“Truth be told, I don’t know if I believe that,” Sebastian replied, sinking into a nearby armchair. He stared at Tom again, his eyes drifting over his face, shoulders and body, and Tom shifted nervously.
“What?”
Sebastian shrugged. “I’m just looking. Trying to find her in you.”
“Reine,” Marnie said, and Tom noted how his mother sounded a little breathless when she spoke the girl’s name. “She’s beautiful.”
“Yes,” Sebastian’s voice was warm, “yes, she is.” He stared at Tom again, his eyes searching over him, and he emitted a bitter kind of huff that sat sourly in the air. “She has your eyes.”
There was disappointment in his voice that made Tom shift again, and he looked over to his mother desperately. Marnie however sat bone-still, staring back at him.
She wasn’t going to help him out of this. She was going to make him clean up his own mess.
“What did you think of her?” Sebastian pressed him, and Tom closed his eyes.
“Ari’s as beautiful as she ever was,” he answered honestly, and once again, that dart of pain ran through him.
“I didn’t mean Ari,” Sebastian spat. “I meant Reine. What did you think of her? Of yourdaughter?”
But at that, Tom’s mind went blank.
“What did you think of her?” Sebastian asked again, his voice darkening. For a man who spent most of his day talking in a light, flippant and merry tone, Sebastian had quite the threatening timbre, Tom thought. He shifted again.
“She... she’s just a kid,” he replied honestly. “What am I supposed to think of her?”
It was clearly the wrong thing to say. “Well, fuck you, Tom Somerset,” Sebastian said tightly. “And fuck you too, Tom Miller.”
In a flash, Tom was on his feet.
“Whatexactly do you want me to say here?” he exploded, frustration running through him. “That I saw her and immediately thought, ‘yes, that’s my child’? That I saw her and loved her? That I saw her and wanted to be a father to her?”
“Yes, that was the general idea,” Sebastian snapped back.
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Tom replied, running a hand through his hair. “The truth is that I looked at her and saw a kid. A kid. That’s all. I didn’t look at her and feel an instant swelling of love. I didn’t look at her and feel a paternal pride. I hardly looked at her at all, in fact, because she’s just a kid and a kid I don’t know and at that point I only wanted to look at her mother.”
“A kid you don’t know?” Sebastian downed the whisky in one go, before slamming the tumbler onto a nearby table. “A kid you don’t know? You helpedmakeher.”
“A fact I’ve only just learned in the last twenty-four hours.”
“And a fact that means nothing to you, clearly.”
“I didn’t say that,” Tom snapped. “Don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say that Reine being my daughter means nothing to me.”
“You’re acting like it doesn’t,” Sebastian returned. Tom watched as he turned to Marnie, who was sipping at her own drink, her fingers clutched tight around the glass.
“What do you think of all this?” Sebastian asked her, an accusing note to his voice. “You obviously know everything.”
Marnie gave a shrug. “Not everything. I still have questions.”
“But you know a lot,” Sebastian replied, and Tom watched as his mother shrugged again.
“I started putting it together when Ari talked about Tom Miller. I’d known Tom had gone by that name for a few years... and the dates all made sense. But I don’t know everything.”
Sebastian gave Marnie a look. “That was at lunch yesterday. You’ve known for over twenty-four hours, have spoken to Ari in that time, and never said a word.”
Marnie sighed. “I couldn’t say anything to her. I didn’t have the full story.”
Sebastian crossed his arms over his chest like a petulant child. “None of us have the full story.”
