32
The car park glistened from overnight rain, puddles catching the harsh glow of security lights overhead.
Blake hit the footpath at a jog, her bag slung over one shoulder, her phone already in hand, screen lit. Behind her, Morgan followed at half-speed, hood up, steps slow, her backpack hanging heavier than usual.
Blake didn’t look back. ‘You all right?’
‘Yep,’ came the reply, flat, automatic.
Blake didn’t press. Morgan was with her this morning because Blake hadn’t been willing to leave her alone in the house. Not with the media vans still parked across the road. Not after yesterday.
They reached the back entrance, Blake already digging into her bag. ‘Come on, we’ve got two minutes.’
Morgan hovered a few steps behind. ‘I left my headphones.’
Blake turned. ‘What?’
‘In the car.’
Before Blake could respond, Morgan was already walking back to the car, not rushing, just retracing her steps with quiet purpose.
Blake exhaled hard, then turned back to the door. She dropped her bag on the wet concrete, crouched, and yanked the zip. Side pocket, nothing. Internal zip, crumpled receipts, a tampon, a tangle of charger cords. No pass.
She muttered to herself, ‘I had it yesterday. I scanned in yesterday. How is it not here?’
Morgan reappeared beside her, headphones in hand. Blake didn’t look up.
‘It’s not in here,’ she said again, this time louder, like Morgan might have an answer. ‘I literally had it yesterday morning. I was through the door before the opening sting rolled out.’
Morgan shrugged. ‘Did you check the car?’
Blake zipped the bag closed with a snap. ‘No time.’
She pulled out her phone. ‘I’ll call Sam. You call Chelsea.’
Morgan barely had time to unlock her screen before the door gave a hard buzz and clunked open.
Keira appeared, exhaling vape mist into the stairwell as if she’d been waiting for her cue.
‘Well, well,’ she said. ‘Morning, ladies. Forgot your pass again, Blakey?’
Blake stood up. ‘I had it yesterday.’
Keira stepped aside with a smirk. ‘Sure you did.’
Morgan slipped through first. Blake followed, not bothering to reply. She was already planning to tear the car apart after the show.
They stepped into the station corridor. Through the hallway speakers, the pre-show beds were playing, that familiar build-up of energy before they were live. She had thirty seconds, maybe less.
‘Shit. They’re about to go live. We’re late.’
Morgan was a few steps behind, unzipping her bag. ‘I think I left my drink bottle here on Monday,’ she said, crouching beside the kitchenette alcove.
Blake turned, incredulous. ‘You’re kidding.’
Morgan didn’t answer, just reached into the cupboard under the sink and started rattling things like she had all the time in the world.
‘Leave it,’ Blake snapped, moving towards the hallway. ‘We need to get in.’
Morgan didn’t move.
Blake stopped at the turn, just shy of where she’d be able to see into the studio, and looked back.
‘Morgan!’
Morgan straightened. Not hurried. Not flustered. Just calm. ‘I thought you didn’t want me out of your sight this morning.’
Blake stared at her. ‘I don’t want you getting papped on the way to school. That doesn’t mean you need to be elbows deep in the bloody kitchen bin while I go live without a rundown.’
Morgan blinked. ‘Okay.’ She moved, but slow. Like her shoes were stuck or the floor had turned to glue. Blake turned and kept walking.
She passed the news booth, saw the ON AIR light glowing red. The audio bleed was clearer now, Mack’s voice just cutting through as the opener faded out.
‘And we are live across Melbourne. No Blake for you just yet, our girl’s running a bit late. But we do something a little different. Instead of our chaotic redhead, tall, dark and handsome has entered the studio. You’re listening to Mack and Leo—’
Blake stopped moving. The words hung in the air, bleeding from the hallway speaker. Mack’s voice, chipper as ever. No wink in his tone to suggest he was joking. Just Mack and Leo.
Not Mack and Blake. Not Mystery Dad Tuesday. CSI: Who’s Your Daddy? Not Blake’s Emotional Chaos Hour.
Leo.
The floor seemed to tilt beneath her. He was here. After thirteen years of silence, after lawyers and cease-and-desist letters, after making it clear he wanted nothing to do with them, he was here!
Behind her, the hallway lights buzzed. The air conditioning kicked in with a mechanical sigh. Somewhere nearby, she could hear the producer desk alive with calls already coming through.
She turned, like her body didn’t quite believe her brain yet. Morgan stood just behind her, shoulders square, water bottle in hand, eyes steady.
‘Morgan,’ Blake said, but it came out flat. Not angry. Just airless.
