Stranded with the Secret Billionaire Read online

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ George barked. ‘Felicity’s your daughter. We agreed when we married that you’d...’

  ‘Look after her as if she were my own? Yes, I did.’ She glanced again at Matt and what she saw there seemed to give her courage. ‘I’ve loved Felicity even though she has a perfectly good mother of her own. But I’ve had enough. Felicity’s not acting like my daughter. She and Brett have hurt Penny deeply, so deeply that all deals are off.’

  And she turned again and looked at Matt.

  Penny thought, It’s as if Matt’s giving her strength. She’d never known her mother to stand up for herself. Or stand up for her.

  What was it about Matt?

  ‘I’ve shut up for years,’ Louise went on, enunciating every syllable with care. ‘But now... Felicity, Penny’s right to question what you’re doing. You took Brett because Penny was marrying him and you were jealous of the attention. Amazing bridal gowns and maternity clothes are the latest fashion. Penny was getting what you don’t have, and you’ve always thought like that. So now you’re having your wedding and you’re having your baby and you have Brett. And if you don’t let Penny have Matt...’

  ‘I don’t want Matt,’ Penny managed and the look Louise cast her was wild.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told her. ‘He’s lovely—even I can see that. But it’s your choice. Matt said it himself.’

  ‘It is your choice,’ Matt said. The corners of his mouth were twitching. The table seemed in total shock. ‘But Penny, we’re talking about a partner for a wedding, not a choice of life partner. Louise, thank you for your kind invitation. I may well take you up on it, if Penny thinks it’s appropriate.’ He smiled at Penny, a reassuring smile that held warmth and strength and promise but then he rose. ‘I need to go,’ he told her apologetically. ‘I’m expecting a call from New York in half an hour. But are you okay by yourself here?’ He cast a glance at the almost apoplectic George. ‘There’s room at the Caledonian. You can come back with me if you like.’ And then he looked at Louise. ‘Your mum too, if she’d like.’

  If she’d like, Penny thought wildly. To get up from this table and run...

  No.

  I am woman?

  Her world was quaking, but running away wasn’t an answer. And running to Matt? For protection? For sympathy?

  She had no need of either, she thought, and she looked at her father.

  How had he grown to be such an ogre when he was just a puffed-up bully?

  She looked at her mum and she grinned.

  ‘We can look after ourselves, can’t we, Mum?’

  Louise was wavering a little on her feet—she really had had too much wine—but once again she looked at Matt and what she saw there seemed to reassure her.

  ‘I...yes. I believe we can.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Penny said. She smiled at Matt and only she knew how much of an effort it cost her to stay perky.

  ‘We’re fine,’ she told Matt. ‘Obviously, I’m not sure about the wedding—for all sorts of reasons. But I’ll tell you where my catering premises are and if you’re still interested then we’ll talk about it tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Matt said and smiled at her and her heart twisted in such a way...

  Tomorrow.

  It was enough.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  PENNY’S NEW ASSISTANT arrived at ten the next morning. Noreen was a shy nineteen-year-old who was practically shaking in her boots. During the phone interview she’d seemed confident and perky, but it had obviously been an act. The only way to settle her and see what she could do was to cook.

  And the promise from the interview was more than fulfilled. By late afternoon the kitchen was filled with the smells of tantalizing food.

  Penny was covered in flour, elbows deep in baking, trying to focus on what Noreen was doing—and trying very hard not to wonder why Matt hadn’t come.

  If Noreen hadn’t been here she might have gone crazy, she thought, but then she thought she was going a little crazy anyway.

  And then the outside bell rang and her heart seemed to stop.

  ‘Do those pies need to come out of the oven?’ Noreen asked and her world settled a little. Pies. Cooking. That was the important stuff.

  Not Matt?

  She wiped her hands on her apron, which made no difference to her general level of messiness. She ran a floury hand through her curls—gee, that helped—and then she tugged the door open.

  Matt was right in front of her—and so was his daughter. He was holding her hand.

  She looked young for thirteen, but there was no mistaking who she was. She was thin and dark like her father. Too thin. Her hair was shaped into an elfin cut. Her eyes looked too big for her face, and they were shadowed.

  She looked like a nervous colt, needing to escape but not sure where to run.

  She was wearing the school uniform Penny had loathed and she looked so scared it was all Penny could do not to gather her into her arms. But she’d been thirteen once, and she knew such a thing was unthinkable.

  She stood back and smiled a welcome. ‘Hi,’ she managed. ‘I’d started to think you weren’t coming.’

  ‘I’ve been at Lily’s school.’ He looked almost as nervous as his daughter. ‘Penny, this is my daughter, Lily. You don’t mind that we came together?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She stepped back to let them in. ‘Noreen and I are in the middle of baking. We have fifty homeless men to feed tonight. We’ve just finished apple pies. We’re now making gingerbread men, as a post dinner snack.’

  ‘Gingerbread men?’ Matt said faintly and Penny fixed him with a look.

  ‘Shearers need calories and so do the homeless, but the homeless have more time than shearers. So we’ll feed them calories and then have fun. We thought we’d ice them with little backpacks and swags. Our aim is to make everyone smile.’

