‘Yes, Serina, stepfather. I was going to wait till tonight to propose to you over a candlelit dinner with a big diamond ring in my pocket. But I doubt you’ll come out with me tonight after what happened today. I also doubt that a big diamond ring would impress you, anyway. So I’m asking you now—will you marry me?’
Serina just kept on staring at him.
Nicolas sighed. ‘I can guess what you’re going to say,’ he went on before she could argue with him. ‘We come from different worlds. We don’t really know each other anymore. We’ve left it too late. Well I have the perfect answer for all of that and it’s balderdash! All that matters is that we love each other. We’ve always loved each other. If there’s anything that today should have shown you, it’s that all life is a risk. We could have fried in there today. All three of us. Instead we’re alive and well. Look, I promise you that I won’t ask anything of you that would make you unhappy. I won’t ask you to move, or change, or anything. We can make this work, Serina. I’ll make it work. Trust me, darling, and just say yes.’
Serina closed her eyes for a long moment. When she opened them again, they were awash with tears.
Nicolas thought they were tears of happiness.
But he was wrong.
‘Oh, Nicolas…if only you’d asked me to marry you twenty years ago. Or that night at the Opera House. Or even yesterday. Yesterday, I might still have said yes. Though of course that would have still been a big mistake. What happened today showed me that I can’t marry you. Ever. Neither can I have a relationship with you. Not one around here, anyway.’
‘What? But why?’
‘Because I couldn’t bear it.’
‘Couldn’t bear being what?’
‘Couldn’t bear keeping another secret. Couldn’t bear being afraid all the time of the truth coming out. It was bad enough when I was married to Greg. I coped because I was the only one who knew. And because you were another world away. I nearly died today when I said what I said. I felt ill. I still feel ill, thinking about it. Because if Felicity ever found out Greg wasn’t her real father, she’d never forgive me. She’d hate me. Yes, life is a risk, but I can’t risk that, Nicolas, no matter how much I love you. I’m sorry.’
Nicolas just sat there. Stunned, hurt, devastated.
He struggled to find the right words to say. The right questions to ask.
‘When you said you can’t have a relationship with me around here, what exactly did you mean?’
‘You know very well what I meant, Nicolas. I’ll visit you overseas every now and then, but I don’t want you coming here. Not anymore. Because one day, one of us might say something in front of Felicity—or someone else—like we did today.’
Nicolas’s head understood her reasoning. But his heart reacted very badly. ‘I offer you marriage,’ he said, bitter resentment in his voice, ‘and that’s what you offer me in return? Well I’m sorry, too, Serina, but a dirty weekend here and there is not enough for me. I love you and I want to spend quality time with you. I also love my daughter. That’s something I discovered today. I would never do anything to hurt her. I gave you my word that I would never tell her I was her father, and I will keep my word. But I want to be able to play some kind of role in her upbringing. I want to watch her grow up. I want to watch over her. It seems, however, that you’re going to deny me even that.’
‘Nicolas, I…I…’
‘Please don’t say another word,’ he snapped. ‘The subject is now closed. We are now closed. Finito.’ He made a chopping gesture across his throat as he stood up. ‘I will wait outside for you. Then, when Felicity is finished, I will drive you both home and say my goodbyes with our daughter present. That way I can be assured that I will not say anything further that I might later regret. No, Serina,’ he snarled when she opened her mouth again. ‘Do not waste your breath. I have always been a very black-and-white person. You don’t love me the way I love you. You never have. So please, let’s just leave it at that.’ And whirling, he stalked out of the waiting room.
Serina stared after him, her head whirling, but her heart like lead in her chest. He doesn’t mean it, she reasoned. He’s just angry with me. He can’t mean it.
But he did mean it, she was to discover to her despair. He’d meant every word.
He drove them home and said his goodbyes, Felicity quite upset by his decision to leave Port Macquarie the following day.
‘But I was hoping you’d be with us for Christmas,’ she said plaintively. ‘Mum, tell him he has to stay.’