He swore, scrubbed both hands down his face.
‘Hel , Kit, this isn’t about you.’
‘Not about me? How can you—’
‘I’ve been lied to once before.’
The world tilted to one side for a moment before righting itself again. Kit moistened her lips. When she could speak again she asked, ‘When? Who…?’
Who would do such a thing?
‘My ex-wife.’
Her own hurt vanished. Just like that.
His face had gone unreadable, impassive. She suddenly found that she wanted to cry for him too.
‘What happened?’
He dropped his head to his hands. For a long moment Kit didn’t think he’d answer. Final y, he dragged both hands down his face and straightened.
‘Jacqueline and I had been married for fifteen months when she fel pregnant. She told me the baby was mine and I had no reason to doubt her. We’d dated for over a year before we married.’
He’d loved a woman once, enough to marry her?
She rubbed at her arms but it couldn’t erase the sting that bloomed across her skin.
His mouth tightened. ‘It never occurred to me that she’d lie. And God help me, but when I found out she was pregnant I couldn’t wait to hold my son. We cal ed him Chad.’
Kit’s spine lost al its strength. Her hands crept up to cover her mouth. Before her eyes, Alex aged. His skin lost its colour. The lines around his mouth and eyes grew more pronounced. Shadows took up residence in his eyes. She dragged her hands back down to her lap, gripped them together. ‘When did you find out the truth?’
‘Not until Chad was two.’
Her mouth went dry. Alex had spent two years, not to mention the nine months of the pregnancy, loving his son—his Chad—and giving his heart to him completely? He didn’t have to say that out loud—the evidence was written in every line of his body, in the grief that twisted his mouth and made his shoulders slump.
‘Oh, Alex! What happened?’
‘She took him away.’
She had to gulp back a sob at the raw pain in his voice.
‘She had paternity tests carried out and they proved that I…’
‘But you’d raised him. You loved him!’ The words burst from her. ‘Alex, you must’ve had rights.’
‘She and her lover—Chad’s biological father—left before I’d gathered my wits. They fled to South America.’
Kit stared at him. No! This episode in his life—it couldn’t end like this. Alex had loved that little boy.
That little boy would’ve loved Alex.
‘The legal advice I received wasn’t promising.
After al , what legal rights did I real y have?’ His face After al , what legal rights did I real y have?’ His face twisted. ‘Oh, I had the money to drag the case through the courts for years, but in the end who would I real y be hurting?’
Chad. The knowledge sucked the air out of her lungs. He’d done what was best for the little boy he loved, but it hadn’t given him an ounce of comfort. It had left a deep and lasting scar.
‘Don’t cry for me, Kit.’
It wasn’t until he reached across to brush her tears away with the pad of his thumb that she realized she was crying.
‘I’m not worth it.’
Wasn’t he? Suddenly she wasn’t so sure.
‘Because the fact is, no matter what I tel myself, I can’t go through that again.’
A weight settled in the middle of her chest.
‘I once had a son, Kit, and now I don’t. So you see, the paternity test, it isn’t about you, it’s about me. If your child is mine I wil do what is legal y required, but nothing more.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
ALEX strode out to the dark of the back garden and tried to draw air into his lungs.
He hadn’t meant to tel Kit about Chad. He didn’t talk about Chad. To anyone.
His gut clenched. He strode down to the back fence to wrap his fingers around the hard bark of the banksia tree until they started to burn and ache. He hadn’t realized how much Kit’s inability to fathom his previous treatment of her had plagued her, tormented her, had her questioning her own judgement and doubting herself. His mouth fil ed with acid. This was why he should have been more careful in the first place— resisted the temptation she’d presented, the lure of a life that he knew could never be his. But her sunshine had touched his soul, and for a short time he had been lost.
And she’d paid the price.
He’d wanted—needed—to reassure her that none of this was her fault. The only way to do that was to tel her about Chad. To tel her why he couldn’t go through al that again.
Her unborn child—it was a source of joy for her.
