Cassie looked at him guardedly. ‘Because of the text,’ she said.
Adam had seen the text. Ryan had found it on Jemma’s phone and shown it to him. A text sent to Kim, not Cassie. ‘The text on Kim’s phone?’ he checked, treading carefully.
‘Yes, the text on Kim’s phone.’ Cassie lowered her eyes, and Adam’s heart dropped like a stone.
‘How did you know about the text, Cassie?’ he asked, fear settling like ice in his chest as he replayed what she’d said when she’d found the so-called evidence of his infidelity in their bed. Evidence he now realised had been manufactured by Kim.My family is not dysfunctional!she’d screamed.I willnotlet anyone drag me down to their level, not you, not Josh, not anyone!
He’d felt the hairs rise on his skin as she’d said it. There’d been something in her look, a challenge, almost as if she was conveying that she was capable of doing whatever she had to in order to put a stop to what she imagined was going on.Wasshe capable?
She hadn’t been at home on the evening Josh had died, he recalled, hopelessness spreading through him. She’d been out on some work-related thing, returning home shortly before the police arrived.
‘How did you come by Kim’s phone if you haven’t seen her?’
Cassie looked stumped for a minute. He watched as she blinked rapidly, her eyes flooding with panic. ‘I went to the cottage,’ she blurted, as if seizing on an explanation. ‘The phone was there, in the kitchen. I… saw the mess, checked the phone instinctively.’ Lies. All lies, Adam knew it. ‘I was scared. I…’
So was Adam. He was terrified.
‘I thought that Ryan had been there,’ she stumbled on, looking anywhere but at him, her hand trembling as she pressed the back of it to her nose. ‘It was obvious there’d been an argument. I thought he might have lost his temper, that something might have happened to Samuel.’
‘Why did you think he might have lost his temper, Cassie?’ Adam managed, though he felt like breaking down and weeping. ‘Because you knew that Samuel and Liam were one and the same? Because you realised that Ryan might have found out?’
‘No! I didn’tknow,’ Cassie protested adamantly. ‘Not until I read the text. I couldn’t let them take Samuel, don’t you see? I had to—’
‘But you knew that Josh was the father of Jemma’s child!’ Adam shouted over her. ‘You paid her to keep quiet, forfuck’ssake.Why?Why wasn’t that child important to you when you were so desperate to have Samuel in your life?’
‘He was!’ Cassie turned to him, her eyes beseeching. ‘But I thought it was best if… Jemma and I thought it was best if I didn’t see him. Ryan might have suspected. Josh might have found out. There might have been blood tests. When I saw the letter from the DNA people, I—’
‘Found outwhat?’ She was making no sense. Adam ran a hand furiously through his hair. ‘That woman in there could havedied, Cassie. Do you not see the seriousness of what you did? If you’d acknowledged that Liam was Josh’s, none of this would have happened.’
Gulping back a sob, Cassie looked away.
‘Talkto me,’ Adam demanded. ‘Makeme understand. For pity’s sake, just tell—’
‘He’s his brother!’ Cassie cried. ‘Ryan and Josh are brothers! They didn’tknow.’
‘What?’ Adam choked the word out.
‘They didn’t know of each other’s existence,’ Cassie went on unsteadily. ‘Ryan was brought up in care.’
Adam studied her intently. Did he know this woman at all? he wondered. Had he ever?
‘Jemma said she was going to tell him, now that Josh was no longer…’ Cassie kept her eyes fixed down. ‘She must have. I tried to stop her. I tried to tell her she would lose him.’
Stopping, she gasped out a breath. ‘I robbed Josh of his brother. Istolehim. How was I supposed to tell him that? That the woman he’d fallen in love with, made a child with, was his brother’swife?’
Emitting a tortured moan, Cassie buried her face in her hands. ‘He would never have forgiven me. Not ever. How could he have?’
Sixty
Cassandra
‘Ryan and Josh…?’ His expression thunderstruck, Adam could barely get the words out.
Why hadn’t she told him? Whyhad she done this to him? To Jemma? Poor Ryan, his heart had been utterly broken. She hadn’t considered what the consequences might be. She’d been furious with Jemma for what she’d done to Josh, but she had understood why, after losing her baby, she would have behaved uncharacteristically. Suffering a similar loss herself, Cassie hadn’t been able to see anything beyond her own precious baby’s little body. She pictured him as she’d cradled him, saying her last heartbroken goodbye. Blue, he’d been blue… but entirely perfect. His eyelashes, his tiny fingers and toes, all perfect. And then there had been Joshua. Beautiful. Vulnerable. Lonely and helpless. Born to a woman who would put him at risk. A woman who’d barely looked at him since he’d arrived in the special care unit. Cassie swallowed hard, trying to will the tears back. Adam wouldn’t comfort her, dry them for her. How could he?
She felt Adam’s eyes burning into her. ‘You’re telling me that Josh wasn’t yours?’
Cassie bowed her head. ‘I lost my child,’ she tried to explain, an impossible, unbelievable explanation after all this time. ‘He was stillborn. He would have been Josh’s age. Exactly Josh’s age.’
