Safe Harbour Page 0,121

it, but all of Ophélie's female antennae were on high alert.

“Stranger things have happened,” she warned wisely.

“Not to me. It's been over for me for years, and longer than that for her. She left me, remember. For a guy with more money and more toys,” he said, still smarting from the blow.

“Now she's got the money, and he's gone. And she's scared and lonely. Trust me. You haven't heard the last of her.” But Matt violently disagreed. Until she got to the Ritz, and called him an hour after she did. Her voice was all honey and sweetness, and she asked him if he'd like to come to tea. She said she was exhausted from the flight, and looked a mess, but she was dying to see him. He was so startled, he wasn't sure what to say.

Ophélie's warnings immediately came to mind, but he dismissed them out of hand. She was just trying to be friendly, for old times' sake, but even that didn't appeal to him. Far from it, after she'd stolen his kids from him. His rational mind hated her, but there were other parts of him, which responded instinctively to memory. It was Pavlovian and irritated him at himself as much as her. It was her way of torturing him, to see if she could still pull the old familiar strings.

“Where's Nessie?” he asked bluntly, desperate to see her, and not Sally. All he wanted was to see his daughter, as soon as he could.

“She's here,” Sally said coyly. “She's tired too.”

“Tell her she can sleep later. I'll be in the lobby in an hour. Tell her to be there.” He was so excited he nearly hung up on Sally, and she promised to convey the message to Vanessa, who was thrilled too, when she did.

He showered, shaved, changed, and was wearing a blazer and gray slacks and looking very handsome as he came through the doors into the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton, and he looked around anxiously. What if he didn't recognize her? If she had changed too much… if… and then he saw her standing there like a young doe, with the same face she had had as a little girl, a woman's body, and long straight blond hair, and they were both crying as they fell into each other's arms. She buried her face in his neck, and kissed him, and touched his face as he held her. The cruelty of their long separation was apparent in the hunger with which they held each other. He never wanted to let her out of his arms again, and he had to force himself to let go of her just so he could see her. And as he looked at her lovingly, they were both laughing through their tears.

“Oh Daddy… you look the same… you haven't changed at all …” She couldn't stop crying and laughing and he had never seen anyone as beautiful as his youngest child. It almost ripped his heart out of his chest just looking at her, and made him realize how agonizing her long absence from his life had been. Everything he had forced himself not to feel for six years came rushing back at him.

“Well, you sure have changed! Wow!” She had a spectacular figure, just as her mother had as a young girl. Vanessa was wearing a short gray dress and high heels, and just enough makeup to look glamorous but not vulgar, and she had tiny diamond studs at her ears, a gift from Hamish probably, he knew. He had always been generous with Matt's kids. “What do you want to do? Have some tea? Or go somewhere?” All he wanted was to be with her.

Vanessa seemed to hesitate for an instant, and then he saw them in the distance behind her. He had been completely unaware of anyone else from the moment he laid eyes on her. But Sally was standing halfway across the lobby, with a woman who looked like a nanny and two little boys. The years had been kind to her, she was still a good-looking woman, although slightly heavier than she had been in the past. And the boys were cute. They were six and eight. But instead of leaving Vanessa alone with him after all this time, she had intruded on them, which was exactly what Matt didn't want, and he was instantly annoyed as she approached, and Vanessa looked daggers at her. Sally was wearing a short black dress, expensive,