“Wise child. Send it over and it will be handled immediately.” She gave an email address for a solicitor.
My fucking hand shook where I typed it into my phone, an awful feeling opening up inside me. I went to hang up, but Primrose said my name.
“And Kane? Stop by again, will you? It seems you and I are on the same page. How wonderful to have that with a grandchild again.”
Numb, I killed the call. Back in the office, I passed on the details with a promise of the account being settled, then turned my back on Blair and left.
My aunt chased me to the reception. Two nurses at the desk left for a patient’s room. Beyond the doors, Lovelyn walked the line of the garden, sunlight in her hair. I hated that she’d heard the argument. I held back so Blair wouldn’t follow me outside.
As expected, her poisonous words spewed. “Where did ye get the money? More Marchant dealings? Your family makes me sick, just like it did your mother. Don’t bother going back to her room. It’ll only upset her.”
I didn’t answer back. I never had.
She passed me, practically half my size, and eyed Lovelyn through the glass. “That girl doesn’t know what she’s got herself into with ye, does she? Your poor mother was sweet just like her, going on dates with your father, all smiles and innocence until he ripped that away from her.”
She meant Ma’s pregnancy with me.
In a rush, I was back to the eighteen-year-old version of me who’d convinced doctors that I should never have kids. Blair’s accusations had eaten into my brain through childhood. How children were a noose around a woman’s neck, and how I should never become a father. I didn’t want to risk becoming a burden to them, or passing on faulty genes.
I’d told Lovelyn of the measures I’d taken, the vasectomy, but not the reason. She hadn’t asked either.
She’d want children, I was certain. She already had the home for it. The family-ready rooms with all the happy history in the pictures and décor. She’d want a boyfriend who could sit through a meeting without drowning.
Blair’s eyes darkened. “I pray that girl realises what ye are before you knock her up and ruin her life, too. You’re just like him. Bad from the moment he forced himself onto your mother. Bad to the bone.”
She gave me one last derisive look and left.
Stunned, I wheeled around. New sickness wound through me.
The new charge she’d levelled filtered through. That Able hadforcedhimself on my mother. That made me the product of rape. She’d never told me.
Panic crawled up my throat.
Breaking away, I burst from the entrance, taking deep breaths in the clean air.
Lovelyn joined me in the car park, her eyes crinkling at the sides in her concern. “Are you okay?”
I braced my hands behind my neck. “I shouldn’t have brought ye here.”
Sadness held in her eyes. “I’m glad you did. I loved meeting your mother. But everything your aunt said was horrible.”
She didn’t know. She didn’t understand.
At my lack of an answer, Lovelyn indicated to the building. “What happened in the meeting? Did it buy you time?”
I couldn’t breathe.
I shook my head instead.
Her eyes lined with tears. “Then you took your grandmother’s deal.”
My nod was slow but sure.
She took a shaky breath. “If it helps, I’d have done the same. I would’ve done anything to make my mother more comfortable. It shows how much you love her.” She stared at me as if she could see something that wasn’t there. A better man than existed. “I told her how kind you are to me. How gentlemanly. The good things you’ve done.”
“It was a waste of your breath.”
She recoiled.
