Authors: Shirley Wine
Every milestone.
Sarah's first smile, her first tooth, sitting, crawling and taking her first step, looking at her first birthday cake, with its single candle.
Why had Alex sent her this?
Was this a sop to appease his guilt? Kate ran a shaky hand over the expensive, intricately tooled, leather cover of the album. This wasn't something that had been done on the spur of the moment. It was a diligent record of Sarah's life. Transfixed she continued to turn the pages.
Here were all the birthdays, all the precious moments she'd missed. And with every page she turned, the deeper her unease and the more she was convinced.
Had she misjudged Alex?
Chapter Thirteen
"L
ook, Daddy. A hippopotamus." Sarah's excited shriek rose as she swung on the rail above the river pen where the lumbering beasts were swimming.
"Where do children get the energy? Were you ever this noisy?" Alex gave Kate a shrewd smile.
"Noisier. I'm sure." Kate was amused by Sarah's exuberance.
She'd been ready well before the appointed time. The day was blustery and she'd dressed in jeans and trainers and a warm sweater, and carried her windcheater in case it rained. They'd arrived on her doorstep on the dot of eight thirty.
At first Alex had been withdrawn and aloof and she knew it was due to that awful scene the night of Sarah's school play.
She understood.
The dread of facing him had made her think long and hard over the wisdom of coming on this outing. In the end, she'd been too weak to resist spending the day with Sarah, even if it meant also spending time with Alex.
Kate gasped with fright as Sarah swung out at a precarious angle. Alex extended an arm and hauled her back.
"Calm down." His quiet authority calmed her boisterous behaviour. "You'll give Kate a heart attack."
"Kate's not stuffy." Sarah skipped to the turtle enclosure, climbing on the barrier railing.
"How are your feet?"
"Tired. Surely it's lunchtime?"
"That bad?" he asked, amused. "Can you can cope with your supercharged offspring while I get the picnic basket?"
Kate shot him a startled glance. This was his first open reference to the fact that Sarah was her child. "I think so."
"That isn't enough, Kate. Sarah's life is too important to be unsure of."
"I'll manage." Did he think she would allow Sarah to come to harm?
"Can you manage? When have you managed your own life, let alone taken responsibility for a child?"
A dull flush crept under her skin. She'd be the first to admit she hadn't coped well in the past so how could she question his scepticism now? Responsibility for a child's welfare was a life time commitment.
"Think about it, Kate." On those sharp words he turned to Sarah. "Stay with Kate while I get the picnic basket. Don't go wandering off, okay?"
"Okay." Sarah slipped her hand into Kate's. "Let's go play on the swings?"
As Alex went for the picnic basket, she led Sarah to the swings, determined to prove he could trust her.
"Can you give me a push?" Sarah clambered onto the nearest swing. "A high one?"
"How high?" She pushed the swing, tossing back the hair that blew onto her face, a deep sense of well-being spreading through her.
"Higher." Sarah's shrill cry mingled with those of the other children.
Concentrating on Sarah's demands, Kate never saw Alex return, or his silent signal to the man standing discreetly beneath a tree. He faded away, merging with the crowd at the zoo on a Saturday afternoon. Alex spread the rug, unpacking the picnic basket before calling them.
"Sarah, Kate?"
Kate slowed the swing. "Daddy has lunch ready."
"He's not your Daddy, Kate," Sarah shrieked, catching her slip.
Kate's cheeks crimsoned in embarrassment. She took a moist wipe from the container Alex handed her and wiped her hands, refusing to look at him.
"Kate was talking to you. Are you hungry? Wipe your hands first, missy." He handed Sarah a moist wipe and watched to ensure she did a proper job. "Maria has packed so much food."
"She always does." Sarah made a grab for the chicken.
Alex stopped her hand, icy with displeasure. "Where are your manners, Sarah? We have a visitor."
The child hung her head at the reprimand. Kate's heart ached; surely he was being too severe?
"Offer the chicken to Kate first, please."
Sarah passed the bowl of chicken pieces to Kate. She took a piece smiling at Sarah and casting a reproachful glance at Alex.
"I refuse to have a spoilt, bad mannered child," he said, in a quiet undertone for her ears only. "She has your wayward nature. It will cause her grief unless she learns to control it."
Kate gaped at him. Alex thought Sarah had inherited bad traits from her? The succulent chicken tasted like sawdust.
"No swift comeback."
Kate searched his face looking for a glimmer of softness and found none. "What do you base that observation on?"
"Are you forgetting the undisciplined displays you treated me to? I assure you I haven't."
