One Winter's Sunrise: Gift-Wrapped in Her Wedding Dress

CHAPTER FIVE

DOMINIC HAD FACED down some fears in his time. But the prospect of being paraded before Andie’s large family ranked as one of the most fearsome. As Andie pulled up her hatchback—old but in good condition and nothing to be ashamed of—in front of her parents’ home in the northern suburb of Willoughby, sweat prickled on his forehead and his hands felt clammy. How the hell had he got himself into this?

She turned off the engine, took out the keys, unclipped her seat belt and smoothed down the legs of her sleek, very sexy leather trousers. But she made no effort to get out of the car. She turned her head towards him. ‘Before we go inside to meet my family I... I need to tell you something first. Something...something about me.’

Why did she look so serious, sombre even? ‘Sure, fire away,’ he said.

‘I’ve told them you’re a client. That there is absolutely nothing personal between us.’

‘Of course,’ he said.

Strange how at the same time he could be relieved and yet offended by her categorical denial that there ever could be anything personal between them.

Now a hint of a smile crept to the corners of her mouth. ‘The thing is...they won’t believe me. You’re good-looking, you’re smart and you’re personable.’

‘That’s nice of you to say that,’ he said. He noticed she hadn’t added that he was rich to his list of attributes.

‘You know it’s true,’ she said. ‘My family are determined I should have a man in my life and have become the most inveterate of matchmakers. I expect they’ll pounce on you. It could get embarrassing.’

‘You’re single?’ He welcomed the excuse to ask.

‘Yes. I... I’ve been single for a long time. Oh, I date. But I haven’t found anyone special since...since...’ She twisted right around in the car seat to fully face him. She clasped her hands together on her lap, then started to twist them without seeming to realise she was doing it. ‘You need to know this before we go inside.’ The hint of a smile had completely dissipated.

‘If you think so,’ he said. She was twenty-eight and single. What was the big deal here?

‘I met Anthony on my first day of university. We were inseparable from the word go. There was no doubt we would spend our lives together.’

Dominic braced himself for the story of a nasty break-up. Infidelity? Betrayal? A jerk in disguise as a nice guy? He was prepared to make polite noises in response. He knew all about betrayal. But a quid pro quo exchange over relationships gone wrong was not something he ever wanted to waste time on with Andie or anyone else.

‘It ended?’ he said, making a terse contribution only because it was expected.

‘He died.’

Two words stated so baldly but with such a wealth of pain behind them. Dominic felt as if he’d been punched in the chest. Nothing he said could be an adequate response. ‘Andie, I’m sorry,’ was all he could manage.

‘It was five years ago. He was twenty-three. He...he went out for an early-morning surf and didn’t come back.’ He could hear the effort it took for her to keep her tone even.

He knew about people who didn’t come back. Goodbyes left unsaid. Personal tragedy. That particular kind of pain. ‘Did he...? Did you—?’

‘He...he washed up two days later.’ She closed her eyes as if against an unbearable image.

‘What happened?’ He didn’t want her to think he was interrogating her on something so sensitive, but he wanted to find out.

‘Head injury. An accident. The doctors couldn’t be sure exactly how it happened. A rock? His board? A sandbank? We’ll never know.’

‘Thank you for telling me.’ He felt unable to say anything else.

‘Better for you to know than not to know when you’re about to meet the family. Just in case someone says something that might put you on the spot.’

She heaved a sigh that seemed to signal she had said what she felt she had to say and that there would be no further confidences. Why should there be? He was just a client. Something prompted him to want to ask—was she over the loss? Had she moved on? But it was not his place. Client and contractor—that was all they could be to each other. Besides, could anyone ever get over loss like that?

‘You needed to be in the picture.’ She went to open her door. ‘Now, let’s go in—Hannah is looking forward to meeting you. As I predicted, she’s very excited about getting involved.’

Her family’s home was a comfortable older-style house set in a chaotic garden in a suburb where values had rocketed in recent years. In the car on the way over, Andie had told him she had lived in this house since she was a baby. All her siblings had. He envied her that certainty, that security.

‘Hellooo!’ she called ahead of her. ‘We’re here.’

He followed her down a wide hallway, the walls crammed with framed photographs. They ranged from old-fashioned sepia wedding photos, dating from pre-Second World War, to posed studio shots of cherubic babies. Again he found himself envying her—he had only a handful of family photos to cherish.

