Page 73 of Sexy as Sin
“Kids?”
He had to take a breath, and then he had to force the crutches on. “We had a little girl. She died shortly after she was born.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. So you see, there’s this.” Time to stop, face the guy, and take the bull by the horns. For one thing, he was probably going to succumb to heat stroke in about five minutes. Last chance.
When Blackstone’s sober eyes were locked on his face, though, it was impossible to tell anything but the truth. In that way, Willow’s uncle and his own dad were exactly the same. “I’ve done enough things and seen enough things in my life,” he told the other man, “to know when I’m seeing what I want. I’ve taken enough risks to know when it’s time to take the leap. And I’ve lost enough to know how to hold on.”
Willow wondered how it had gone with her uncle. When she, Azra, and Aunt Fiona had come home from four long hours of shopping in Queens Plaza, once she’d been dragged to one over-lit, intimidatingly glamorous store after another in a pastime infinitely more exhausting than the longest day of catering, Brett had been sitting on the patio sipping from a glass of ice water, wearing gray dress trousers and one of his pristine, tailored white shirts with the sleeves rolled up, his feet bare, looking absolutely relaxed.
Nobodycame back from hours spent one-on-one with her uncle looking relaxed. Simply not possible. Maybe it was drugs.
He wasn’t taking drugs anymore, though. Face facts. It was Brett.
He’d unrolled the sleeves and added the jacket and tie for dinner at Patina, the flash new restaurant on the river, and he looked as perfect, and as perfectly at ease, as he had when she’d seen him at that first event. His hair was cut short and neat again, with that silver at his temples like he’d had it done on purpose, and his tie was a rich crimson that had to be silk. If she hadn’t handed him the blue plastic bag when he’d been sick in hospital, she wouldn’t have believed he was capable of a weak moment.
As for her, she was wearing her blue bandanna-print sundress. It was the floatiest thing she owned, and this seemed like a floaty-dress occasion. But when she and Azra came out of her old bedroom after dressing for dinner, Brett looked at Azra first. She was in a structured, wine-colored jersey frock that stopped above her knees, making the most of the bombshell potential Willow didn’t usually see, and wedge heels that flattered her pretty legs. Her shiny dark hair was blown out, her huge brown eyes expertly shadowed, and if her mum had seen her tonight, maybe she wouldn’t have been so worried.
Brett said, “You look beautiful, Azra,” and so clearly meant it, and if Willow hadn’t been in love with him before? Surely, that would have been the moment.
And then he looked at her. At the hair Azra had helped her put up, the dress he’d seen before, and her new sandals. They weren’t anything towering, but they were so pretty, fawn-colored suede with buckled ankle straps and cone-shaped heels, the leather studded with silver in a badass way she hadn’t been able to resist. Her favorite thing she’d bought today, even if she’d had to close her eyes at the price. Brett took it all in, slowly, and said, “And so do you.”
She said, “Hope you like them, mate, because you bought them. I can actually walk in them. That’s the only reason I let Azra persuade me. I bought a purse, too, see? Actually, I bought two. Azra said I had to. I’ve got a black one as well. After this, though, I plan to go back to the plastic zip bag. Fair warning. Iamwearing makeup, though. I hope you’re pleased.”
Uncle Colin looked surprised, or maybe that was amused—she could never tell—but Brett laughed out loud and said, “I am. Pleased, that is. I’m also a lucky man.”
Now, she was sitting on the upper terrace of the old Customs House, eating chargrilled prawns, grilled barramundi with sunflower seeds and lemon, and tender gnocchi with roasted pine nuts, while Aunt Fiona brought Azra ever-further out of her shell, and Brett chimed in from time to time with a word, his smile, and all the warmth in his gray eyes. Azra blossomed under the attention, and Brett didn’t wilt once under Colin’s gaze, something Willow didn’t always achieve herself.
As for her, she crossed her legs like the pretty girl she so rarely felt, or like a woman whose hair was put up in a soft, braided twist complete with a few tiny white orchids stuck into one side, something she’d feared would look stupid and Azra had insisted on anyway.
Just for tonight, she shoved the worry about Nourish into a back room of her brain, slammed the door, and let the conversation, the summer-warm breeze, and the buzz of the night wash over her. The purple lights of the Story Bridge were reflected in the black water of the river, the sleek white CityCat ferries passed alongside like ghosts, and the bright diamonds of light shone from the nosebleed-tall high-rises, backlighting the golden glow of the Customs House dome, its columned façade and classical pediments still stately after all these years. Beside her, Brett wasn’t holding her hand, but she knew he was as aware of her as she was of him.
It was enough to be going on with. It was, actually, pretty bloody perfect.
They lingered over the sweet course—in her case, a crème brûlée with fresh raspberries that tasted like silken heaven—and she knew they should start home soon and get ready for tomorrow’s flight, but she didn’t want to leave. Out there was the unknown, and here, tonight, it was all warmth and laughter, the soft strains of classical music, and Brett’s gray eyes.
The music stopped and started again, a familiar tune that she couldn’t place, evoking full skirts and ballrooms. She looked the question at Brett, and he said, “Tchaikovsky. Waltz of the Flowers.”
“Why do Russians write the most beautiful music?” she asked.
“Maybe because it’s so cold there,” he said, “and they’re desperate to feel something. I’ve been familiar with that myself. Formerly.”
Another bump of her heart. The music became more lyrical, more insistent, and Uncle Colin’s chair scraped against the stone terrace as he stood.
They were going, then, even though all she wanted was five more minutes. Pity you couldn’t always get what you wanted.
Her uncle didn’t suggest it, though. Instead, he held out a hand to his wife and said, “Would you do me the honor, Mrs. Blackstone?”
Aunt Fiona, wearing a deep-blue dress and heels of her own, didn’t answer. She just smiled, stood up with the poise of a woman who knew she was loved, and put her hand in his.
It wasn’t that Willow hadn’t known they could dance. Army social functions had always included dancing, and she’d seen them dance at their sons’ joint wedding just months ago. But the sight of her uncle, absolutely unself-conscious, his posture as perfect as always and his figure as trim, leading his wife down the stone steps, then taking her in his arms and beginning to waltz her in slow circles on the pedestrian walkway below, made her heart fill with longing. The two of them danced through circles of light and pockets of shadow, while Fiona’s skirt billowed out around her and she looked twenty, falling in love with a man who treated her like a queen.
Pedestrians veered around the two of them, a tourist stopped to snap a photo and then another one took a video, and all of it was making a lump rise in Willow’s throat. The music turned to something more delicate, and Colin pulled Fiona closer and looked at her as if it were the first time, not like they’d been doing this for nearly forty years.
Beside her, Azra sighed and said, “Relationship goals.”
“Yeah,” Willow said. “You could say so.”
