Page 92 of Secrets at the Last House Before the Sea

CHAPTER 27

Rosie turned her key in the lock at Driftwood House and pushed open the front door. As the wood scraped across the flagstones, she vaguely registered that the timber was swelling again and needed to be sanded down a little more. Though that thought was swiftly followed by the realisation that it didn’t matter. The house was condemned.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Rosie to the empty hallway. Though whether she was apologising to the house or to her mother for what she’d just done, she wasn’t quite sure.

‘Sorry for what?’ mumbled Matt, coming out of the kitchen, clutching a piece of toast. Heaven knew how long he’d been asleep. He still had bed-head hair and he yawned, showing his wide white smile.

‘I don’t know. Sorry for disappearing?’ answered Rosie, too emotionally wrung out to face another confrontation.

‘Did you?’ He rubbed a hand across his bleary eyes. ‘Did you go for a walk?’

‘I went for a drive, to Dartmoor to see Charles Epping.’

‘Wow, well done!’ Matt was fully awake now. ‘So what did the old dog have to say for himself?’

‘Nothing.’

Matt’s toast, slathered in butter, began to bend and drip onto the tiles.

‘What do you mean, nothing? You did tell him that he’s your father, didn’t you?’

‘I said that I strongly suspected he was.’

‘And he said nothing?’

‘Not a lot. He didn’t believe me and his wife accused me of being a gold-digger.’

‘That is outrageous, Rosie. It must have been very upsetting. So what happened next?’ he asked, stepping towards her.

‘I left.’ Rosie moved away from him and wiped splattered butter from her jeans with shaking hands.

‘You left? Is that it?’ Matt ushered her into the kitchen and gestured for her to sit on a stool. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea and you can tell me all about it.’

She wasn’t going to tell him all about it. She wasn’t planning on telling him much at all, but the words came tumbling out because she needed to get it off her chest.

Matt listened attentively as he made the tea and then sat down next to her. ‘So what’s your next move?’

‘My next move about Driftwood House?’

‘Who gives a monkey’s about this old place, Rosie? I’m talking about Epping. What’s your next move with him?’

‘There is no next move. I go back to Spain and forget him.’

‘Don’t be daft. There must be a next move. You can confront him again, demand a DNA test and, if that fails, threaten to go to the press and sell your story. A man like that will value his reputation.’

‘Why would I do that? He wants nothing more to do with me and the feeling is mutual. And I have no desire to humiliate his wife, even though she’s awful. She must have been hurt enough at the time.’

‘Oh Rosie.’ Matt took her hands in his. ‘You can’t let Charles Epping win. He owes you, and what’s he worth? Five million? Ten? Maybe more, with all the land and property he owns. As his flesh and blood, you deserve a big chunk of that.’

‘I don’t want his money, Matt. I’m not a gold-digger, whatever Cecilia thinks.’

‘Of course you aren’t, babe. But isn’t it selfish to give up on money like that?’

‘Selfish? How can it be selfish?’

‘Just think what you could do with a huge injection of cash. Think what we could do. You could finance me to set up my entrepreneurial property business, which would clean up in the area.’

‘And that’s what all this is about. I thought as much.’ Rosie stood up so quickly, she spilled tea all down her sweatshirt. Jeez, it was hot. She pulled the sodden fabric away from her skin.