A Shameful Consequence(47)
‘And you let me keep looking? You’ve seen me searching …’ His mouth was in the shape of a smile, but she made no mistake that he was taking it well. She could see the muscles on his shoulders tighten, fury descended as he took it all in.
‘I didn’t know how to tell you.’
‘Well, darling, you’d better find the way now.’ It was no endearment. The word curled with disdain as he voiced it.
‘I found your birth certificate, the real one …’ There was no easier way to say it. ‘In my father’s office.’
Had he gone mad or had she?
How could she have known it had been his? It made no sense, and he didn’t want it to. The truth was nearly here and suddenly he didn’t want to know.
‘My father arranged …’ It wasn’t even been an adoption and her mind begged for a different word. ‘My father facilitated …’ And she searched for words that were kinder, tried to minimise even then what her father had done, but Nico did not wait for her to find the right words. Nico got straight to the brutal point.
‘He sold me.’
‘No.’ It was too hard, even now, to face. ‘A couple, your parents, wanted you. He arranged your birth certificate …’
‘He sold me.’
‘It wasn’t like that …’ She started to crumple, for she had seen the fees. She watched as he dressed, could feel the anger, the contempt, the rage that was building and would soon explode. She pulled the sheet around herself, wrapped it around her and held it tight as he demanded that she be honest. ‘Yes,’ she sobbed, ‘yes.’ She covered her face. ‘Yes, he sold you.’
It was true, and now he knew it, and he knew too why he didn’t belong—his father had swanned in and bought him, thought a baby was his God-given right. His father had taken him from his parents and he was taking from him now, because how could they come back from this?
‘There’s something else …’
Now, please now, silently he pleaded to a mind that was racing. Tell me I have a son, that I do have a family, a real one. Adrenaline coursed and he begged for reprieve, his head felt as if it were splintering. He could see her on the bed and he wanted to go back in there; he did not want it to be true. He wanted her and he wanted Leo, he wanted the family he had never been allowed to have.
‘You have a brother.’ Her words came like aftershocks, each one more violent than the last. He was pulling on his clothes and still the earth was moving. ‘A twin.’
And he wanted it to stop, his anger taking aim, loss sweeping in, because always you lost, in love you lost.
‘I should have told you!’ she attempted. ‘I wanted to.’
‘There are so many things you haven’t told me,’ Nico shouted. ‘So many things that I had every right to know.’ He stood there, her accuser, and she sat guilty with shame but confused by his next question. ‘Say it.’
‘Say what?’
‘Oh, please …’ He could not believe that she didn’t know what he was referring to. ‘When are you going to tell me? Through a lawyer? Perhaps your father could draft the letter and tell me what I have to pay, in cash this time, because he’s already taken everything else.’
She knew then he was talking about Leo as he raged on. ‘When I came to your door, when I brought you here.’ Nico’s anger was growing now. ‘Still you said nothing and now, even now, you sit there are refuse to tell me the truth!’
‘Tell you!’ It was Connie who was shouting now, Connie sitting there with anger growing inside her. ‘We both know that it’s eight o’clock.’
‘What are you talking about?
‘There’s a clock by this bed and we can both see it, so why would you ask me the time? Do you want to split hairs? Do you want to say if it’s a.m. or p.m.—when we both know?’
‘I’m talking about Leo,’ Nico roared. ‘I’m talking about my son!’
‘Your son,’ Connie said. ‘I am supposed to formally say it? What, will you demand DNA?’ She could not match his anger but still hers was growing. Indignantly she ripped the sheet around her and stood, looked into his eyes and wanted to slap him. ‘How dare you doubt me in this,’ Connie sneered. She the injured party now. ‘How dare you stand there and demand that I say that Leo is your son? I was a virgin, Nico, I had slept only with you and I have loved only you …’ She stopped then because love did not count with him, love was the thing he did not want. Clearly did not want it, for he was walking out the door. ‘Where are you going?’ She had thought he’d want more answers, that he’d demand every detail, but realisation dawned and she ran at him and tried to halt him.