At a quick glance he found two of Andie—one in a green checked school uniform with her hair in plaits and that familiar grin showing off a gap in her front teeth; another as a teenager in a flowing pink formal dress. A third caught his eye—an older Andie in a bikini, arm in arm with a tall blond guy in board shorts who was looking down at her with open adoration. The same guy was with her in the next photo, only this time they were playing guitars and singing together. Dominic couldn’t bear to do more than glance at them, aware of the tragedy that had followed.

Just before they reached the end of the corridor, Andie stopped and took a step towards him. She stood so close he breathed in her scent—something vaguely oriental, warm and sensual. She leaned up to whisper into his ear and her hair tickled his neck. He had to close his eyes to force himself from reacting to her closeness.

‘The clan can be a bit overwhelming en masse,’ she said. ‘I won’t introduce you to everyone by name; it would be unfair to expect you to remember all of them. My mother is Jennifer, my father is Ray. Hannah’s husband is Paul.’

‘I appreciate that,’ he said, tugging at his collar that suddenly seemed too tight. As an only child, he’d always found meeting other people’s families intimidating.

Andie gave him a reassuring smile. ‘With the Newman family, what you see is what you get. They’re all good people who will take you as they find you. We might even get some volunteers to help on Christmas Day out of this.’

The corridor opened out into a spacious open-plan family room. At some time in the last twenty years the parents had obviously added a new extension. It looked dated now but solid—warm and comfortable and welcoming. Delicious aromas emanated from the farmhouse-style kitchen in the northern corner. He sniffed and Andie smiled. ‘My mother’s lasagne—wait until you taste it.’

She announced him with an encompassing wave of her arm. ‘Everyone, this is Dominic. He’s a very important new client so please make him welcome. And yes, I know he’s gorgeous but it’s strictly business between us.’

That was met with laughter and a chorus of ‘Hi, Dominic!’ and ‘Welcome!’ Andie then briefly explained to them about the party and Hannah’s likely role in it.

There were so many of them. Andie’s introduction had guaranteed all eyes were on him. About ten people, including kids, were ranged around the room, sitting in comfortable-looking sofas or around a large trestle table.

Each face came into focus as the adults greeted him with warm smiles. It wasn’t difficult to tell who was related—Andie’s smile was a strong family marker that originated with her father, a tall, thin man with a vigorous handshake. Her mother’s smile was different but equally welcoming as she headed his way from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron before she greeted him. Three young children playing on the floor looked up, then kept on playing with their toys. A big black dog with a greying muzzle, lying stretched out near the kids, lifted his head, then thumped his tail in greeting.

Andie’s sister Hannah and her husband, Paul, paused in their job of setting the large trestle table to say hello. His experience with social workers in his past had been good—a social worker had pretty much saved his life—and he was not disappointed by Hannah’s kind eyes in a gentle face.

‘I straight away know of several families who are facing a very grim Christmas indeed,’ she said. ‘Your generous gesture would make an immense difference to them.’

Andie caught his eye and smiled. Instinctively, he knew she had steered him in the right direction towards her sister. If all Andie’s ideas for his party were as good as this one, he could face the Christmas Day he dreaded with more confidence than he might have expected.

* * *

Andie’s policy of glaring down any family member who dared to even hint at dating possibilities with Dominic was working. Except for her younger sister, Bea, who could not resist hissing, ‘He’s hot,’ at any opportunity, from passing the salad to refilling her water glass. Then, when Andie didn’t bite, Bea added, ‘If you don’t want him, hand him over to me.’ Thankfully, Dominic remained oblivious to the whispered exchanges.

Her family had, unwittingly or not, sat Dominic in the same place at the table where Anthony had sat at these gatherings. Andie and Ant—always together. She doubted it was on purpose. Dominic needed to sit between Hannah and her and so it had just happened.

In the years since he’d died, no man had come anywhere near to replacing Anthony in her heart. How could they? Anthony and she had been two halves of the same soul, she sometimes thought. Maybe she would never be able to love anyone else. But she was lonely. The kind of loneliness that work, friends, family could not displace.

In the months after Anthony’s death her parents had left Anthony’s customary seat empty out of respect. Unable to bear the emptiness that emphasised his absence, she had stopped coming to the family dinners until her mother had realised the pain it was causing. From then on, one of her brothers always occupied Anthony’s chair.

Now she told herself she was okay with Dominic sitting there. He was only a client, with no claim to any place in her heart. Bringing him along tonight had worked out well—one of those spur-of-the-moment decisions she mightn’t have made if she’d given it more thought.

