“No, it was Gemma.”
The corners of his son’s mouth tipped up. Lucas liked Gemma. She always remembered to buy his son lollies whenever he accompanied Felix to the office.
“Did you want to speak to Mummy?” Felix asked, dreading the answer. Calls or visits between Lucas and Adrienne usually went one of two ways. Either Adrienne was kind and attentive, and Lucas would be chatty and smiling for a few days. Or they’d involve long silences and awkward pauses, usually resulting in one of Lucas’ pranks or more hiding in his room than usual. It often took Felix a few days to get him back on an even keel.
The little boy’s brow furrowed. “Not really. Not today.”
Felix nodded, adjusting the rear-view mirror, a bitter taste in his mouth. Hadn’t he tried to improve the relationship between Lucas and his mum? To give his son stability. He’d even booked them into family counselling. Adrienne hadn’t even bothered turning up.
“Okay, buddy. Your choice. Hey, is that yours?” Felix gestured to a well-loved white plush bunny lying in his son’s lap. “I haven’t seen it before.”
Lucas smiled, his gap-toothed grin melting Felix’s heart. “Kind of. A friend gave it to me.”
Felix’s ears pricked up at the word “friend”. “Which friend?” Lucas didn’t have any friends.
“Amelia Fox. She lives at the zoo.”
Felix’s gut pulled.Fox. Thea Fox’s daughter?
He’d discovered Thea’s surname after their coffee meeting the other morning. He’d remembered her brother was the local vet. After a bit of digging around, he’d found out she wasn’t an archaeologist at all. Instead, she owned an animalsanctuary, which accounted for the dirty fingernails and battered jeans.
Felix twisted back around in his seat just in time to see Thea open the door of her dilapidated car. Her army of tiny admirers had thinned out, and she now had a pirate hat made from a paper bag rammed over her beanie. A child must have made it, and she wore it at a jaunty angle, holding one hand over her eye as a patch. She didn’t seem to have a care in the world.
A burn crept into Felix’s throat, but try as he might, he couldn’t swallow it away. If she had time to joke around with children and play Long-John-Thea in the playground, why didn’t she have time to answer his emails? Give him the courtesy of a prompt response?
He gritted his teeth. Thea Fox was maddening, rude, and silly. So why the hell couldn’t he stop thinking about her?
He’d hoped to bump into her at the pickup each day. Hated the slight weight on his shoulders when he didn’t spot her. Hair in disarray, racing to bundle her daughter into her filthy truck. She probably preferred the company of children to adults. She shared the same sense of humour with them.
She was the antithesis of Adrienne. He couldn’t imagine Thea Fox being much good at handling a tricky client or helping ease a deal through to its conclusion. She’d likely spill wine on someone important and would almost certainly get their names wrong. No. She was a destructive whirlwind of a woman who had no business spending any time in his thoughts.
And now Lucas sat with her daughter’s toy rabbit in his lap. What should he do? He couldn’t guarantee the little girl had willingly given it to his son. He wouldn’t put it past Lucas to have staged a kidnapping. But his smile had been so broad when he’d said her name. Felix turned back to face Lucas.
“Why did she give it to you, buddy?”
Lucas pulled the rabbit’s long ears through his fingers. “Because someone was picking on me. She wanted to make me feel better.”
“Who picked on you?” Felix asked, the waver in his voice ringing out in the car's quiet.
Lucas straightened up in his seat. “Just an idiot. They said you weren’t as famous as their auntie was. She was onLove Island. They said nobody had ever heard of you.”
Felix nodded, smiling. “And they were right. Nobody’s heard of me.” The TV thing was a mistake. It was something his team arranged. Or more like Adrienne. She’d pushed for him to go on the show last year. To raise his public profile. Why, he didn’t know. Sometimes, he regretted she was still on his company’s board, but the position had been part of their divorce settlement.
That someone had teased Lucas about the TV show made his gut roll. “Still, it wasn’t nice of them to tease you.”
“I’m used to it,” Lucas replied.
Those words hit Felix’s chest like a ten-tonne weight. The matter-of-fact way his son spoke broke his heart. If Lucas had a friend, Felix needed to foster the relationship. Give it every chance to grow. Even if that friendwasThea Fox’s daughter.
“You know we have to give the bunny back, right? What if your friend misses him at bedtime? She might not be able to sleep without it.” That’s how Felix would have been with his old childhood favourite, Bun-Bun. The day he’d accidentally left the battered toy behind on the train was forever inked into his memory.
Lucas’ face fell, and his chin trembled.
“We can get you your own bunny if you like. Just the same. They can be friends, too.”
His son’s brow briefly furrowed before it released. “Okay, Dad,” he said, looking out of the window.
With a nod, Felix turned to find Thea, but she’d gone.Along with her car. Felix checked his watch, then fired up the engine. They’d go right now and return the toy. They had time. It was the right thing to do.