Kate shook her head, he really believed that? "Even the quietest creatures become violent when cornered, Alex. Are you so conceited you can't understand why I fought you? Perhaps it's more than time you did a bit of honest thinking."
She looked at Sarah. "Would you like a drink?"
Sarah nodded. Kate busied herself pouring a tumbler of juice avoiding Alex's gaze and then passed the child a container of apple slices.
Alex poured them both coffee from a thermos and handed her a mug. "You weren't cornered when you ran away. You held all the power then, Kate and used it, ruthlessly. As for seven years of total silence—"
Kate stared at him, horrified. Her conscience, already uneasy, twisted and turned.
"I hurt you?" she asked in a stunned whisper.
"Wasn't that the general idea?" His smile was devoid of humour. "I'm mortal, Catriona. Cut me and I bleed. Don't you believe me?"
As she watched, he picked up a small knife from the picnic basket and cut his finger. Ruby beads of blood sat on his tanned skin. Kate turned away, sickened. Unmoved, he lifted his finger and sucked the blood off it.
'That was just a tiny nick, Kate," he said with relentless purpose and she wanted to put her hands over her ears and block out his words. "You can't see the cuts of seven years' silence but they bled, badly."
Appetite destroyed, she toyed with the food on her plate, uncomfortable with this glimpse of the very private Alexandros Korda's human face.
Appalled, she realized she'd never paused to think about the burden imposed by her silence. She knew she was alive and well, but was shamed to realize she had never once considered whether Alex would worry about her.
A warm hand closed over hers. Even now he was comforting her.
"When Gregori gave me that money I thought you meant me to disappear."
"When you never contacted me, your relatives or Carmichael, I came to the awful conclusion you'd met with foul play," he said soberly. "Despite the sharp little note you left behind."
Remorse and regret crowded her.
"Don't let it rob your appetite, Kate. It was no more than I deserved. Have some more chicken."
Mechanically she took a piece. Sarah finished then moved off the rug to play on the grass, bored with the adult conversation.
Kate chewed mechanically. She'd struggled to forgive herself for the punishment she'd inflicted on her father and Chris. Now she was being forced to confront her method of punishing Alex.
She'd known he was desperately worried about the after-effects of her enforced seclusion, but she'd been powerless to control her emotional outbursts.
Powerless? Or had I discovered a power I could use with impunity?
His remorse and guilt were powerful weapons, and she'd played on them to punish him. She had always intended to stay with him and Sarah, but kept him dangling for the perverse pleasure of watching him suffer.
Then Gregori had given her that money—money she'd mistaken for a payoff—everything he'd accused her of was far too close to the truth for comfort.
"Gregori said Daddy and Chris were coming to see me?"
"We'd been in constant contact for months. Everyone was hopeful you were prepared to listen to reason." He gripped her hand, pulling her close, slipping his arm around her shoulders. "When they were in that crash—"
Kate turned her face away. Her guilt had eased but was still powerful enough to hurt.
"It's time to let go, Kate," he murmured, stroking her hair with a gentle hand. "You'll never forget them but for your own sake you have to let them go. They are dead. You're alive."
He mistook the cause of her distress. And she didn't have the courage to tell him it was the appalling realization of her own behaviour.
"I have been trying. It's not easy."
"It never is."
"What's wrong with Kate?" Sarah's curious voice startled her. She lifted her face from Alex's shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile.
"You've worn the feet off me." Sarah flung herself down on her lap.
"Me too." Sarah clambered up and slipped skinny arms around Kate's neck in a spontaneous hug.
Tears misted Kate's vision as her arms closed around her child. For the very first time she held her daughter in her arms. Alex's arms surrounded them both, shielding them. The moment passed far too swiftly. Long before Kate was ready. She needed the healing contact, with Sarah and with Alex.
She had proved she could stand alone. But now, she also knew life was better with a strong arm at her back.
"You smell nice." Sarah snuggled into Kate's breast, unaware of the love yearning to be expressed beneath her head.
"Cat always smells nice." Alex's voice was husky in her ear.
"Why do you call her Cat?" Sarah sat up, looking at her father.
"It's a pet name, like imp or possum." Alex tickled her ribs and the little girl giggled.
Sarah looked at Kate, her head on one side. "She doesn't look like a cat."
"Oh I don't know." Alex ran a hand through Kate's honey gold hair, his eyes alight with humour. "Perhaps a marmalade one?"
Sarah rolled off Kate's knee onto the ground, delighted at his joke. Kate began packing the remains of their picnic back in the hamper. It was an intimately domestic scene. Alex leaning against the tree, Sarah at his knee, like a playful kitten while she stacked away the picnic. Someone else must have thought the same.