Dominic and Hannah had spent a lot of time talking—but he’d managed to chat with everyone else there too. They were obviously charmed by him. That was okay too. She was charmed by him. Tonight she was seeing a side of him, as he interacted with her family, that she might never have seen in everyday business dealings.

Her sister was right. Dominic was hot. And Andie was only too aware of it. She was surprised at the fierce urge of possessiveness that swept over her at the thought of ‘handing over’ Dominic to anyone else. Her sister could find her own hot guy.

Even at the dinner table, when her back was angled away from him to talk to her brother on her other side, she was aware of Dominic. His scent had already become familiar—citrus-sharp yet warm and very masculine. Her ears were tuned into the sound of his voice—no matter where he was in the room. Her body was on constant alert to that attraction, which had been instant and only continued to grow with further contact. On their way in, in the corridor, when she’d drawn close to whisper so her family would not overhear, she’d felt light-headed from the proximity to him.

It had been five years now since Anthony had gone—the same length of time they’d been together. She would never forget him but that terrible grief and anguish she had felt at first had eventually mellowed to a grudging acceptance. She realised she had stopped dreaming about him.

People talked about once-in-a-lifetime love. She’d thought she’d found it at the age of eighteen—and a cruel fate had snatched him away from her. Was there to be only one great love for her?

Deep in her heart, she didn’t want to believe that. Surely there would be someone for her again? She didn’t want to be alone. One day she wanted marriage, a family. She’d been looking for someone like Anthony—and had been constantly disappointed in the men she’d gone out with. But was it a mistake to keep on looking for a man like her teenage soulmate?

Thoughts of Dominic were constantly invading her mind. He was so different from Anthony there could be no comparison. Anthony had been blond and lean, laidback and funny, always quick with a joke, creative and musical. From what she knew of Dominic, he was quite the opposite. She’d dismissed him as not for her. But her body’s reaction kept contradicting her mind’s stonewalling. How could she be so certain he was Mr Wrong?

Dessert was being served—spring berries and home-made vanilla bean ice cream—and she turned to Dominic at the precise moment he turned to her. Their eyes connected and held and she knew without the need for words that he was happy with her decision to bring him here.

‘Your family is wonderful,’ he said in a low undertone.

‘I think so,’ she said, pleased. ‘What about you? Do you come from a large family?’

A shadow darkened his eyes. He shook his head. ‘Only child.’

She smiled. ‘We must seem overwhelming.’

‘In a good way,’ he said. ‘You’re very lucky.’

‘I know.’ Of course she and her siblings had had the usual squabbles and disagreements throughout their childhood and adolescence. She, as number four, had had to fight for her place. But as adults they all got on as friends as well as brothers and sisters. She couldn’t have got through the loss of Anthony without her family’s support.

‘The kids are cute,’ he said. ‘So well behaved.’

Her nephews, Timothy and Will, and her niece, Caitlin, were together down the other end of the table under the watchful eye of their grandmother. ‘They’re really good kids,’ she agreed. ‘I adore them.’

‘Little Timothy seems quite...delicate,’ Dominic said, obviously choosing his words carefully. ‘But I notice his older cousin looks after him.’

A wave of sadness for Hannah and Paul’s little son overwhelmed her. ‘They’re actually the same age,’ she said. ‘Both five years old. Timothy just looks as though he’s three.’

‘I guess I don’t know much about kids,’ Dominic said, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

She lowered her voice. ‘Sadly, little Timothy has some kind of rare growth disorder, an endocrine imbalance. That’s why he’s so small.’

Dominic answered in a lowered voice. ‘Can it be treated?’

‘Only with a new treatment that isn’t yet subsidised by the public health system. Even for private treatment, he’s on a waiting list.’ It was the reason why she drove an old car, why Bea had moved back home to save on rent, why the whole family was pulling together to raise the exorbitant amount of money required for tiny Timothy’s private treatment.

But she would not tell Dominic that. While she might be wildly attracted to him, she still had no reason to think he was other than the Scrooge of his reputation. A man who had to be forced into a public display of charity to broker a multi-million-dollar business deal. Not for one moment did she want him to think she might be angling for financial help for Timothy.

‘It’s all under control,’ she said as she passed him a bowl of raspberries.

‘I’m glad to hear that,’ he said, helping himself to the berries and then the ice cream. ‘Thank you for inviting me tonight and for introducing me to Hannah. The next step is for you and your business partners to come in to my headquarters for a meeting with my marketing people. Can the three of you make it on Friday?’

