sweat dotted her forehead, and her eyes flickered to the door, as though searching for an escape route. If he was reading her right, she was scared, and he hated that.
“I’m going to go,” he said, hoping he wouldn’t regret it. Bex looked like a woman on the verge of doing something rash. “But I’ll be back tomorrow, and we’re going to talk about this.”
Her lips firmed, and her back straightened. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Yes.” He backed away from her, his palms raised so she could see she wasn’t in any immediate physical danger. “There is.”
It would be the mother of all coincidences if she just happened to have a daughter the same age as the one she’d supposedly aborted. A daughter who, by his estimation, had some of Bex’s half-Cambodian features and somepakeha, or European,ones. “I’ll be seeing you.”
Chapter Five
The moment Bexheard the front door shut downstairs, she released a long, shaky breath. “Okay, everybody. We’re closing up. You need to be out of here in five minutes.”
A couple of people groaned, but no one argued. With trembling hands, and an uneasy heart, she tidied away equipment that hadn’t been returned to its rightful place and bolted the windows. When her last patron headed out, she went downstairs, locked the front entrance, and passed through the door on the side of the foyer to her apartment, where she scooped Izzy into her arms and hugged her tight.
“Mum!” Izzy squeaked. “I can’t see the TV.”
“You’ll survive.” She buried her face in Izzy’s cloud of hair. The warmth and solidity of her daughter’s body reassured her. Izzy was still here, she hadn’t lost her, and shewouldn’t. No matter what. She squeezed Izzy once more, then let her go, amused when she immediately tried to flatten her hair, as if Bex could possibly have made it any fluffier than it already was. Izzy had inherited her grandmother’s big, buoyant hair, and hadn’t come to terms with it yet, especially because the gene had skipped a generation and Bex herself had silky smooth locks.
Bex kissed her cheek and sat on the couch, unwilling to let Izzy out of her sight. Once again, she was tempted to throw the essentials in a suitcase and skip town, but she couldn’t tear Izzy away from the life they’d built. Especially when she wouldn’t understand why. No, Bex needed to stand strong. If the Briggstons decided to sue for custody, running would only give them something to use against her. For better or worse, she’d stay in Haven Bay.
“Hey, Iz?”
“Yeah?”
“You remember what I taught you about talking to strangers, right?”
“You said not to,” Izzy replied. “And don’t get into their car.”
“Good girl.” Bex released a breath, then headed to the kitchen to scavenge something for dinner.
Later, after they’d prepared for bed, she escorted a freshly showered Izzy to her room. “Would you like a story?” she asked, needing to keep her baby close.
“Yep.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Izzy heaved a dramatic sigh and rolled her eyes. “Yes,please, Mummy.”