Amy Andrews - Just One Last Night...

Smell that damn lip gloss?

Brent opened his eyes on a silent groan, his gaze falling on an object near his foot. He reached for it, realising it was a photograph. Grace must have dropped it from her bag when she was stuffing everything back in.

He stared at the image for a long time, trying to comprehend what he saw. Two children, a boy and a girl. The girl looked about twelve. The boy four, maybe five. Brother and sister?

They were laughing at the camera, their arms slung around each other’s necks. Trees and a clothesline could just be seen in the background. They looked happy and loved.

And remarkably like Grace.

The girl more so. They both had her grey eyes but the girl had long blonde hair that fell in a white-blonde curtain to her waist, just as Grace’s had back when he’d first known her. The boy looked more like Grace around the mouth. He laughed like her.

Grace had children.

His brain tried to reject the notion but he knew it somewhere deep in his gut. Just like he’d known all those years ago that she’d meant it when she’d said she was never coming back.

Grace had children.

Was she married also? Had she been wearing a ring?

A storm of emotions built inside him and he gripped the corners of the photograph hard. What the hell had happened to remaining childless? To never, ever ?

That’s what she’d said the day she’d given him back his ring. The day she’d received her second-year anatomy results and discovered she’d failed the subject. The day she’d totally flipped out, blaming them—blaming him—for derailing her career.

‘I’m the eldest of ten children, Brent. I’ve lived in chaos and clutter and noise all my life. I’ve fed and changed and bathed and rocked and carted and carried and kissed skinned knees and babysat my entire life. And they’re my family and I love them but I don’t want that for me and I never want to do it ever again.

Never, ever.

I’m done with it all. I want to go far away. Live and work and experience somewhere else. Somewhere different. I want to be totally selfish for the rest of my life. To not have anyone but me to worry about. I’m going to make a great aunty—the best — but no babies for me.’

Brent stared at the picture—she’d lied.

Grace felt confident as she shook John Wilkie’s hand half an hour later. Facing a panel interview was always nerve-racking and with the fates conspiring to knock her totally off balance before she’d even begun, she could have easily messed it up.

But she’d clicked into doctor mode, treating the interview like a multi-trauma case, drawing on the focus for which she was known. And she’d nailed it.

The get-the-job plan was looking up.

The last thing she expected when she exited the room was to find Brent waiting for her.

He gave her a rather grim look and stood. Grace’s breath caught in her throat as he unfolded himself. She’d forgotten how he redefined the whole tall, dark and handsome thing. How broad his shoulders were. How his hazel eyes looked tawny in some lights. How his cleanly shaven jaw was impossibly smooth.

‘How did it go?’

Grace blinked at the terseness of his tone. He seemed annoyed with her and she felt her hackles rise. Just because he was already in the damn job it didn’t mean it was his. She really didn’t have enough time or room in her life for his male ego.

‘I nailed it,’ she said bluntly.

Brent snorted. Of course she had. Grace had always done everything well. Failure was not acceptable to her—he’d learned that the hard way.

He passed the photo that had been eating a hole in his gut back to her. ‘You dropped this.’

Grace frowned and took it. Her expression softened as she realised what it was. Tash and Benji. Back before their world had been turned upside down. Before Benji had cried himself to sleep every other night. Before Tash had dyed her hair black and pierced her nose.

They’d been so innocent.

She looked back at Brent, who was looking at her expectantly. Like she owed him some kind of explanation. And suddenly his terseness made sense.

It wasn’t about the job at all.

She lifted her chin. ‘Thank you.’

Brent scrunched his fingers into fists by his sides to prevent himself from reaching out and shaking her. ‘You have kids.’

It wasn’t a question and Grace hesitated for less than a second. She did. She did have kids. She may not have given birth to them, she may not have a clue how to deal with them, but they were blood and they’d been living under her roof for eighteen months.

And she loved them.

So, yes, she had kids. ‘Yes.’

Brent nodded, shoving his fists into his pockets. Part of him had been hoping she’d deny it. ‘You’re married.’

Again, not a question. ‘No.’

Brent rejected the slither of hope her denial engendered. ‘Divorced?’

‘No.’

‘Widowed?’

‘No.’

‘In any kind of a relationship with their father?’

‘No.’

Brent regarded her for a moment. She looked so aloof behind her glasses and her salon-styled hair. It was all layered and shaggy at the back with multi hues of blonde and brown. Her bangs swept across her forehead and the sides neatly tucked behind the ears. She looked like a poster girl in an optometrist’s window.

Gorgeous but untouchable.

‘In any kind of relationship at all?’

Grace raised her chin. None of this was his business and she was damned if she was going to unload the whole sorry story on him just because once upon a time he’d been a really good listener. Even if she did feel absurdly like doing just that.

The details of her personal life were on a need-to-know basis only. And he did not need to know.

‘I hardly see that as being relevant, do you?’

So that was a no …’ I thought you never, ever wanted kids.’

Grace did not appreciate his accusatory tone. ‘I was twenty years old, Brent.’ God, had she ever been that young?

He nodded. ‘I do believe I made that point at the time but you were pretty adamant.’

Grace was weary. She spent most of her days arguing with a recalcitrant teenager. She didn’t have the emotional energy to play one-upmanship with an ex-lover.

Even if he’d been her first.

And the best.

She shrugged. ‘It was two decades ago, Brent. So sue me.’

Right now suing her was the last thing on his mind. Shaking her, on the other hand, was looking more and more viable. Putting her over his knee and spanking her even more so.

But there was a tiredness to her words, to the set of her shoulders that gave him pause.

She was right.

It had been twenty years. An age ago. They’d been kids. Young and in love and foolish.

And it belonged in the past.

He sighed. ‘Would you like a tour of the department?’

Grace eyed him warily. The doctor in her was exceedingly interested in a tour of Melbourne Central’s state-of-the-art Department of Emergency Medicine. She was, after all, hopefully about to become its director.

But the woman inside was urging her to run away. Fast. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.

Do not do anything that prolonged their time together.

Do not be foolish.

She’d been foolish with him before and where had it got her?

Flunking medical school .

She thought back to that day, that horrible day when she’d got her anatomy results. The fail had viciously yanked the blinkers from her eyes. Burst the happy little love-is-enough bubble she’d been floating around in.

She’d been on a scholarship, for crying out loud. With twelve mouths to feed her parents hadn’t been able to afford to send her to uni and she’d worked her butt off to earn that full scholarship.