Adam’s Boys (8 page)

“I'll do it. I'll do everything you say,” Abbie blurted immediately.

Despite his cold demeanour, Adam looked taken aback at her swift and sure reply.

“Hang on, Abbie!” he protested after several seconds of visibly struggling to process her words. “This is not something you decide on the spur of the moment.”

“Yes you do,” Abbie replied, hearing more composure in her voice than she was feeling. “You think that's a choice? In one scenario I see less of Henry, and in the other I don't. That's not a choice. I'll be moved in by Saturday.”

And Abbie meant it.

What choice did she have? It was no muddier a decision than whether to breathe or not.

How could she ever choose to lose her son for even five minutes out of any week? And how could she deny Adam what he asked of her when he was entitled to see as much of Henry from then on as was humanly possible?

Yet despite everything she'd done to him, she despaired for herself living with a man who didn't care for her. And she despaired for him too, for thinking the living arrangements he was proposing could ever work.

“But you haven't thought through what it will mean,” Adam argued. “We'll be living together, you and me, as a couple—in all ways except the bedroom.”

“I know what it means. But as I said, I have no choice.”

“Okay then,” Adam replied huskily after watching her for several seconds, clearly trying to gauge whether she was of sound mind or not that night. But then pressing his lips together momentarily, he shook his head a little in despair.

“The cruelest irony in all this is that twenty-four hours ago I decided to ask you if we could put our past behind us and work together to encourage the friendship between the boys. But that was before I knew what you …” Adam stopped, all the while staring at her as though he was looking for something he'd lost. He bit down on his bottom lip and nodded his head a little as though making a private decision before he continued on. “Anyway, there's no use looking back. There are four bedrooms and three bathrooms here so there's plenty of room. My only concern is that it's not an orthodox situation for the boys to be in. But neither is Pete, Henry and I finding out about each other when Henry's nearly four years old. So frankly, I don't give a damn about orthodox.”

“Orthodox and my life are not especially good friends anyway,” Abbie thought out loud in a self-deprecating voice, and again Adam's expression flickered out of its rigidity for a sliver of a second.

“Anyway, that's enough for tonight,” he finished crisply.

With that Adam tipped his untouched coffee down the sink, placed the mug on the bench and began to walk in the direction of the front door. He was plainly intent on showing her out as soon as possible, but Abbie didn't move. She was too busy trying to get her head around the fact that she'd had all the anger, misery and despair she was going to get from him that night.

Well, she wasn't having it!

She'd waited for hours so that he could have his explosion, his breakdown, his tantrum—whatever he wanted to throw at her. Instead she'd received a cold-blooded judgement and a list of binding conditions. Then he'd simply moved off the bench in that judicial fashion of his. As far as he was concerned, the family law matter of Cooper and McCarthy was closed until he chose to open it again on whichever terms he thought necessary.

Abbie slipped off the stool but moved no further. Adam appeared at the door again, his eyes searching for her.

“Well? Are you going home or not?” he asked in unconcealed irritation.

“Not!” she shot at him, distracted by trying to tighten his oversized track pants around her waist again.

“Why not?”

“Because believe it or not,” she began hotly, continuing to struggle with the uncooperative drawstring. “I came here tonight to let you vent your spleen about me keeping Henry from you all these years. Damn these things!” Abbie shouted in explosive exasperation at the pants that were determined to move south to her ankles. Finally, letting them fall to her feet, she kicked them off in such a wild rage that that they flew across his kitchen and landed on the range hood, one of the legs dangling precariously over the stovetop.

Adam leant against the doorframe and crossed his arms. Those eyes of his that had deepened in colour that night to perfectly match his blue T-shirt slid with frosty focus down her bare legs until they reached her trainers.

“I'm under no obligation to display any emotion to you,” he began, the chilliness of his eyes matching his voice as he lifted them to lock with hers again. “I don't owe you anything.”

