Australian Boss: Diamond Ring: Australian Boss: Diamond Ring

His acceptance speech was short and succinct and witty and wry. He stopped once in the middle and his shoulders tensed. His hand squeezed around hers before he seemed to relax and everything seemed all right again.

And then, award gripped in his other hand, he returned to their table and to a round of congratulations as the formality of the evening dissolved into industry talk, mingling and people drinking one last glass of wine while others lingered over pungent coffee served by waiting staff in smart grey coats.

There were some people like Brent’s difficult client, people with certain aspirations, who now suddenly found Brent’s business most interesting indeed.

Brent handed them business cards and let them know that if they wanted to book appointments to see him they’d be waiting at least a month. Fiona stayed at his side and simply gave herself the pleasure of watching people acknowledge his success. Pride in him joined other feelings and blended together inside her.

Finally they left the function room and made their way through the building’s long winding corridors towards the front exit.

The doors to another of the function rooms just ahead swished open. Two men stepped through, one garrulous and talking a mile a minute, the other with his face turned half away, doing his best to ignore that man’s effusiveness if his body language was anything to go by.

Fiona observed this and leaned on Brent’s arm to peer across his body at the award statuette. ‘It’s a rather elegant tree, really. Sort of “eternal lifeish” in appearance, don’t you think? I’d like to display it in a glass-fronted cabinet in the reception area at work.’

Brent seemed distracted by the men before them, but he forced a nod. ‘We’ll put your awards up at the same time—’

The men in front of them glanced their way as they drew closer. Probably they heard every word being said, but they weren’t private words really so it hardly mattered, did it? So why did Fiona feel uneasy suddenly?

‘Displaying all the awards would be nice,’ Fiona murmured.

She would simply have walked on, but something about the stillness of one of the men drew her attention and she looked his way just as Brent drew a deep breath and did the same.

As they all drew level, Brent wrapped his free hand around her wrist, a gentle touch that guided her to a stop, yet his expression when she looked into his eyes was not gentle, but oh, so determined and guarded and…braced. For what?

Fiona left her wrist in his hold. She wasn’t sure if he even knew he had it clasped there.

Brent could have done without this, but he looked into the face of one of the two men before him and waited for recognition to dawn. Oh, not for himself. He’d recognised Charles immediately. But for the older man—God, for his father—it was apparently taking longer.

Memory hit Brent. Of his father frowning, pushing Brent into a car, muttering that he couldn’t be the father of a freak. Brent had tried so hard as a child to control the outward signs of his condition. He couldn’t remember any other way. Even now he could feel his body tightening, trying to make sure nothing of the autism showed.

Well, it had been too late then. Tight-lipped and silent, his father had taken him to the orphanage, signed him over and walked away.

‘It’s been a long time.’ Brent was proud of the flat, even tone of his voice. He hoped that calm extended to his expression, even if his body was braced.

Charles was older, his hair was grey, but the dawning expression in his eyes was the same. Displeasure, discomfort, rejection.

For a moment Brent thought the older man might simply walk on, not speak, and in that moment Brent knew he would not allow that. This time he wouldn’t be ignored, brushed off. He opened his mouth to speak again.

‘If I’d realised you’d be here—’ Charles broke off, glanced at his companion and his frown deepened.

Brent recognised that look, too. It was amazing just how much came back to him. He’d thought it almost all forgotten. A twitch built at the base of his neck. He banked it down.

Fiona’s glance made him wonder if she’d sensed that tension building. Her hand turned and her fingers closed around his wrist, and he thought she murmured, ‘I know now where I’ve seen that before…’ before she leaned into his side.

Then she gave a polite, plastic smile and said in a normal tone, ‘Won’t you introduce me, Brent?’

‘Fiona Donner, meet Charles MacKay.’ He didn’t explain Fiona to Charles. He didn’t explain his father’s identity to Fiona.

Fiona’s nostrils flared and the sparkle in her eyes flattened out until they were pure blue, expressionless chips. Her gaze turned to his and came back to his father and a thick silence fell.

Into that silence, Charles’s companion spoke.

‘You’ve won an award. Congratulations.’ The man stepped forward and leaned in to examine the award, either oblivious at this point to the tensions in the air, or convinced he could actually do something about them. ‘Oh, I see that’s the landscaping industry award. I read about that in the club notices a few weeks ago. What do you think, Charlie?’ He turned to address the question to the second man.

And what did ‘Charlie’ think? Was he surprised by Brent’s success? Pleased by it? Discomfited by it?

Why care? His opinion means less than nothing. It’s meant less than nothing for a long time now.

‘The family resemblance is strong.’ Fiona’s words were low, the unspoken words written all over her.

This was the man who had given his son away. Somehow she understood so much. That knowledge hit Brent while a raft of emotions washed through him.

Old rejection. A need to understand.

His father’s rejection, Charles’s inability to love the child he’d helped create?

Brent pushed it all away before it could go any further. It was all past news. There was no point revisiting, though he couldn’t be sorry this meeting had happened. At least he could say it was done now, and let go of the feeling he’d carried around of waiting to stumble across this man.

Yeah? So why didn’t Brent feel any better or more resolved?

Because Charles was acting just the same, and some deep down part of Brent had maybe hoped, just the tiniest bit…

‘Yes, we should be going, Fiona. I think we’re done here.’ As he spoke the words, Brent became truly aware of the curl of Fiona’s fingers around muscles that had set like concrete. His free hand came up to close over Fiona’s, to register the tension in her fingers.

She gave a sturdy tug, as though to shepherd him away from there, and her entire body pressed into his side.

The level of protectiveness he sensed in her in that moment stunned Brent and touched him in ways he couldn’t define.

‘Wow.’ The jolly man’s mobile face worked.

No doubt in another moment he would voice his conclusion that Brent and Charles were ‘father and son’.

How would Brent’s father explain that? He’d done such a good job of ignoring the fact that Brent had ever existed.

How had Charles MacKay dealt with that? An inconvenient accident that had taken his son so soon after the death of the older man’s wife? If so, Brent was rather inconveniently ‘resurrected’.

‘If you’ll excuse us.’ The blandest of bland phrases. Brent decided it was somehow fitting.

He steeled his muscles to keep under his command. There would be no twitching of his head to the side, no drumming of fingers or anything else. Not in front of this man. No exposure. Brent started to turn away.

‘Surely you’d have realised the major industry event in my calendar year was at this venue tonight.’ His father’s words stopped him. The displeasure and self-centredness in them was clear. ‘You should stay out of the limelight altogether. I can’t have—’

‘I do what suits me. I’ve been in charge of myself for a long time now.’ Anger made its way through Brent’s reserve. That, too, he squashed down. It really wasn’t worth it, was it?

Charles couldn’t be proud of his success. The older man couldn’t see past the shame he felt in Brent’s existence.

You let Charles’s shame impact on you, on how you live, how you present yourself.

Had Brent done that? Would he have looked at his autism differently if Charles had done so?