and surely hope too?
That last was so unexpected that it jolted her into further words. ‘His name is Amil.’
‘Amil,’ he repeated.
He took another step forward and instinctively she moved as well, as if to protect the life she had built, putting herself between him and her home.
‘Is he mine?’
For an instant it was if the world went out of focus. She could almost see a line being drawn in the sands of time—this was the instant that separated ‘before’ and ‘after’. For one brief instant she nearly took the coward’s route, wondered if he would swallow the lie that Amil was Sam’s. Then she realised she could not, would not do that.
‘Yes. He is yours. Amil is your son.’
Now she understood the origins of a deafening silence. This one rolled across the room, echoed in her ears until she wanted to shout. Instead she waited, saw his body freeze, saw the gamut of emotion cross his face, watched as it settled into an expression of anger so ice-cold a shiver rippled her skin.
Panic twisted her insides—the die had been cast and she knew that now, whatever happened, life would never be the same.
STAY STILL. FOCUS ON remaining still.
The room seemed to spin around him, the white walls a rotating blur, the floor tilting under his feet. Good thing he didn’t suffer from seasickness. Emotions crashed into him, rebounded off the walls of his brain and the sides of his guts. His heart thudded his ribcage at the speed of insanity.
A child. A son. His child. His son.
Fourteen months old.
Fourteen months during which his son had had no father. Anger and pain twisted together. Frederick knew exactly what it was like to have no parent—his mother had abandoned him without compunction in return for a lump sum, a mansion and a yearly stipend that allowed her a life of luxury.
Easy come, easy go.
Yes, Frederick knew what it was like to know a parent was not there for him. The anger unfurled in him and solidified.
‘My son,’ he said slowly, and he couldn’t keep the taut rage from his voice.
He saw Sunita’s awareness of it, but she stepped forward right into the force field of his anger, tawny eyes fierce and fearless.
‘My son,’ she said.
Stop.
However angry he was, however furious he was, he had to think about the baby. About Amil. Memories of the horrendous custody battles his father had instigated crowded his mind—Stefan, Emerson, Barrett—his father had treated all his sons as possessions.
‘Our son,’ he said.
The knowledge was surreal, almost impossible to comprehend. But it was imperative that he kept in control—there was too much at stake here to let emotion override him. Time to shut emotion down, just as he had for two long years. Move it aside and deal with what had to be done.
‘We need to talk.’
She hesitated and then nodded, moving forward to close the front door. She watched him warily, her hands twisted together, her tawny eyes wide.
‘How do you know he’s mine and not Sam’s?’
The look she gave him was intended to wither. ‘I’m not an idiot.’
‘That is a questionable statement. But what you have shown yourself to be is a liar. So you can hardly blame me for the question, or for wanting a better answer than that. How do you know?’
Her eyes narrowed in anger as she caught her lower lip in her teeth and then released it alongside a sigh. ‘Sam isn’t my boyfriend. He has a perfectly lovely girlfriend called Miranda and they live together. I asked him to fake it to try and explain to you why I left the modelling world.’
‘Is there a boyfriend at all?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
So there had been no one since him. The thought provoked a caveman sort of satisfaction that had no place in this discussion. Sunita had deceived him to his face in order to hide his son from him—now was not the moment to give a damn about her relationship status. Apart from the fact that it meant Amil was his.
Hold it together, Frederick. Shelve the emotion...deal with the situation at hand.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Sunita started to pace. Her stride reminded him of a caged animal.
‘Because I was scared.’
Halting in front of him, she looked so beautiful it momentarily pierced his anger.
‘I know how hard this must be for you, but please try to understand I was terrified.’
For an instant he believed her, but then he recalled her profession, her ability to play to the camera, and he swatted down the foolish fledgling impulse to show sympathy and emitted a snort of disbelief.
‘Terrified of what? What did I ever do to make you fear me?’
The idea was abhorrent—he’d witnessed his father in action, his delight in the exertion of power, and he’d vowed never to engage in a similar manner. Thus he’d embarked on a life of pleasure instead.
‘It wasn’t that straightforward. When we split obviously I had no idea I was pregnant. I found out a few weeks later and I was in shock. I did intend to tell you, but I decided to wait until I got to twelve weeks. And then your brother died. I couldn’t tell you then, so I decided to wait some more.’
Now her expression held no apology, and her eyes met his full-on.
‘And?’
‘And obviously there was a lot of press at the time about Lycander. I did some research, and it’s all there—your father fought custody battles over every one of his children except Axel, and that was only because Axel’s mother died before he could do so. Your mother never saw you again, his third wife fought for years before she won the right even to see her son, and wife number four lost her case because he managed to make out she was unfit and she had to publicly humiliate herself in order to be granted minimal visiting rights.’
‘That was my father—not me.’
‘Yes, but you had become the Lycander heir. Are you saying your father wouldn’t have fought for custody of his grandson? Even if you’d wanted to, how could you have stopped him? More to the point, would you have cared enough to try?’
The words hit him like bullets. She hadn’t believed he would fight for the well-being of their child. She’d thought he would stand back and watch Alphonse wrest his son away.
He shook his head.