“You're right. You don't. And rest assured that you haven't shown me a modicum of emotion from the moment you walked out of my life all those years ago. But like it or not, I'm the mother of your child. And if you think I'm going to reach agreement with you on matters concerning Henry in that bloodless, ‘this is the way it is—take it or leave it' way of yours, then you can forget it. That's no way to responsibly parent any child.”

“Oh, is that right!” he scoffed in cutting derision, his powerful arms locking more tightly across his chest. “Then tell me, in which part of the pantomime in which you concealed a child from his father did you behave like the responsible parent?”

“I know I should have told you!” Abbie hurled at him, the anguish and tension building over the last few days finally erupting. “But when you washed me out of your life, I knew the last thing you would want was an unplanned pregnancy with a girl you never wanted to see again. And even though I intended to tell you—even though I went all the way to London to find you—once I saw the endless photos of you and Ellen and your perfect marriage spread all over the newspapers, I just couldn't go through with it—not then. Your name would have been mud—the public would have despised you forever, and so would Ellen's family. But I'll be honest; I wasn't only thinking of you. I was thinking of myself too, because I was frightened. I didn't want my life reduced to nothing more than the tart who took advantage of the golden-haired boy of London society during his three week stay in Sydney. And I certainly didn't want Henry's life being reduced to your nuisance illegitimate child.”

“It wouldn't have been like that!” Adam snapped, and at that moment Abbie knew she'd finally cracked him, his anger zipping like Catherine wheels around the room as he began to pace backwards and forwards as though half-demented.

“That's exactly how it would have been!” Abbie threw at him in breathless conviction, pacing by his side in a vain attempt to catch his eyes that were fixedly averted from hers. “Maybe not for you, but for everyone around you whose opinion you valued.”

“So even if that's your excuse for not telling me at first,” Adam retorted incredulously, “how can you ever justify your motives for keeping him from me after that?”

Abbie paused, digging deep for complete honesty. Although it was all too late Adam deserved at least that.

“The truth is that I didn't have a day arrive which seemed to be the right one to tell you about Henry. Maeve and I were managing and Henry was thriving. And to be honest, for a while I thought you might come … Anyway, that's all in the past. The fact is, it wasn't until Henry was seriously ill with meningitis that I finally woke up to the terrible thing I'd done to you both. The very day I returned to work after he'd recovered, Justin told me you were coming back to help him with the Sydney office. That's when I asked him to take me to the Incipio ball.”

“Jesus, Abbie!” Adam moaned in despair, ceasing his pacing for a moment to stare at her in agonised disbelief. “Henry had meningitis and I didn't even know it? And all I'm really hearing from you is that you assumed I wouldn't want my own son in my life, that you didn't want people to think badly of us, that you got used to not telling me. It's all about you, isn't it, Abbie? But what about Pete and Henry? You've kept them from each other their whole lives! And what about me? I'm the one who didn't share Henry's first smiles, his first words, his first steps …” But Adam stopped then, a strange choking sound preventing him from saying another word.

“I know what you and the boys have lost!” Abbie half wailed as she threw herself in his path and grabbed his arms to make him stop and look at her. “And I'll never forgive myself for taking that from you all. And you're right, I can be unforgivably stupid and selfish sometimes, but I'm trying not to be now. I really am.”

Adam stared at her before yanking away from her grip, throwing himself onto a nearby lounge chair in an exhausted sprawl and snarling, “Now there's a pointless waste of effort.”

“As pointless as you trying not to be the cold fish that you are?” she threw right back at him before she could stop herself. “Do you ever show any emotion, Adam? Any at all?” And horrified at finding herself in the middle of a slanging match when the best interests of two little boys were at stake, Abbie threw her arms up in the air in a gesture of hopelessness. She then announced that their conversation was over and headed for his front door.

But Abbie could sense that Adam had leapt out of his seat and was right behind her. Before she could reach for the door handle, he'd caught her arm and turned her around.

