“Ava?”
“I’m sorry, Caleb. I’ll just have to try to finish from what I’ve got.” She attempted a smile as she headed for the fridge. “I’m sure I won’t have any trouble remembering how you look naked. Are you hungry? I can make us up something.”
Caleb sprang up beside her and the next moment the lights in the kitchen burst on, transforming dusk into daylight. She winced at the stark bright of the lights, and then he was by her side. He was wearing just a towel slung low on his hips. How hadn’t she noticed that little detail before? So unlike her.
“Why are you worried about eating? For god’s sake, Ava, you just lost your parents.”
“Yes, I know. I thought it was Evan Jones – the gallery owner – checking up to see how the collection was going.” She gave a little half laugh. “I sure got that wrong. Oh well, are you sure you don’t want something to eat?”
Beside her, Caleb ran one hand through his hair and sighed. “Listen, Ava, I know this must be hard for you, being so far away and all.”
“What baffles me is how they got my number.”
“What?”
“I never gave it to anyone, let alone my father’s solicitors. So how did they get it?”
“Is that the most important thing to be worrying about right now?”
She pulled open the fridge door and stared blankly at the shelves. She’d always known it wouldn’t take much to track down her new name if they’d wanted to – she was an artist with a website and who’d featured in at least a dozen newspaper and online articles – she wasn’t exactly invisible. But her private phone number? “Why would they even want it?” Unless it was so her father could reach out, even in death, to let her know that she’d never really escaped. That he was still in control.
She shivered. Never again.
“You’ve had a shock,” said the man beside her. “I felt like the ground had pulled from beneath my feet when I heard my grandfather had died, even though Leonard was a much older man. It’s the finality of death. There’s no going back.”
She blinked over at him. It was like he was having a conversation about something else or why would he even say such a thing? Why would he imagine that she’d want to go back?
She pulled a bottle from inside the fridge door. “I think I need a drink.”
He found her a glass and she gave thanks as she poured herself a sizeable slug. At least he hadn’t tried to talk her out of that. She made to put the bottle back in the fridge and thought better of it, picking up both glass and bottle and heading for the sofa.
She took a gulp of her wine, only half aware of the sound of Caleb moving around behind her. How long had her father known where she was? Had he had his cronies watching her all this time? What else did they know?
And all this time, she’d imagined she was free. Out of sight. Out of reach. Safe.
Bastards.
Even in death they wouldn’t let her go.
Caleb put a beer down on the coffee table and set himself down beside her, swivelled sideways, his arm along the sofa at her back. He reached his other hand over and squeezed her. “I’m sorry, Ava, it’s rough. I know.”
And suddenly his assumption that he knew something of what she was feeling was too much.
She pulled her hand free. “What makes you think you know anything of what I’m feeling?” It might be rough news, difficult, even problematic, but he knew nothing of the why. He knew nothing of why she might in fact be happy her parents were dead.
At last.
She took another gulp of her wine too fast, the cold liquid splashing on her cheek. She swiped at it with the back of her hand while she worked out whether it was even worth trying to explain, and promptly decided it wasn’t.
She didn’t owe anyone an explanation. “Look, Caleb, I’m sorry our evening got cut short, but, right now, I think it’s better that you go.”
“I’m not going anywhere, not while you’re like this.”
She tossed up her chin. “What am I like?”
“I don’t know. Hurting. Angry. Grieving. Confused. Probably all of the above. It’s normal. It’s the shock.”
She snorted, because of course the news of the loss of a parent or even two must be accompanied by earth shattering grief. But she would admit to the anger. She was angry that her father had lived so many years when she had wished him dead. She was angry that her mother had as good as fed her to the lions. “You don’t know the first thing about how I feel. Now, will you go?”
“Is that what you really want?”
“Do I really need to say it again?”
He sighed, like she was a problem child who was refusing to eat her vegetables rather than a grown woman who knew her own feelings and what she needed, but he got up from the sofa.
“All right, I’ll go. But I want you to know, you don’t have to face this all yourself. When’s the funeral? I’ve got leave owing. I’ll come with you.”
“You’ll what?” She snorted. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“I’m assuming it’s going to be held in Singapore, so I’ll come too. And not as a lover. But as a friend, to support you.”
She shook her head, not making sense of any of it. “Why would you even suggest that? I didn’t go to your grandfather’s service.”
“It’s hardly the same thing. That was only Brisbane and I had my whole family there. You knew that. But this time, you’ll be going alone. And I want to come with you—”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I don’t need anyone to hold my hand.”
“Ava—”
“Because I’m not going.” She read the shock on his startled features.
The disbelief. The incredulity. And the satisfaction
