Poppy held his face between her small hands, forcing him to pay attention to her, and launched into an interrogation of a thousand questions. ‘Where have you been? How come you didn’t come home with us? Have you ever been on an aeroplane?’ before she switched gears and started telling him about what happened at daycare and that she wanted a puppy because her friend Ocean had a new puppy.
He patiently listened, then went on to answer another round of questions before he asked her to show him how she rode her bike, and put her back down on the ground.
‘Hi,’ he said, sounding cautious.
‘Are you watching?’ Poppy called over her shoulder, one foot on the ground and the other braced on the pedal.
‘Yep,’ Ewan called.
She launched off and pedalled her heart out, taking off down the track.
‘I’ve been trying to call you,’ he said, eyes still on the pink-helmeted hellion swerving her way around a woman with a fluffy white dog on a lead.
‘I know.’
‘I get that you’re angry, but I wanted to explain.’
‘What is there to explain? You chose to believe that test—and I guess I can see why you’d be confused. Maybe. I’d have offered to do it again so there were no doubts, but the fact your father, I’m assuming, went behind my back and then proceeded to call me a gold-digger changed my mind. I don’t need to prove anything to any of you.’
‘Don’t you owe it to our daughter to listen to me?’
‘Don’t tell me whatmydaughter needs,’ she said evenly. ‘Come back this way now, Poppy,’ she called, waiting for her to get off and drag her bike around forcefully before remounting.
‘She really needs those trainer wheels off,’ Ewan murmured, watching her struggle.
‘I’m on it, thanks,’ she said curtly.
‘Sorry. I was just—’
‘None of this is your concern anymore. You’re off the hook,’ she said sarcastically.
‘I don’t care about the stupid test, Kenzie.’
‘Your family does.’
‘No, they don’t. They never did, and especially not now.’
Kenzie looked over at him.
‘It wasn’t my sample on the test.’
‘What?’
‘Dad provided the sample so there would be no chance of the results being positive. He was setting you up.’
Kenzie stared at him. ‘Wow,’ Kenzie finally said, stunned. ‘That’s … kind of disturbing.’
‘There’s more,’ Ewan said in a low voice that caught her attention. ‘Callum isn’t my biological father.’
‘What?’
‘While he was trying to setyouup, he inadvertently exposed a dirty family secret. Everything kind of turned to crap once you left.’
Holy cow.‘That must have been a pretty big shock,’ she said slowly.
‘You could say that.’
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
