CHAPTER ONE

      FROM the street outside came the low rumble of a motorbike as it burbled into the kerb. Thirty seconds later, the bike’s owner appeared in the bar doorway, his tall, broad-shouldered silhouette momentarily blocking out the noonday sun.

      Dave glanced up from where he was sitting alone at a table, cradling a schooner of beer. His eyes widened as recognition struck.

      Good Lord. Nick! Nick was back from wherever it was he’d disappeared to nearly eighteen months before.

      Dave wasn’t sure if he was pleased or not. He liked Nick. A lot. He enjoyed his company more than that of any man he’d ever met. But there had been a measure of relief in having his nephew’s biological father vanish off the face of the map.

      Dave had known right from the start that he should not have allowed Linda to coerce him into finding her a suitable sperm donor for the baby she’d suddenly been determined to have.

      But he’d been afraid that if he didn’t do what she wanted his headstrong kid sister would simply go off and sleep with someone highly unsuitable.

      Her long-term live-in lover had just been tragically killed while on a photographic assignment in Cambodia, and Linda had decided to fill the great hole in her heart and her life by having the baby that Gordon had always promised her but never delivered.

      Not just any old baby, of course. She’d wanted her child to inherit the sort of genes that Gordon would have passed on if he’d lived. Consequently, the sperm donor was to be nothing short of a creative genius. And a perfect physical specimen as well. She’d seen some damned programme on TV about an American clinic which had ‘smart’ sperm to give to women who wanted good-looking, gifted children and she’d thought the concept quite wonderful!

      Naturally, there wasn’t such an advanced-thinking clinic in Australia. Neither had Linda’s foray to Sydney’s sperm bank found even a remote match to her prerequisites for the prospective father of her ‘gifted’ progeny.

      So she’d turned to her big brother—which she only did in moments of dire need—flattering his male ego by saying he must know of someone in his circle of smart, sophisticated friends who would fit the bill. Some clever, creative, unconventional fellow who had looks to burn and no qualms about giving some unknown woman the seed of his loins.

      Dave had immediately thought of Nick.

      Though most wouldn’t have.

      He smiled wryly to himself as the man in question strode further into the bar, bringing his not inconsiderable physical assets under the overhead lighting.

      Tall. dark and handsome was hardly an adequate description. It did fit, superficially. Yet it was far too bland to encompass the complex man Dave had found Nick to be.

      When people—and especially women—first looked at Nick, they never associated him with either intelligence or creativity, except of the most basic kind. Dave could appreciate their mistake. It was difficult to see past that incredible body to the real man inside, or past the highly sexual gleam in those brilliant black eyes to the brains behind them.

      Nick was not what he seemed. Aside from his well-disguised IQ he also looked a damned sight younger than his thirty-five years, which meant he could get away with wearing collar-length hair, skin-tight jeans and a black leather jacket with a fierce-looking eagle emblazoned across the back. Dave was barely two years older than Nick, but knew he’d look damned stupid in that get-up.

      ‘Okay if I use the piano, Hal?’ Nick asked the barman.

      Hal nodded, and those who weren’t long-time regulars stared in amazement as this macho-looking bikie walked over to the battered upright piano in the corner, slapped his leather gloves down on the lid, sat down at the scratched wooden stool and began to play a Chopin polonaise.

      His long, lean fingers flew over the keys, passionate and note-perfect in their execution. The hotel patrons grew silent as they listened, amazed and intrigued. Classical music might not have been the usual fare offered in this setting but they recognised the brilliance of the player and the contradiction in terms of what they were seeing and hearing.

      Nick’s fingers flew faster till finally the climax of the piece was reached in one last dramatic, flamboyant flourish of notes. For a few moments, he bent over the keyboard as though exhausted, eyes closed, his unruly black hair falling forward.

      But then he straightened, pushed back his hair, closed the piano, stood up and gave a mock bow to his partially stunned audience. Dave began to clap, soon followed by the rest of the Saturday afternoon drinkers.

      Nick turned to smile at his friend, then indicated he would get a beer before joining him.

      ‘I