guess you never know what’s really going on someone else’s marriage,’ Dani said.
And it had made him wonder how happy his parents were now. Had his mother had other affairs to stop her being bored and lonely while his father worked long hours? Had his father looked elsewhere, too?
The news had totally shaken his belief in love and marriage. Especially when Lara had then started to back off from him. He’d thought she loved him. Obviously not as much as he’d believed, because it had been so easy for her to walk away.
‘Did the other man know about you?’ Dani asked.
He nodded. ‘Mum told him when she realised she was pregnant. He said he had the chance of starring in a TV series in America and having a kid would hold him back. So he dumped my mum and went to Hollywood. Then Dad came back from Edinburgh, and she made things up with him. She told him a couple of weeks later that she was pregnant, and I guess she must’ve fudged her dates because I always believed I was a couple of weeks early.’
‘There’s no chance she might’ve been wrong about her dates and you could be your dad’s child?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘I always wondered why I never looked anything like him. Now I know—it’s because we don’t actually share any genes.’
‘Why did your mum tell you about it now?’
‘More than thirty years later?’ He grimaced. ‘Because Stephen—the actor she had an affair with—contacted her. It took him a while to find her. We’d moved a couple of times, and he didn’t know if she’d stayed with my dad or not, or if she’d changed her name.’
She waited, and finally he let the words that had been choking him spill out.
‘Stephen was diagnosed with Huntington’s and his doctor told him he needed to tell his children.’
‘Did he have any other children?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘Just me. And, before you ask, no. I haven’t taken a test to find out if I have the faulty gene.’
‘I wasn’t going to ask,’ she said mildly. ‘It’s none of my business.’
He sighed. ‘Sorry. Mum keeps nagging me. I’m over-touchy about it.’
‘I think anyone would be, in your shoes. There’s a fifty-fifty chance you’ve inherited Huntington’s. Taking the test could set your mind at rest—or it could blow your world apart completely. It takes time to get your head round that and decide whether you really want to know.’
She actually understood?
He wasn’t just being stubborn and unreasonable and difficult about things?
‘Have you talked to your dad about it?’ she asked.
‘Which one?’
‘Either. Both.’
But he knew which one she meant. ‘The one I grew up with. No. It’s been a bit strained between all of us ever since Mum told him. He moved out for a few weeks afterwards. They’re back together again now, but it’s very fragile. I think seeing me kind of rubs his nose in it—I’m a physical reminder of the fact that Mum had an affair. So I’m keeping my distance and letting them patch things up without me getting in the way and making things worse.’
‘Were you close growing up?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ That was the bit that hurt most. Because of this mess, Alex had lost his real dad, the man he’d looked up to right from childhood. Why couldn’t Stephen have just continued being selfish and kept the news to himself, instead of making the effort to find his son? How ironic that maybe Stephen had tried to be unselfish for once in his life but instead had performed the ultimate selfish act and broken up a family. ‘I idolised my dad. One of the reasons I became a doctor is because I wanted to follow in his footsteps—it’s a different specialty, because he was an orthopod and I fell in love with obstetrics during my placement year, but I always looked up to him and he always had time for me.’ And now all that was ruined. It was very clear to Alex that Will Morgan didn’t see him as his son any more.
‘Maybe you need to talk to him on your own, without your mum,’ Dani suggested. ‘The news must’ve been a huge shock to him. And maybe he’s not looking at you as a reminder of her affair, Alex. Maybe he’s worried that you’re going to reject him as some kind of interloper, and now you know he isn’t your biological dad maybe you don’t think of him as your dad any more, so he’s trying to take a step back and not put any pressure on you.’
It was the first time Alex had considered that. He’d been so sure that his father had seen him as a horrible reminder of his wife’s affair. But was the real reason that Will had backed away that he was scared Alex was going to reject him?
‘Thank you,’ he said. Truly grateful to her for making him see things differently, he reached over and squeezed her hand.
Mistake.
Because touching her again, this time not accidentally, made his skin tingle.
And this really wasn’t the most appropriate time for his libido to wake up.
Clearly his touch didn’t have quite the same effect on Dani, because, totally businesslike, she asked, ‘Have you met your biological father?’
‘Yes. I went over to America a week or so after Mum told me about him. It wasn’t the easiest of meetings and Stephen didn’t really acknowledge me—though he wasn’t that well. I did go to see him again a few days later and we managed to talk a bit.’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t feel any real connection to him.’ Nothing like the connection he’d once had with Will Morgan, the man he’d grown up believing was his father. ‘Stephen’s my biological father, but it doesn’t feel as if that means anything at all.’
‘It takes more than sperm to make someone a dad. We see that every day at work,’ she said.
He liked how clear-sighted she was. ‘But meeting him, seeing how much his health had deteriorated, made me think,’ he said. ‘Stephen’s partner Catriona had become his carer, and I didn’t want to put that kind of potential burden on my partner. So when I came back from America I ended my engagement.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Did you give her the choice, or did you make the decision for her?’
The question caught him on the raw—she’d said she wasn’t judging him, but the tone of her voice said otherwise. That he was at fault for setting Lara free. ‘It was more a case of jumping before I was pushed.’
‘I’m sorry. Just the way you said it...’
He sighed. ‘Yes, I ended it. But she’d backed away from me ever since I told her about the Huntington’s. I don’t blame her. Would you want to get married to someone, knowing that in twenty years’ time or even less you’ll have to be their carer?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. Though that’s what marriage is meant to be—in sickness and in health. Whether you know about it beforehand or not.’ She looked him straight in the eye. ‘But I’d want the choice to be mine, not made for me.’
‘I