Morgan didn’t answer. But Blake caught the slight shift of weight from foot to foot, the way her fingers tightened on the water bottle. Her daughter’s tell when she was holding something back.
Blake looked back along the corridor, still out of view of the studio. Still one turn away from seeing him.
Her jaw tightened. The letters said he didn’t want them. The money, the silence, the lawyers, all of it said stay away. So why was he here now?
She turned back again. This time slower.
‘Morgan…what’s going on?’
Morgan’s expression didn’t flicker. But her fingers found her thigh, three quick taps, pause, three more.
‘Mum, maybe just listen to what Leo has to say.’
Leo? Blake felt it all at once.
The delay. The bag. The drink bottle. The timing.
Her voice dropped. ‘Did you help orchestrate this?’
Morgan held her mother’s gaze. ‘With some help from Chelsea.’
Before Blake could respond she heard him speak.
‘I am probably the last voice you expected today. If you are anything like the Emily I remember, you are probably halfway down the hall ready to drag me out.’ He paused. Blake held her breath. ‘But please, please wait. I promise I will leave the second you want me to, but first, let me say this.’
Blake pressed one hand flat against the wall to steady herself.
Leo spoke again: ‘On Sunday night, I learned something at my palace gates from a dozen shouting journalists, something that changed my life completely. Something I should have known twelve years ago. Something that those around me knew, but kept from me.’
Palace gates. Not a rockstar. A prince. An actual bloody prince. The absurdity of it hit her again.
He continued. ‘That incredible week we spent together didn’t just belong to us. It created someone extraordinary. Someone I had no idea existed until the media storm hit me three days ago. Someone whose voice I heard for the first time yesterday.’
Blake’s ears were ringing, almost drowning out his words. Almost. Three days. He’d only known for three days. And he’d spoken to Morgan yesterday. She wanted to be mad, furious, but something in Morgan’s face settled her.
‘Emily, I did not know we had a daughter,’ Leo said.
The words felt like physical blows. He didn’t know.
All those lawyers’ letters, the money that arrived when Morgan was born, none of it was from him.
Blake’s eyes blurred as she turned instinctively, finding Morgan watching from a few steps behind her, unreadable but calm, except for her left hand, where her fingers pressed against her palm in that same rhythm.
Three taps, pause, three taps. Everything else in the hallway seemed to fade.
Their daughter had made this happen. Their brilliant, complicated daughter.
Leo continued, ‘If I had known, even for a second, twelve years ago that you had tried to find me, nothing could have stopped me. Nothing. Not duty, not distance, not my family’s expectations.
I would have been there from day one. I would have given anything, everything, to stand beside you through all of it. ’
He took another careful breath, audible and fragile. The polished prince was struggling to find words.
‘I have spent the last three days trying to learn everything about the twelve years I missed. Every podcast of your show, every interview, every social-media story about the search. I have found out as much as possible since Sunday night, absorbing the extraordinary life you built for her. For both of you.’ His voice cracked slightly.
‘I have learned about your best friend Chelsea, your friend Sam, and Mack here, how they stood by you. But most of all, I learned about the remarkable young woman who gave me permission to speak today: our daughter. She showed me more grace than I deserved.’
How had Morgan found him? How had they connected? Blake’s chest tightened with a mixture of pride and wonder at her daughter’s independence.
‘It breaks my heart that I have missed every single milestone of her life. First breath, first smile, first steps, first words, every birthday, every school drop-off. Those are moments I will never witness. Memories I cannot share. And knowing you had to carry that alone, Emily—it kills me.’
Leo’s voice dropped lower, more intimate now, raw and tender.
‘I left Melbourne believing it was fair. We said goodbye knowing we had different paths. Yours was a future you deserved to chase, mine a duty I could not burden you with. But leaving you, leaving us, was the hardest thing I have ever done. And in thirteen years, Emily, I have never moved on. I have never married, never seriously dated, because nobody else was ever you.’
His breath hitched, crackling through the speakers. Blake could hardly take it all in. He’d never married. A prince who’d never married because of one week with a radio promo girl from country Victoria.
‘Those days we shared are still vivid for me. The milk crates backstage where we laughed until our sides hurt. That country pub where I sang to you. Standing together at the footy, lost in a crowd of thousands but feeling like we were the only two people alive. Running through rain-soaked streets. Our last night together in that hotel room, knowing it would end, but not knowing it would change us both so profoundly.’
Blake closed her eyes, pressing harder against the wall. He remembered. Every moment. Just like she did.