Page 42 of Cinderella and the Outback Billionaire

‘Knew you’d see it my way. Your scientist and researchers also come back covered in mud at the end of the day. I’ve been stumbling upon them and doing informal surveys. If there was an outside shower area, they’d use it.’

‘Tell me more during dinner.’

He then coaxed her to dine with him once she was presentable by promising baked fish, fresh salad, and mangoes for dessert.

She showered quickly and made her way to the lodge he’d claimed for his stay. There were only two lodges at this site, with the other one remaining empty until his arrival.

‘Iced tea or something stronger?’ he asked as she entered his kitchen. ‘I’m sticking to water.’

‘Because of your medication?’

‘That and a heartfelt desire to avoid another head-cracker.’

Made sense. He’d lost the tension in his body and his eyes had lost their haze of pain. She watched him plate up the baked fish with a surety born of long practice. ‘How’s the sister search?’ she asked, when he set the meals on the table and held out a chair for her.

‘Full of dead ends. Judah’s taken the lead on it,’ he admitted as he took a seat and waited for her to start eating before picking up his cutlery. Pretty manners that she didn’t fully understand—they served mainly to emphasise Reid’s social class and her lack of any.

And then she remembered the story about him taking his brother to the roadside diner and nervously ordering everything on the menu. And how she’d been with him when he’d wolfed down Thai starters and terrible passionfruit beer at the swimwear store. He was the same man.

And this time the food was great, and she wanted his company and so what if she didn’t quite know where the fishbones would be found? It was barramundi. Wasn’t as if the fish bones were going to be small.

Ari favoured eating over talking—probably another no-no in polite society, but it had been a big day and she was hungry. Only once she’d cut grooves into the juicy flesh of mango cheeks and flipped the skin and devoured her half—and Reid’s half too, when he declined his—did idle chat turn serious.

‘So, no progress on the sister hunt but I did discover something interesting about the money my father gave your mother just after you were born. Could be nothing. Could be something. Want to hear it?’ he asked.

Ari paused, sweet mango juice dripping down her chin as she put the fruit back on her plate and attempted to clean her sticky face and fingers with a napkin the size of a tissue. Reid wordlessly handed his napkin to her and waited for her answer.

She’d loved her mother dearly—but there was no pretending that her mother’s life choices had always played out in Ari’s favour. The stepfamily situation was a classic example of that. ‘I don’t know if I want to hear it. Is it going to shatter all my illusions?’

‘Maybe.’

Again, he waited for her response. ‘I guess I could stand to know more.’

‘We have a forensic accountant looking through old financial records,’ he told her. ‘The money my father gave your mother came from a bank account owned by an Australian business called FNQ metals. My father held that money in his account for just under twenty-four hours before passing it through to your mother. At first, I thought it was a one-off transaction—a gambling debt paid in full, say—and my father had simply flipped it to your mother as thanks for not letting him gamble his home away. But there were other deposits from that account over the years, smaller amounts, same day each year, and they were all passed through to your mother within twenty-four hours. Is there anything special about the twenty-fourth of May?’

‘It’s my birthday.’

‘Ah.’ He seemed pleased. ‘Figured it might be.’

‘Meaning...what, exactly?’

‘I think someone used my father to deliver money to your mother on your birthday. Still want to hear more?’

She took a quick sip of her iced tea, for courage. ‘Is there more?’

‘FNQ Metals is a publicly traded company these days but before that it belonged to a guy called Deacon Murray. He started out as a travelling stock contractor through Far North Queensland and the Northern Territory. He married at nineteen and he’s still married to that same woman. He has three sons, now in their thirties. He made enough money out of cattle to buy himself a mining lease. It coughed up not just iron ore but copper and zinc as well. This is all public knowledge. My father had no business dealings with him at all beyond the money that went to your mother.’

She knew where this was going. ‘You think this Murray guy is my father?’

How much of her could Reid actually see when he looked at her so steadily? Could he see her panic? All the hope and pain and years of wondering? Trying to discover clues in her dead mother’s belongings?

‘I think you should go online and look at some of the pictures of Deacon Murray and his kids. Then, if you want me to put an investigator on his whereabouts around the time your mother got pregnant, I will.’

This day was just full of surprises.

She traced her finger down the side of her glass and studied Reid from beneath her lashes. She needed a bit of a shield while his information sank in. ‘Do I look like him?’

‘A bit. You look like one of his boys more.’ Reid sat back. ‘I think he took his mining business public so he could get the money to set you and your mother up. I suspect he did it through my father because your mother refused his direct offer of financial assistance.’

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