Callie lifted her head and met Josh’s gaze, saw the unexpected sheen of tears in his eyes.
“I love you, Josh Tremont. I don’t deserve you, but I love you and I promise you I will love you until the day I die.”
“That’s all I ever wanted,” he said, as he rolled her under him and lowered his face to her. “And you need never doubt I will spend every day of the future loving you exactly the same way.”
By the time they’d spent their afternoon making love, packing enough of Callie’s things to fit in her car, and making love again, it was early evening before they made it to Josh’s place. As they reached the entrance to his drive, Callie noticed that the gates were open.
“Did you leave them open today?” she asked.
“I was in a hurry this morning.”
“There’s a car outside your house.”
They cruised down the driveway, toward the dark Mercedes parked in the large turning bay. A Mercedes that Callie realised was very familiar. Her breath caught in her throat and a bundle of nerves clenched into a knot at the pit of her stomach. Josh slowed her car to a halt and got out.
The knot in Callie’s stomach tightened even more when the driver’s door on the Mercedes swung open and Bruce Palmer stepped out. If she’d thought he looked as if he’d aged the other day in the boardroom it was nothing compared to how he looked now.
His skin was grey and hung from his cheeks in folds, his eyes were red-rimmed, his posture stooped and his normally immaculate suit rumpled.
Through Josh’s open door, she heard the older man’s voice tremble as he spoke.
“Irene told me. Is it true? Are you my son?”
“Yes.” Josh’s voice choked on the word.
Grief and joy flew across Bruce Palmer’s face and tears streaked down his cheeks. “My boy!”
The two men moved together as one, their arms outstretched one moment and clasped around one another the next as if nothing could ever tear them apart.
And as Callie watched Bruce hold his firstborn son for the very first time, she knew that finally everything would be all right. The great knot inside her unravelled and she got out of the car to follow them inside.
After making the men coffee, Callie left them alone together and took her things upstairs. She put everything away and then, loath to interrupt Josh and his father in their first chance to get to know each other, she moved outside, onto the main bedroom balcony. She looked down the hill and out to the water and wondered how they were doing. How they were coping with discovering each other as father and son.
She didn’t hear Josh come up behind her. She simply felt his warmth and strength against her back, his arms sliding around her waist. She leaned back against his chest.
“He had to go. The Guildarian consulate function is tonight, but he wants to come over tomorrow—to spend part of Christmas Day with us. He said he’s missed too many of them now to want to miss this one.”
“So everything’s okay?” she asked.
“Better than okay. I really didn’t know how it would feel—to actually see him face-to-face. To have him acknowledge that he is my father. But it was incredible. He talked to me about Mum, about how he tried to find her after she’d gone, but she’d done too good a job of disappearing. He kept an eye on the electoral rolls for years, hoping she’d crop up and he’d then be able to make sure she was okay. In the end he concluded that she must have left the country.” Josh took a deep breath and let it go in a rush of air. “I gave him the letters. I explained what you’d tried to do and we decided the best thing was to let them go. He finished what you started.”
“I’m glad. They needed to be let go.”
“Yeah. I know you can’t hold on to the past forever. He’s still very angry with Irene, but I know he will eventually forgive her. She finally told him the truth. Maybe they can start afresh when they move overseas. Who knows?”
“She had to protect what was hers. I know what she did came at a terrible cost to you and your mother, but she must have been desperately afraid of losing her husband. What’s important is that she did the right thing in the end.”
Josh pressed a kiss on the top of her head. “You’re too soft, you know that?”
“Maybe I am, but it got me you, didn’t it?”
“You’re right. Maybe I do owe Irene something after all. By the way, Bruce and I sketched up a plan to help Palmer Enterprises through the losses they’ve incurred with that erroneous deal I set up. With Bruce and Irene leaving for Guildara, I’ll be working with Adam—my brother. My God, my brother! All these years I’ve envied him, even hated him for having everything I didn’t, and now we’ll be working together.”