Alan stared. ‘You mean…Cady?’
‘I mean Cady.’
Silence. Gemma didn’t say a word. How could she? She was so stunned she was having trouble standing up. She reached out and grabbed a veranda rail and held on as if she needed support.
She did.
‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,’ Alan said at last, and hauled the screen door open-but Nate’s voice cut like a whip.
‘I think you do. I think you know very well that Cady is my son. Not yours.’
‘He’s not-’
‘I fathered two children for Fiona,’ Nate went on ruthlessly. ‘She used me-she chose me and she used me but I let myself be used. Well, why not? If it wasn’t me then it would have been someone else, and she promised that I wouldn’t be liable for their care. But she left me in no doubt that I was the father.’
‘I don’t… This is nonsense…’
‘Do you want to see the letter she wrote to me after Cady was born?’ Nate shoved his free hand in his pocket and brought out a typed note. It looked battered and frayed around the edges as if it had been read and reread a hundred times. ‘Let me read it to you.’
And because there was no reply-there could be no reply when both were stunned into silence-he read aloud.
‘Dear Nate,
‘I thought you should know that you have a son. I’ve called him Cady. Cute, huh? As I told you, there’s no problem with paternity-I’ve suckered my sister’s husband into thinking he’s the father. He has far more resources than you to finance the kid’s upkeep, and this’ll pay off a few scores to my sister as well. But I thought you should know your genes live on. And who knows…if I want another kid some day I know where to find you. The sex was great.
‘Fiona’
Silence, silence and more silence. It stretched on and on into infinity.
‘I always thought the boy would be OK,’ Nate said at last. ‘I thought he’d be looked after. And let’s face it, fatherhood wasn’t my style-though the thought of planting a few genes in a woman as gorgeous as Fiona had definite appeal. So I thought no more of it. After this note I didn’t hear from her for three years. Until she wanted another baby.’
He proffered Mia to Alan-who almost flinched. Nate smiled. ‘Then-after I fathered Mia-I heard nothing again. Nor did I expect to. It was a hell of a shock when Gemma brought me my daughter, told me Fiona was dead and I found out what sort of scumbag was playing father to my son.’
‘You don’t… You can’t…’
‘Can’t what?’
‘Cady is…’
‘Are you denying the children are mine?’ Nate lifted the blanket right away from Mia’s face then, so her colouring was clear to all of them. The similarities were striking. ‘You
‘Cady…’
‘Cady’s colouring’s not as obvious,’ Nate told him. ‘But the similarities are there.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Then let’s do a blood test, shall we?’ Nate said softly-and watched Alan’s face lose its colour. ‘A DNA test can be done very easily. It’ll establish once and for all that I fathered both the children.’
He was mad, Gemma thought blindly. Stark staring mad!
Alan was staring at Nate with such vicious hatred in his eyes that Gemma felt sick. If there’d been pistols available there’d have been blood spilt, she thought.
There was a baby between them.
Nate’s smile was polite and cold and absolutely implacable.
‘Get your butt off my property,’ he told him.
‘You-’
‘Now.’
To Gemma’s absolute bewilderment, Alan swore once, turned on his heel-and went.
Gemma sat down-hard-right on the top step and stuck her head between her knees. By the time she raised her head the Porsche was disappearing with a screech of burned rubber and Nate was sitting down beside her. Mia slept on regardless. He held her easily in the crook of one arm-a contented dad, supremely pleased with himself
Smoking pistols wouldn’t have felt half as good.
‘Good, huh?’ He looked modestly down at the letter in his hand and Gemma could only stare at him in disbelief.
‘Fiona never wrote that letter.’
‘Of course she didn’t. I wrote it this morning.’ His voice was smugness personified. ‘Do you like the bit about the sex?’
‘You…you…’
‘Wonderful person?’ he suggested hopefully, and she choked.
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No! Nate, it’s not the truth.’
‘It’s no less of a fabrication than the lies your sister and your ex-husband have been feeding you.’
Silence. Then… ‘If someone doesn’t tell me what’s going on,’ she said softly, ‘I’m going to drum my heels on the veranda and have hysterics. At full throttle.’
‘Can I watch?’
‘Nate…’
‘Gemma.’
‘Just tell me.’
‘You can’t guess?’
She took a deep breath. ‘Somehow… Am I missing something or has Alan just conceded that he’s not Cady’s father?’
‘I believe he’s conceded that. Yes.’
‘But…you’re not?’
‘I’m not.’ He smiled, his very nicest smile that threw her into even greater turmoil than she was already feeling. ‘No, Gemma. Contrary to what I told Alan, I would never knowingly agree to father a child I didn’t intend to care for. I met Fiona for the first time twelve months before Mia was born.’
She thought that over and came to the obvious conclusion. ‘So you lied.’
‘I lied.’ His virtuous look came back. ‘But for a very good cause.’
‘But… How did you know…how did you guess?’
‘Now, that’s a bit of a problem,’ he told her. ‘I sort of hoped you wouldn’t ask that. Can I say that I found out that he was gay?’
‘I wouldn’t believe you.’
‘Rats.’
‘So…’
‘Gemma, did Alan ever volunteer to be a sperm donor?’ Nate asked, and he watched as she took that on board. Her face changed. To even deeper confusion.
‘Yes. Yes, he did. Just before we were married. I wasn’t keen on it, but they were advertising round the hospital and he thought it’d be great…’
‘To spread his seed a little? I can see that in him. But he only did it the once?’
‘He said once was enough.’ She was thinking it through. ‘But I remember…his mother was so pleased that he’d done it because he’d had mumps really badly as a teenager and she’d been worried that…’ Her voice trailed away to a note of discovery. ‘Oh.’