  She cast a glance at Lily and saw her gaze around the messy, warm kitchen. She had the same starved look she remembered from her own childhood, when the kitchen was a refuge.

  She thought of Matt’s story, of this girl standing up to her stepfather, with his appalling stuffed animals, and the chord of recognition grew louder. ‘Do you like cooking?’

  ‘I haven’t done much,’ Lily whispered. She gazed at the bowls of coloured icing and piping bags. ‘It looks fun but I wouldn’t know what to do.’

  But Noreen, herself a gangly adolescent, saw a kindred spirit and beamed.

  ‘It’s easy,’ she scoffed. ‘I’ll show you.’ So, two minutes later, Noreen and Lily were piping multicoloured skirts on gingerbread ladies and Penny and Matt were free to talk.

  * * *

  Matt couldn’t believe the transformation in his daughter. Lily was intent on her piping. Noreen said something to her and she giggled.

  Matt felt as if he might cry.

  He felt the strain lift from his face as his daughter relaxed.

  ‘So what’s happening?’ Penny asked him. ‘I can’t tell you how grateful I am for last night, but now... You look more tired than when you were facing thousands of sheep and no cook.’

  He gave a tired smile. ‘Maybe I am,’ he said. ‘I’ve had one heck of a day.’

  ‘Want to tell me about it?’

  She led him over to the table at the end of the room. Sun was streaming in through the clerestory windows overhead. The room was full of the smells of new baking.

  It felt like home, Matt thought, and then he realized he didn’t really know what home was. And neither did Lily.

  Suddenly there was a mug of tea in front of him and Penny was sitting opposite him. Waiting.

  The last thing he wanted was to offload his problems onto her. The last thing he wanted was to need her.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said simply.

&nb
sp; Penny had driven away from him because he’d put his daughter first. How could he do it again? But he glanced across at Lily and he knew that once again there was no choice.

  ‘I knew there’d be settling in problems with a new school,’ he started. ‘But I hoped it’d work. But this morning she rang and she couldn’t stop crying.’

  ‘Because?’

  His gaze was still on Lily. She seemed so young. Thirteen... He’d hoped she’d be old enough to fend for herself.

  She wasn’t.

  ‘She’s been there for a week,’ he told her. ‘And she’s been put into a shared dorm with three other girls. But it seems they had to give up a settee so they could fit her bed into the room and they resent it. They complained to the school and to their parents, and then they stopped speaking to her. But they still didn’t get what they wanted. Lily had to stay. Finally this morning they woke her with iced water tossed in her face. And they gave her a note.’

  ‘A note?’

  ‘It seems they’re the school bullies,’ he told her. ‘Girls with rich families, used to getting their own way. The note told her that she should leave. It said no girl in the school will talk to her and if they do then they’ll get the same treatment she does.’

  ‘Oh, Matt...’

  ‘So of course I fronted the headmistress,’ he told her. ‘I showed her the note and was expecting horror. But instead I heard pretty much what Lily did. “Friendships have been formed, Mr Fraser,” she said. “It’s difficult to make the girls accept an outsider, especially when she’s arriving mid-term.”

  ‘Then I asked if Lily could be moved into a friendlier dorm and I had my head bitten off. She can’t be bothered with what she terms “childish squabbles”. She says if that dorm’s unsuitable then the school’s unsuitable.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So we grabbed Lily’s gear and moved out,’ Matt told her.

  ‘Oh, Matt.’ And then she smiled. ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said morosely, still watching his daughter. ‘But now... Darrilyn’s decreed that’s the school she’ll attend, and I don’t want her taking her back to the States.’

  ‘Does Darrilyn want her?’

  He raked his hair. ‘I don’t know. No, I suppose not.’

  ‘You could always call her bluff,’ Penny told him. ‘Choosing another school is hardly cause for her to change her mind.’

  Matt fell into silence, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. How to cope with a kid he hardly knew—but a kid he loved.

  * * *

  The silence stretched on. Penny watched Lily. The girl was carefully piping, laughing shyly at something Noreen said. She was gangly, awkward, tentative. Even her smile was scared.

  She looked like Matt.

  She knew how Lily felt. She’d been given everything money could buy but no foundations.

  ‘You can’t keep her on the farm with you?’

  ‘She’s great there,’ Matt told her. ‘She was only there for a week, but already she loves the animals and I think she feels safe.’ He hesitated. ‘Penny, I’m sorry, but it was the right call...that you left. Thank you,’ he said simply and her heart gave that twist again. The twist that was all about Matt.

  He’d come last night because she needed him.

  ‘Moving on,’ she managed hurriedly, because emotions were threatening to derail her. ‘There’s no school she can attend as a day kid?’

  ‘Are you kidding? You know how isolated Jindalee is. I’d need to move back to the city.’

  ‘Yeah, and you’d hate that. Making one person happy at the expense of another sucks.’ She stared into the dregs of her mug and then looked again at the two girls, who were now giggling over designs for clothes for their homeless gingerbread. Lily... Matt’s daughter...

  And suddenly—where it came from she could never afterwards figure—she had such a surge of bonding that she couldn’t explain.

