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at her. ‘I’m not your aunt, I’m your stepmother. Where did you get that idea?’

      ‘Excuse me—how silly of me,’ Kim murmured, but Sasha was not to be denied.

      ‘I ’scussed this with my friend Emma, and we decided you can’t be any kind of a mother, Nicola, because you don’t do the things mummies do.’

      “Course she does,‘ Chris said witheringly. ’Who makes us clean our teeth three times a day and washes our ears and makes us eat our crusts?‘

      ‘That’s not all mummies do,’ Sasha replied with a superior air. ‘They look after their kids’ dads as well. They kiss and cuddle them, and they sleep in the same bed with them—’

      ‘Sasha,’ Brett said from behind a frozen Nicola, ‘that’ll be enough, thank you.’

      ‘But what would Chris know about it? He’s only a silly little boy who doesn’t even go to school yet—and that’s why we decided, me and Emma, that she’s got to be an aunt!’ Sasha finished triumphantly.

      

      Instead of falling into a convenient hole that might magically open up at her feet, Nicola had no alternative but to proceed with the day. To pretend as if Sasha had never spoken and ignore the bemusement in their hosts’ expressions, until they hurriedly masked it, gracefully acknowledging the introduction of the other guest—a man of about thirty who was visiting the Masons from Sydney and was in some way related to Kim. His name was Richard Holloway.

      Brett did the same, and before long they were seated on a shaded terrace beside the pool, with Ellis Beach below them, stretching northward beside a sparkling sea, sipping aperitifs as the children splashed happily in the water.

      As if to make up for the incredible revelations she had unwittingly unleashed, Kim talked non-stop to Nicola while the three men talked cricket.

      Then, to Nicola’s relief, Kim drew her husband away to deal with the barbecue and commanded Richard to replenish everyone’s drinks.

      Brett said into the sudden silence, ‘All right?’

      ‘Yes. No. I had no idea...’ Their gazes locked and Nicola found herself going hot and cold again as the truly mortifying thought of people wondering whether she did or didn’t sleep with Brett crossed her mind.

      ‘No, Nicola, it’s not anything you might be thinking,’ he said, and he scanned the tense way she was sitting. She looked lovely enough to tempt any man, he thought, and then also thought, They’re probably wondering if I’m mad... ‘Because it’s not anyone’s business but our own,’ he added.

      ‘How...how do you know what I was thinking?’ she asked.

      He smiled a little wryly. ‘You looked intensely embarrassed.’

      ‘I felt it—didn’t you?’

      He shrugged philosophically. ‘I’m older and probably tougher. It was also out of the mouths of babes, so to speak.’

      ‘Isn’t that a euphemism for an uncanny ability to see the truth? I told you she was no fool.’

      ‘Obviously not,’ he said dryly.

      ‘You mustn’t be cross with her,’ Nicola responded swiftly. ‘She doesn’t understand the implications of what she said. It’s simply something she noticed and found strange.’

      ‘I’m not cross with her. Or only for inheriting her mother’s ability to lack any sense of tact or diplomacy.’

      Nicola found her lips twisting involuntarily. ‘It’s the kind of situation Marietta would enjoy. By the way, when’s she due home?’

      ‘When she suffers some pangs of maternal longing, probably,’ he said cynically.

      Nicola said nothing for a time. Marietta swooped in and out of her children’s lives like a brilliant bird of paradise. And, unnatural as it might seem, they adored her when she was around and appeared to accept her absence with equanimity. She had a unit in town, where they went to stay with her to be shamelessly indulged, but they cast it all off like a second skin when they came back to their father.

      That they’d only been two and one when the breakup of the marriage had occurred might account for it, Nicola sometimes thought. But it was hard to see why Marietta had bothered to have children, unless Brett had insisted...

      Yet, so long as she didn’t have to be tied down by them, she was genuinely fond of them. She wrote to them often, rang them from strange places and brought home marvellous exotic gifts for them.

      But that’s Marietta for you, she thought as she accepted another drink from Richard Holloway. Kim and Rod did not return, so, while the men started discussing politics this time, she was able to think her own thoughts.

      She remembered her father’s bemusement at Brett’s decision to marry Marietta Otway, daughter of his best friend. Brett had been twenty-five, Marietta the same age; Nicola herself had been thirteen.

      ‘Why?’ she’d asked her father.

      ‘Well, it’s obvious why. She’s talented, spirited and very beautiful,’ he’d said with some irritation.

      ‘So why don’t you approve?’

      He’d shrugged uneasily. ‘You know her. She was babysitting you for pocket money from the time she was sixteen. She’s—obsessive, wouldn’t you agree?‘

      ‘About her music, yes.’ Nicola had smiled reminiscently. ‘She gave me my first piano lesson when I was four. But—’

      ‘And now she’s obsessive about Brett. But I just can’t help wondering how marriage is going to fit in with her main obsession—her music.’

      Nicola had said slowly, and with no acrimony, ‘You look upon Brett as the son you never had, don’t you, Dad?’

      Her father had ruffled her hair. ‘I’m very fond of him and very proud of him. When you think how he had to battle his way through school, let alone law school, despite the Rotary Scholarship—’

      ‘Which you were responsible for.’

      ‘Yes, well, I’d never encountered such a sharp mind before, such a determination to succeed. When his father was lost in a yachting accident at sea he was only twelve, and the oldest of five children, but the support he gave his mother and his younger brothers and sisters was amazing. He was picking mangoes and avocados in his spare time, sorting prawns and so on—but I have only one child dear to my heart, and that’s you.’

      Two weeks later they’d gone to Brett and Marietta’s wedding. At the reception, at a smart restaurant, Nicola had found herself observing the bride and groom with her father’s misgivings in mind.

      Marietta had been married in a lime-green figure-hugging Thai silk suit that had set off her glorious red hair admirably. She’d glowed, obviously radiantly happy, but, Nicola had noticed, she and Brett had almost steered clear of each other, and Nicola had wondered why.

      Then, when they had come together to cut the cake, they’d looked into each other’s eyes, and to her teenage eyes it had been as if something white-hot existed between them in that brief glance, something almost dangerous that couldn’t be allowed to be exposed in public.

      Not long after the wedding Nicola had been sent to boarding school in Brisbane, a thousand miles away, and her dealings with Brett and Marietta had been limited. But she had noticed, when Sasha was born, that Marietta seemed to be obsessive about motherhood in her unique way. Then Chris had arrived, only twelve months later, and after another twelve months had come the bombshell that Brett and Marietta were separating.

      ‘I knew it,’ her father had said exasperatedly.

      ‘But Chris is only a baby! How can she?’

      ‘They’ve come to an agreement. The children will spend the bulk of their time with Brett, allowing her the licence to get her career

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