The Secretary's Secret / Rodeo Daddy: The Secretary's Secret / Rodeo Daddy

She could almost see him replay the doctor’s words through his mind. No stress, no worry.

She folded her arms. ‘Look, I’m going to worry about this until we sort it out. Either you let me stew about it all night or we can talk now.’

For a moment she thought he was going to refuse, get up and walk away. ‘Can we keep this calm?’ he finally asked instead.

‘We’re adults, aren’t we?’ she countered.

He surveyed her for a long moment. It took a concerted effort not to fidget under those dark inscrutable eyes. ‘Okay, Kit.’ He nodded. ‘Once the child is born I want a paternity test carried out. If the child is mine then I’ll arrange for child support payments.’

She kept her voice perfectly polite. ‘No.’

He leant forward. ‘What do you mean, no? I have every right to demand a paternity test.’

‘Really?’ Even though she’d steeled herself for this, she was still surprised at how much his distrust hurt. ‘Just for argument’s sake, let’s say that we do get the test done and you discover that the baby is yours, and, believe me, Alex, that is what you’ll find out. But once you have incontrovertible proof, what is it going to change? Are you going to want visitation rights? Are you going to be a real father to this baby?’

He turned ashen. ‘No, but I’ll at least make sure that financially you and the baby are taken care of.’

‘You can take your blood money and sod off, Alex!’ She abandoned all pretence at politeness. ‘I can look after this baby on my own—financially and otherwise.’

‘It is my duty to provide financial support. It’s a legal requirement.’

‘It’s your duty to be a proper father, but it’s obvious that moral requirements don’t figure on your radar! So you can take your legal requirements and stuff them up your shirt for all I care.’

She wanted to drop her head to her knees and weep for her unborn child.

‘I can’t believe you’re prepared to turn your back like that on your own child, Alex. And I can’t believe that you could accuse me of lying about this, of—’

‘I’m not accusing you of anything!’

‘Yes, you are!’

He swore, scrubbed both hands down his face. ‘Hell, Kit, this isn’t about you.’

‘Not about me? How can you—’

‘I’ve been lied to once before.’

The world tilted to one side for a moment before righting itself again. Kit moistened her lips. When she could speak again she asked, ‘When? Who … ?’ Who would do such a thing?

‘My ex-wife.’

Her own hurt vanished. Just like that.

His face had gone unreadable, impassive. She suddenly found that she wanted to cry for him too. ‘What happened?’

He dropped his head to his hands. For a long moment Kit didn’t think he’d answer. Finally, he dragged both hands down his face and straightened. ‘Jacqueline and I had been married for fifteen months when she fell pregnant. She told me the baby was mine and I had no reason to doubt her. We’d dated for over a year before we married.’

He’d loved a woman once, enough to marry her? She rubbed at her arms but it couldn’t erase the sting that bloomed across her skin.

His mouth tightened. ‘It never occurred to me that she’d lie. And God help me, but when I found out she was pregnant I couldn’t wait to hold my son. We called him Chad.’

Kit’s spine lost all its strength. Her hands crept up to cover her mouth. Before her eyes, Alex aged. His skin lost its colour. The lines around his mouth and eyes grew more pronounced. Shadows took up residence in his eyes. She dragged her hands back down to her lap, gripped them together. ‘When did you find out the truth?’

‘Not until Chad was two.’

Her mouth went dry. Alex had spent two years, not to mention the nine months of the pregnancy, loving his son—his Chad—and giving his heart to him completely? He didn’t have to say that out loud—the evidence was written in every line of his body, in the grief that twisted his mouth and made his shoulders slump.

‘Oh, Alex! What happened?’

‘She took him away.’

She had to gulp back a sob at the raw pain in his voice.

‘She had paternity tests carried out and they proved that I … ‘

‘But you’d raised him. You loved him!’ The words burst from her. ‘Alex, you must’ve had rights.’

‘She and her lover—Chad’s biological father—left before I’d gathered my wits. They fled to South America.’

Kit stared at him. No! This episode in his life—it couldn’t end like this. Alex had loved that little boy. That little boy would’ve loved Alex.

‘The legal advice I received wasn’t promising. After all, what legal rights did I really have?’ His face twisted. ‘Oh, I had the money to drag the case through the courts for years, but in the end who would I really be hurting?’

Chad. The knowledge sucked the air out of her lungs. He’d done what was best for the little boy he loved, but it hadn’t given him an ounce of comfort. It had left a deep and lasting scar.

‘Don’t cry for me, Kit.’

It wasn’t until he reached across to brush her tears away with the pad of his thumb that she realized she was crying.

‘I’m not worth it.’

Wasn’t he? Suddenly she wasn’t so sure.

‘Because the fact is, no matter what I tell myself, I can’t go through that again.’

A weight settled in the middle of her chest.

‘I once had a son, Kit, and now I don’t. So you see, the paternity test, it isn’t about you, it’s about me. If your child is mine I will do what is legally required, but nothing more.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

ALEX strode out to the dark of the back garden and tried to draw air into his lungs.

He hadn’t meant to tell Kit about Chad. He didn’t talk about Chad. To anyone.

His gut clenched. He strode down to the back fence to wrap his fingers around the hard bark of the banksia tree until they started to burn and ache. He hadn’t realized how much Kit’s inability to fathom his previous treatment of her had plagued her, tormented her, had her questioning her own judgement and doubting herself. His mouth filled with acid. This was why he should have been more careful in the first place—resisted the temptation she’d presented, the lure of a life that he knew could never be his. But her sunshine had touched his soul, and for a short time he had been lost.

And she’d paid the price.