  Maybe she could help.

  ‘Adelaide’s a lot closer to Jindalee than Sydney,’ she said slowly. ‘And Noreen’s from Adelaide. She came to Sydney following a boy. It didn’t work out.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He obviously wasn’t following.

  ‘There’s nothing holding me here either,’ she said.

  He’d been watching the girls. Now he turned and stared. ‘Penny, what are you suggesting?’

  ‘I know a good boarding school in Adelaide. One of the Aussie girls at finishing school in Switzerland told me about it. They run a decent academic programme but they also have their own farm. There’s an emphasis on things other than academia. Lots of camping, hands-on stuff, fun. Alice told me it was the only time in her life she’d felt she belonged.’

  ‘I need the details.’

  ‘Yeah, but it won’t be enough,’ she told him. ‘Lily needs a base in Adelaide. She’ll know no one outside school.’

  ‘I can get an apartment and be there whenever I’m needed. Or I’ll stay if I must.’

  ‘And leave the farm completely? That’d suck.’

  ‘I’ll do it if I need to.’

  Of course he would, because this was Matt.

  But maybe... Maybe she could help. I am woman.

  Matt was a friend. Women helped their friends. And didn’t this fit into her plans anyway?

  ‘It’s early days yet, but if she likes the school... Matt, if you think it might work, maybe I could set myself up in Adelaide?’ And then, as his face creased into a frown, she rushed on.

  ‘I’ve decided not to stay in Sydney,’ she told him. ‘This place is temporary while I sort things out, apply for finance, put a business plan together. My hope is to set up a catering company in a city other than this one. Noreen would love to go home to Adelaide with her pride intact and I’m thinking we could search for premises near Lily’s school. It would mean she doesn’t feel so alone. With your permission, she could drop in after classes. She’d have you coming back and forth, and my place as a backup when you’re not there.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’ he asked at last. ‘Penny, what are you offering?’

  ‘Not much,’ she said diffidently. ‘Lily might not need or want me but it doesn’t matter. And it might end up working for us both.’

  ‘To move your whole life...’

  ‘Hey, it’s better than cooking at Malley’s,’ she said and grinned. ‘And I need to move somewhere.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Where Mum got the courage from I don’t know, but we’ve talked and she’s decided to leave Dad. She should have done it years ago. Dad’s had mistress after mistress but she’s tried to keep everyone happy. It’ll take decent lawyers to extricate her money from Dad’s clutches, but now... You saw the way she pulled you into dinner last night. She’s a born hostess. I see her as the front man for my company.’

  ‘But... Adelaide? For Lily?’

  She hesitated, still watching Lily. It was a good way not to look at Matt.

  ‘Matt, this isn’t a sacrifice,’ she told him. ‘Who knows if Lily will even need somewhere like my kitchen after she’s settled? Who knows whether my mum will like Adelaide, and who knows if Adelaide likes my kind of catering?’

  ‘But you’ll do it for Lily.’

  ‘Lily could be a deciding factor,’ she confessed. ‘But it’s no big deal. Helping your daughter seems right. We are friends, are we not?’

  ‘No,’ he said forcibly, and he said it so loudly that Lily and Noreen stopped what they were doing and turned and stared.

  ‘No, Penny, we’re not friends. Or not just friends. Penny Hindmarsh-Firth, I said it before and I hardly believed that I’d said it. But I believe it now. I believe that I love you.’

  * * *

  In a romance movie she might have fallen into his arms right then. Hero declares his love. Heroine swoons with joy.

/>   She wasn’t having a bar of it.

  I am woman...

  In an hour a van would arrive from the homeless refuge and she’d promised a meal for fifty. She didn’t have time to sit around and listen to declarations of love.

  Because she had qualms and she wasn’t falling for a line she’d heard before.

  She’d been nice to his daughter and he’d told her he loved her. But she had no intention of being loved because she was needed. Of being loved because she’d done the right thing.

  Not any more.

  There was a part of her that would have allowed Matt to sweep her up in his arms and carry her off into the sunset with violins playing in the background.

  She wanted him—but not on those terms.

  So... Get thee back, she told the insidious voice in her head that would have welcomed being carried off on whatever terms Matt offered. But she’d been burned too often. She’d spent her life trying to please her father, learning from her mother that love meant sacrifice. Heaven, she’d almost married the despicable Brett because of it.

  And then she’d fallen heart over head in love with Matt and broken her heart when she’d had to leave. And yes, leaving had made sense on all sorts of levels, but Matt had let her go. Two weeks ago she’d stood on his veranda and part of her had felt like dying.

  She’d been burned too often. How could she believe?

  ‘Why don’t you kiss him?’ Noreen asked. Both girls were watching, fascinated, but Penny turned away from Matt with a disbelieving snort and headed back to her pies.

  ‘Because it’s cupboard love,’ she said, fighting to keep her voice light. To keep the whole thing light. ‘It’s like giving a kid a cookie. Will you love me if I give you this cookie?’

  ‘Hey, Dad.’ Lily picked up one of her luridly dressed gingerbread ladies. ‘Will you love me if I give you this cookie?’