The Hidden Women: An inspirational novel of sisterhood and strength

‘Bobby,’ she said vaguely. ‘Who is Bobby?’

I was already halfway out of the door. ‘He’s my brother,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘I need to find my brother.’

Chapter 8 (#ulink_0ec2638d-2013-51ff-a183-b1cf60a92604)

Helena

May 2018

Work was crazily busy for the next few days and I didn’t have any time to think about Lil for a while. Until Jack Jones turned up at the office again – much to my surprise.

‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ he said when I went down to reception to see him. ‘I was having lunch with my agent nearby, and thinking about everything you’d found out and I wanted to see how you were getting on.’

I gave him a small, forced smile. ‘Yeah, all good,’ I said vaguely. I was getting on pretty well with his research, but I wasn’t happy about him checking up on me in this way.

‘Oh God,’ he said. ‘Does this look like I’m checking up on you?’

He was so close to what I was thinking that I stared at him in horror.

‘It does a bit,’ I admitted, unable to think of anything else to say but the truth. ‘The celebs aren’t normally this interested.’

He grinned at me, pushing a lock of his curls out of his dark eyes, and I felt myself melting, just a bit.

‘I’m being a nightmare,’ he said.

‘It’s fine.’ I was feeling slightly odd. ‘Do you want to come upstairs?’

I took him up to the office and we sat in the same meeting room as before. Elly was at lunch, thank goodness, else she’d have been hovering to see what Jack wanted.

I offered him a coffee and tried to disguise my relief when he turned it down.

‘I had an early start today so I’ve had more than enough caffeine already,’ he said, with the same cheeky grin. ‘It makes me a bit bouncy.’

‘I wish you’d bounce my way,’ I thought to myself and then blinked in surprise. What was happening here? I’d barely looked at a man since Greg and I had fallen apart. Being a heartbroken single mother hardly made me a catch. And yet, here I was, fluttering my eyelashes at a real-life celebrity who was as likely to fancy me back as – well, as Greg I supposed.

I swallowed. ‘I’ve found out quite a lot about your grandparents, and your great-grandparents,’ I said carefully looking away from where his T-shirt hugged his broad chest. ‘It’s relatively simple to research just one or two generations back.’

I leafed through my folder to find the right documents.

‘Do you not know any of this already?’

Jack shook his head.

‘My maternal grandparents came over from Jamaica in the Fifties,’ he said. ‘They had one daughter already, and my mum was the first of their children to be born here. She’s the middle child – I’ve got two aunties.’

I nodded, interested. We’d not researched his maternal family at all so this was all new to me.

‘My grandad was a bus driver and my gran was a nurse. They worked really, really hard and they wanted a better life for their kids – my mum and my aunties.’

I nodded again.

‘And then Mum decided she wanted to be a writer, which wasn’t really in their plan,’ he said with a smile. I could see he was really proud of his family and my heart swelled a tiny bit more. ‘But they were so supportive of her. And she worked all the way through university to pay for herself.’

‘They all sound amazing,’ I said.

‘Then Mum met my dad,’ Jack said. ‘And it all went a bit wrong for a while.’

‘Wrong, how?’

‘He wasn’t a bad bloke, by all accounts. He seemingly loved Mum and they planned to get married. But she found out she was pregnant and he got scared, I think.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Same old story,’ I said sharply.

Jack looked at me with interest. ‘Sounds like you mean that,’ he said.

I gave him a grim smile. ‘Happened to me,’ I said, wondering why on earth I was sharing my story with him and yet somehow unable to resist.

‘My boyfriend legged it when I got pregnant,’ I said. ‘Well, I legged it actually but only after he’d given me a brochure for an abortion clinic.’

‘Ah,’ said Jack.

‘Ah.’

‘And did you, erm …?’

I smiled properly this time and showed him the photo on my phone. ‘Dora’s two,’ I said. ‘And she’s not seen Greg for more than a year. He took a job in Canada.’

Jack winced. ‘What a douche,’ he said.

I suddenly felt uncomfortable, sharing so much with a stranger. ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘We’re fine.’ I smiled. ‘Show me a family that doesn’t have a baby born with the whiff of a scandal and I’ll show you a family that knows how to keep secrets.’

Jack nodded sadly. ‘My dad’s family were quite traditional and a mixed-race grandkid born out of wedlock didn’t really work for them.’

I patted his hand, trying hard to fight the temptation to gather him up into my arms. He looked so sad.

‘I met them a few times, and my dad was around a bit when I was younger, but he got married to someone else and his visits got less and less frequent. By the time I was ten, I never saw him at all.’

‘Did you miss him?’ I was fairly sure Dora never gave Greg a second thought but I worried she would as she got older.

He shook his head. ‘I’d never had a proper relationship with him.’

‘How did you find out he’d died?’

‘Solicitor,’ Jack said, shrugging. ‘He left me some money.’

‘So he was thinking about you after all.’

‘I think that makes it worse,’ Jack said. ‘Because he could have just rung, you know? And I’m doing okay, in my career. I didn’t need his money – but I needed a dad.’