‘I want to know what the fuck is going on.’
‘I don’t care to be spoken to in that tone,’ Callum grated, leaning back in his leather chair, ‘but I’ll make allowances since you’ve had quite a day.’
‘Cut the bullshit.’
‘Look, I’m sure it’s a shock, but you’re not the first man to have been swindled by a woman into believing you’ve fathered a child that wasn’t yours. It’s better that you found out now, before it went too far.’
‘Give me a break. You don’t care about any of that. You were just looking out for number one.’
‘Believe it or not, I was looking out for all of us. Someone had to. Your mother threw away every ounce of common sense the minute she heard she was a grandmother again. Both of you were being completely gullible, taking a stranger’s word that the child was yours. You didn’t even question it.’
‘I had no reason to. The dates added up. It was my responsibility. I’d practically abandoned my own child all these years.’
‘Yes, and conveniently, she waited until she knew you were about to be married into a wealthy family. She had five years to track you down.’
‘We had no contact after that night. I had no clue how to find her, either.’
‘And yet, she found you,’ he said simply.
There was no point arguing the facts. His father wasn’t about to budge from his righteous stance when it made him out to be the hero.
‘It still doesn’t explain how you got my sample to send away to test.’
He thought he’d caught it earlier, that subtle shift in his face when he was asked about the samples, but Ewan had been distracted by everything else going on and hadn’t pushed it. Now, though, he realised there was definitely something to it.
‘You don’t need much at all. The miracle of modern science. I don’t know how she thought she’d get away with it. I mean, surely she expected someone would ask for a DNA test and it would all unravel?’
Ewan recognised his father’s attempt to divert the question by asking one of his own. Deflection. He was a master of it. ‘What kind of sample did you send, Dad?’ Ewan persisted.
‘Hair follicles.’ Callum shrugged, leaning forward in his chair to gather a stack of paperwork on the desk in front of him and needlessly straighten it.
He was agitated about something, Ewan thought, watching him suspiciously. ‘So, I’m supposed to believe you went sneaking about in the bathroom, looking for one of my hair follicles, like some bloody CSI agent?’ That idea was about as likely as picturing his father dancing on stage in a tutu.
‘I understand that you would naturally be trying to find a reason to believe her story, but the proof was in those results, son.’ He was doing it again and this time, something inside Ewan stirred.He’s lying.‘I’ll get a new test done,’ he said, feeling more confident as anger flashed across the old man’s face.
‘So, you’ll keep throwing money away, doing test after test like some desperate lovesick idiot? What happens when the next test comes back saying the same thing? Do another one, in case that one was wrong too?’
‘If the new one comes back different, then I won’t have to do any more will I?’
‘You’re a fool.’
‘And you’re acting pretty agitated for someone who was confident that his test was accurate. It shouldn’t be a problem if it was done properly, should it?’
‘Of course it was done properly.’
‘Great. I’ll catch Kenzie before she leaves,’ he said, turning to leave.
‘You still think you’re better than everyone else around here, don’t you?’ Callum sneered, making Ewan stop in his tracks and turn back.
‘I never thought that.’
Callum gave a bitter snort. ‘You could never follow instructions. You just did whatever the hell you felt like doing, creating problem after problem that your brother had to then go and fix. And then, when he needed you the most … well, we all know what happened then.’
Ewan’s heart dropped and nausea settled low in his gut. ‘Don’t put that on me. I did everything I could that day. He refused to stay behind on that drive and he wouldn’t let me take him back in when he started getting crook.’
‘So you just let him keep going until he dropped dead.’
‘He never told me he was that sick.’