Instinctively she backed up against the wall, but he was right there in front of her, placing his hands on either side of her head, leaning in dangerously close. Suddenly filling her vision were those eyes of his, enticing her like the blue waters of Capri, cool and inviting but riddled with hidden caves of mystery.

“You think that I'm bloodless don't you, that I feel nothing?” he purred icily. “You're right. Except as a father, I don't feel anything—not since I watched Ellen being told she was going to die, knowing she'd never see her baby grow up, knowing she wouldn't live on in his memory. You try watching that unfold when you're the goddamn reason it got to that point in the first place. Then we'll see how well feeling comes out the other end for you.”

Abbie gaped at Adam, desperately searching for the meaning behind his shocking words of self-accusation, but it was useless. The answer skipped away from her as she made a mental grab for it—then it was gone for good.

“But you weren't cold and distant in those weeks we were together after Ellen died,” Abbie threw at him in heated despair. “You were warm. You needed people then. You needed me. But during our last days together that man disappeared. And now everything about you feels so measured and controlled and … so terribly unhappy. I get the sense that Ellen preoccupies you day and night. And although I truly believe there's such a thing as the love of one's life, the love of your life is gone. Surely Ellen would have wanted you to move on.”

“I don't need you, of all people, to tell me that I need to move on,” he threw at her in icy rebuttal. “But you're right about Ellen. She does preoccupy me, especially the promise I gave her that Pete would be happy.”

“Pete is important, but there has to be more!” Abbie retorted fiercely, shaking her head in strident rejection of the life sentence he'd handed down for himself. “What about finding love again? If not for yourself, at least think about Pete. How will he learn to ride the roller coaster of life if you never show him how to make it through the dips and bends of a loving relationship?”

“My life with Pete is full, despite what you think. We have our friends, our family back home, and now we have Henry. We don't need anything more than that.”

“But has there been no woman in your life since Ellen?” Abbie asked stunned. For even if Adam hadn't been interested, he was downright gorgeous enough to ensure that a long queue of enthusiastic females would have been ever-present in his life.

But then her pounding heart suddenly stopped beating, for he'd lifted his hands to cradle her jaw, his thumbs trailing along the line of her cheekbones, the white ice in his eyes transforming itself into white-hot fire.

“There have been others, but the only one who meant anything at all was you,” he finished in husky abstraction as he took a step closer to her. “Starting with the night I walked into Justin's apartment, out of my mind over losing Ellen, and walked out of there wanting you so badly I could hardly think straight. Does that not make me monstrous? If it doesn't, then I don't know what does.”

Trailing his fingers through her hair, he devoured her with his eyes. Meanwhile, his other hand had dropped to enclose her waist. And even though his haunted intensity frightened her, Abbie was hypnotised by his vivid reliving of the night they'd met. The night he'd taken that fateful step as they'd waited for the lift outside Justin's apartment, when he'd kissed her with an intensity that both terrified and thrilled her—the night, as he said, he'd become monstrous.

“I'll never really understand what happened between us,” he murmured wistfully, the pain like a ball and chain in his voice as he caressed her cheek with the back of his fingers. “But you were so incredibly vibrant and full of life; I'd been around sadness and loss for so long you were like a lightning strike to my senses. But when I got back to the UK it was as though I woke up from a dream. The guilt about what I'd done to Ellen … God, it was unbearable. And turning my back on my three-month-old son for three weeks is something I'll never forgive myself for. So I made the decision to wipe you out of my life and forget about you, and yet …” Adam stopped and swallowed hard.

“And yet what?” Abbie prompted, unable to tear her eyes from his hypnotic gaze.

“And yet I don't know that I could have kept going if I hadn't met you.”

“Why are you punishing yourself?” Abbie implored in quiet misery. She hated what he was doing to himself—hated what he was doing to her. “It was as much my fault as yours. I knew you were a mess—I should have stopped it happening. It was a terrible mistake.”