‘What?’ Apprehension crossing his face, Adam looked from her to the letter as she took another stumbling step back, then bent to scoop it up.
Her heart booming against her ribcage, Cassie watched, petrified, as he read it. ‘You knew.’ She stared at him, uncomprehending.
‘No.I didn’t. I…’ He looked back at her, his complexion deathly pale. ‘I suspected. I—’
‘Yourequestedit. Youknewand you didn’t—’
‘Cassie, I didn’t know, I swear.’ Adam looked sick to his soul. ‘I felt something wasn’t right when I realised she’d been in Boots the same day you… When she was so vague about who she’d left Samuel with. I kept wondering. I wanted to talk to you, but—’
Cassie stopped listening, snatching up Adam’s car keys instead and dodging past him.
‘Cassie, no!’ Adam spun around after her. ‘Cassie, don’t! We have to talk.’
No time. There was no time.Cassie flailed out a hand, sweeping the heavy Japanese statue from the table and then groping for the door as it crashed to the floor.
Panic threatening to choke her, she flew out, pressing the key fob as she went, and threw herself into the car.
‘Cassie!’ Adam yelled as she dropped the locks and started the engine. ‘Cassie, wait!’ He banged his hand against the driver’s-side window. ‘We need to—’
Step back. Please step back.The car lurched forward, and she pressed her foot down hard.
He’d fallen. Her heart hammered as she glanced in the rear-view mirror, then relief flooded every vein in her body as she saw him pull himself to his feet. Rake his hand through his hair in frustration as he watched her go. She couldn’t wait. She had no idea why Kim was doing what she was doing. What Adam had done or not done. Her one certainty was that an innocent child needed her.
Josh’s child… not Kim’s. The maternity test conclusions showed no genetic link to Kimberley Summers. She wasn’t the mother. Samuel wasn’t hers.
Forty-Nine
Jemma
Jemma sat on the edge of the bed, her hands clamped to her ears in an attempt to block out the sound of her baby screaming his lungs out.Please stop. Please, please make him stop, she begged, lifting tear-filled eyes to the ceiling.
Liam only bawled louder, raucous, heart-rending sobs.
Choking back a sob of her own, she pulled herself to her feet, wrapped her arms tightly around herself and padded barefoot out of the bedroom. Resting her hand on the handle of the nursery door, she prayed again for God to give her strength; then, breathing deeply, she pressed the handle determinedly down. His cries cut through her as she stepped in, grating on the inside of her skull, paralysing her where she stood. She swallowed hard, ran her tongue over her parched lips and tried to quell the fear churning inside her. She was scared, not of him, but of herself, her inability to cope.
His little arms and legs were flailing. She forced herself forward, her heart thumping wildly. He was distressed and she had no idea what to do. For months she’d carried this child, carried her secret with him; felt those little limbs flexing and kicking her womb. She’d been so relieved, overjoyed, feeling him growing stronger inside her. She’d wanted him so much. And now she didn’t know how to help him. How to be with him.
Rubbing at the goose bumps prickling her arms, she tentatively approached him. ‘Liam, what is it, baby?’ she asked him tearfully, as if he could answer. But hehadanswered. He hadn’t wanted the feed she’d offered him. Hadn’t wanted her. That had been his answer, loud and clear. He wanted his daddy. He wanted Ryan. But Ryan had gone. He despised her. How could he not after what she’d done? And now she had no one except the baby of the man who’d died because he’d fathered her child.
Shivering despite the mild weather, Jemma felt it again, the soft tread of footsteps over her grave. She wiped a salty tear from her cheek, recalling how vile she’d been to Josh, the bewilderment and devastation in his eyes when she’d been adamant she didn’t want him involved in the baby’s life. Yet he’d done nothing but what any woman in Jemma’s situation would be desperate for him to do. He’d wanted to be there for her. There for his child. And now there was nothing but the ghost of him, haunting her day and night. She never really stopped thinking about him, the fact that his life had been snatched away so horrifically. He was always right here after all, a constant reminder of him in the eyes of her child. She should have told him. Yes, she would have been sharing a secret she’d sworn to Cassie she never would, but she couldn’t help thinking that Josh might have understood why she’d agreed to keep quiet.Please forgive me, she begged him silently.
As if he’d heard the thoughts in her head, Liam’s wide blue eyes, scrunched closed a moment ago, swivelled towards her.
Icy fingers trailed the length of her spine as she wondered whether Josh could hear her too. ‘Please stop, baby,’ she pleaded, her voice catching. ‘Please stop crying for Mummy.’
His cries only grew louder. His little cheeks were red raw, his whole body rigid.
‘What is it, sweetheart?’ Sniffling hard, Jemma reached a hand cautiously into the cot, placing the flat of it against his tiny heaving chest. His heart was beating fast, like a frightened pigeon.
Her own heart wrenching with unbearable guilt, she plucked him from the cot and pressed him close to her shoulder. Tears and snot running down her face, she jiggled him, tried desperately to soothe him. Moving him to the crook of her arm, she rocked him, walked him around the room, along the landing to her own room, showing him all the pretty things in her wardrobe, on her dressing table, jewellery and ornaments and brightly coloured scarves. He didn’t seem to hear her. Wasn’t interested.
She went downstairs, clutching him tight to her and treading carefully. Nothing enticed him. He didn’t stop crying. Finally, frustration knotting her stomach and twisting her nerves, she climbed the stairs back to the nursery, where she picked up his toys, waggling them one by one in front of him: his Jellycat Fuddlewuddle, his pompom penguin, his green dragon, which Ryan had coaxed his first chuckle from him with. She activated his Peter Rabbit musical mobile, stroked his back and attempted to shush him as it gently rotated and played its calming lullaby.
It didn’t work. Nothing worked, his howls of anguish only increasing.
Jemma’s heart banged against her ribcage. Cold fear and nausea constricting her stomach, she laid him back in his cot. Still he wailed, his mouth wide, like a gaping wound. She ran her hands over her face, dragged her fingers through her hair, grabbed two handfuls of it and tugged it hard.
Stop, she begged.Please stop. Please stop.Over and over she repeated it. Then, ‘Stop!’ she screamed, snatching him back up. ‘I don’t know what you want! Whatisit? What do you want me todo?’ Her hands under his arms, Liam held high above her, she was an inch away from shaking him when she caught herself.
