‘She certainly does.’ Her voice softened. ‘She’s the spitting image of you, Mr Grey. Apart from the fact that you’re opposite sexes, you’re almost identical twins-thirty years apart.’

He stared at the baby for a long moment, trying to take it on board. Finally he shrugged. ‘Maybe I need to go back. Explain the whole damned thing.’

‘I have time.’

He nodded. This woman really was the most restful person, he thought suddenly. He’d been wallowing in panic ever since he’d opened his door at six this morning. There’d been a knock but when he’d opened the door all he’d found was the bundle. The baby.

Panic? Maybe it wasn’t panic, he thought. Maybe panic was far too mild a word for it.

‘My father wasn’t very reliable,’ he said slowly. He took a deep breath, watching her reaction. There wasn’t one. Her face was carefully noncommittal and he had the feeling it’d take a lot to shock her. ‘Well, maybe that’s an understatement. I…I need to be able to make you see. My father had charisma. Anything he wanted, he got. He only had to smile…’

Wendy nodded. She could see that. She just had to look at Luke’s smile and she could see that.

‘He married my mother,’ Luke went on, his smile disappearing completely now and his voice bitter. ‘I suppose that’s one thing. The marriage lasted for a whole twelve months but at least I was born legitimate. I was the son he always said he wanted, but he wasn’t into fatherhood. It cramped his style. When he walked out, my mother went back home-her parents lived on a farm just out of Bay Beach-and I was brought up here. Sort of.’

‘Sort of?’ She’d never heard of this man, she thought, and she’d been in the district for years.

‘Of course, sort of. His son being brought up as a country hick didn’t suit my father one bit. To my father, ego was everything,’ Luke said bitterly. ‘I had to have the best. Despite my mother’s protestations, I was sent away to the best boarding schools, and the most prestigious university in Australia.