CHAPTER SIX

ANDIE AND HER two business partners, Gemma and Eliza, settled themselves in a small waiting room off the main reception area of Dominic’s very plush offices in Circular Quay. She and her fellow Party Queens had just come out of the Friday meeting with Dominic, his marketing people and senior executives in the boardroom and were waiting for Dominic to hear his feedback.

Situated on Sydney Cove, at the northern end of the CBD, the area was not just one of the most popular harbourside tourist precincts in Sydney—it was also home to the most prestigious office buildings. Even in this small room, floor-to-ceiling glass walls gave a magnificent close view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and a luxury cruise liner in dock.

Andie couldn’t help thinking the office was an ideal habitat for a billionaire Scrooge. Then she backtracked on the thought. That might not be fair. He hated the term and she felt vaguely disloyal even thinking it. Dominic was now totally committed to the Christmas Day feast for underprivileged families and had just approved a more than generous budget. She was beginning to wonder if his protestation that he was not a Scrooge had some truth in it. And then there was his gift to her mother to consider.

As she pondered the significance of that, she realised her thoughts had been filled with nothing much but Dominic since the day she’d met him. Last night he had even invaded her dreams—in a very passionate encounter that made her blush at the hazy dream memory of it. Did he kiss like that in real life?

It was with an effort that she forced her thoughts back to business.

‘How do you guys think it went?’ she asked the other two. ‘My vote is for really well.’ She felt jubilant and buoyant—Dominic’s team had embraced her idea with more enthusiasm than she could ever have anticipated.

‘Considering the meeting was meant to go from ten to eleven and here it is, nearly midday, yes, I think you could say that,’ said Eliza with a big smile splitting her face.

‘Of course that could have had something to do with Gemma’s superb macadamia shortbread and those delectable fruit mince pies,’ said Andie.

‘Yes,’ said Gemma with a pleased smile. ‘I thought I could describe until I was blue in the face what I wanted to serve for the lunch, but they’d only know by tasting it.’

Party Queens’ foodie partner had not only come up with a detailed menu for Dominic’s Christmas Day lunch, but she’d also brought along freshly baked samples of items from her proposed menus. At the end of the meeting only a few crumbs had remained on the boardroom’s fine china plates. Andie had caught Dominic’s eye as he finished his second pastry and knew it had been an inspired idea. The Christmas star shaped serviettes she had brought along had also worked to keep the meeting focused on the theme of traditional with a twist.

‘I think they were all-round impressed,’ said Eliza. ‘We three worked our collective socks off to get our presentations so detailed and professional in such a short time. Andie, all the images and samples you prepared to show the decorations and table settings looked amazing—I got excited at how fabulous it’s going to look.’

‘I loved the idea of the goody bags for all the guests too,’ said Gemma. ‘You really thought of everything.’

‘While we’re doing some mutual backslapping I’m giving yours a hearty slap, Eliza,’ said Andie. ‘Their finance guy couldn’t fault your detailed costings and timelines.’

Eliza rubbed her hands together in exaggerated glee. ‘And I’m sure we’re going to get more party bookings from them. One of the senior marketing people mentioned her daughter was getting married next year and asked me did we do weddings.’

‘Well done, Party Queens,’ said Andie. ‘Now that the contract is signed and the basic plan approved I feel I can relax.’ Her partners had no idea of how tight it had been to get Dominic across the line for the change from glitz and glamour to more humble with heart.

She and her two friends discreetly high-fived each other. The room was somewhat of a goldfish bowl and none of them wanted to look less than professional to any of Dominic’s staff who might be walking by.

Eliza leaned in to within whispering distance of Andie and Gemma. ‘Dominic Hunt was a surprise,’ she said in an undertone. ‘I thought he’d be arrogant and overbearing. Instead, I found myself actually liking him.’

‘Me too,’ said Gemma. ‘Not to mention he’s so handsome. I could hardly keep my eyes off him. And that voice.’ She mimed a shiver of delight.

‘But he couldn’t keep his eyes off Andie,’ said Eliza. ‘You’d be wasting your time there, Gemma.’

Had he? Been unable to keep his eyes off her? Andie’s Dominic radar had been on full alert all through the meeting. Again she’d that uncanny experience of knowing exactly where he was in the room even when her back was turned. Of hearing his voice through the chatter of others. She’d caught his eye one too many times to feel comfortable. Especially with the remnants of that dream lingering in her mind. She’d had to force herself not to let her gaze linger on his mouth.