Finding Zoe (Atlantic Divide) (3 page)

“Sit down.”

“He’s my dad?”

“Sit down, sweetie.”

She was aware of Mac moving, sitting heavily down on his own chair. She heard the table groan as he leaned his arms on it and huffed out a breath.

“I don’t want to sit.” Ryan stared across the table at Mac, lip curled, eyes mutinous. “How can
you
be my dad?” Snarling, he stepped forward, bared his little white teeth at Mac, and with a jolt, Zoe realized she’d never seen her son so upset and angry, and she’d never seen him so defensive, either.

“You’ve made my mum sad. You didn’t want us before, we don’t want you now. Go away.”

“Ryan.” Her father had come to stand beside her as he spoke for the first time, his voice soft, quiet, and undeniably powerful. Ryan’s head whipped around to look at him accusingly.

“Did you know, Granddad? Did you know who my dad was?”

Her father nodded.

“Yes. It was for your own protection. And his. Now sit down, Ryan.” In control, Emory stepped forward, stroked his hand across his grandson’s shoulder soothingly, and let the child sit. Sat in the chair next to him, his eyes solemn.

Mac remained silent. She felt his eyes on her and couldn’t look at him. Didn’t want to see the unfounded accusation there. She had to concentrate on breathing and staying in control. On helping her son to understand why he had never known who his father was, ensuring she took care not to cast blame. Because if she started to blurt out the truth of the story, she knew she’d never be able to stop until the vitriol and the pain spewed hot and wild out of her. Bitterness and agony she’d believed was behind her surged to the surface, wanting its freedom. Freedom she couldn’t afford it to have.

From this moment on, her child needed a relationship with his father. Whether she liked it or not—and she understood—to poison their relationship would mean they were all doomed.

Pretending to be calm in the face of such upheaval actually gave her the strength to face her son. After all, it was not about her issue with Mac but about damage control for her son’s sake.

“Ryan.” She leaned forward and reached out her hand to touch his knee. “Mac and I…your father and I, we thought we were in love.” Mac snorted and she glared at him. He stared back in stony silence. She knew she’d been in love. It was pretty obvious he hadn’t. But if he hurt her son, she was going to rip his heart out and dissect it with her scalpel on the table in front of him before he had the chance to stop breathing. He met her narrowed eyes, twitched an eyebrow as he heeded her unspoken warning and drew back.

“We were wrong and we parted. Mac didn’t know I was pregnant with you. He had no idea, Ryan; I chose not to tell him.” She knew she couldn’t let Mac take the blame for that part of it. “He married shortly after, and it would have been wrong to let him know. Unfair on him and his new wife.” Albeit a wife who only lasted a period of roughly six months, but she didn’t need to impart that little nugget to her son.

She reached out for Ryan’s hands, saw the confusion and anger whirl in his eyes. “I know it’s hard for you to understand, but Mac—your dad—was just starting as an actor, then he shot to fame so quickly he was all over the newspapers. And you know, he has been ever since. You know what an amazing success he is. You’ve watched every single film he ever made.” She failed to mention she had too. “Back then, he was just beginning to be a success. It would have damaged his reputation. It would have ruined our lives. We would never have been able to live in peace.”

“I might not have wanted to live in peace. I might have wanted to know my dad.” His voice was truculent, but there was less conviction.

“We did what we believed was best for all of us. Grandma died shortly after I knew I was having you, and we wanted to be alone. I needed to go to university, and we didn’t want to attract attention.” She paused, soothed her fingers over the palms of his cold, stiff hands and realized, in the face of his distress, her own shaking had stopped.

“Perhaps it was wrong of me not to have contacted Mac by now and let him know—” She rolled her eyes as Mac grunted in agreement and thought she might just take pleasure in using a scalpel on him anyway. “But we’re all here now and perhaps we can sort something out.”

She gently grasped Ryan’s hands and coaxed him toward her as she sat back in the upright chair, pulling him into her arms to snuggle his long, gangly body into hers as she looked over his head, straight at Mac. “Something we can all agree on. With the least disruption to all our lives.”

Mac crossed his arms over his huge chest; his mouth tightened, reminding her of Ryan when he was at his most belligerent. Hysteria bubbled, and her breath hitched, ending with a loud hiccup that accidentally exploded from her lips. Ryan’s head reared up.

“Don’t be upset, Mum. We’ll work something out, won’t we, Cormack?”

Tears of pride filled her eyes as she realized how mature her little boy was. Only ten, and he seemed to have a better emotional grasp on the situation than Mac did.

“Sure we will, kid. I’m filming here for the next four months. I’m sure we can work something out.” Mac surged to his feet as though panic suddenly seized him, and he filled the kitchen with his sheer size. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll be in touch.” He reached his hand out as though he were about to touch Ryan’s head, and then obviously thought better of it. He let it drop, then tucked it into his jeans pocket.

She watched him depart and closed her eyes as she hugged Ryan to her chest, kissed the top of his head, and silently prayed it was going to be all right.

*

Well, bloody, buggering wotsits.

Ryan stood in front of the bathroom mirror. He met his own eyes, lifted his black eyebrow, and angled his chin. He’d always known he looked just like him. All the kids at school said so. He gave a small smile, twitched his eyebrow, and nodded twice, slowly. Oh yeah, Cormack Blunt. Reincarnated. Bigger and better than before.

He grinned to himself and squeezed hard on the tube of toothpaste, watched the blue stuff gloop out of the tube and drizzle down the inside of the sink. Mum hated it when he did that. He swiped his toothbrush through it and scrubbed at his teeth, looking in the mirror as the foam expanded and seeped out of his mouth.

His tummy felt strange. Bubbling and rolling. Not like he needed a good fart. He’d never had this feeling before. It was like when he did something a bit dangerous and he felt anxious, but bigger, because he felt happy and excited and…

His mum wasn’t happy, though. She’d looked worried, and Granddad had his hard face on. The one he used sometimes when he’d had to put one of the dogs to sleep and he didn’t want anyone to know he was upset.

His best friend Jason always said grown-ups were bloody nitwits. Jason’s mum always had lots of different boyfriends. They were assholes.

Ryan glanced in the mirror at the open doorway just in case his mum could hear his brain swearing. Mums could do that. They had mind control. She could control everything; she’d even controlled action hero Cormack Blunt.

Cormack Blunt hadn’t known about him, but he did now. It made his tummy flutter all over again.

It was official. Mac wanted her son. She knew that biologically Ryan also belonged to Mac, but he was hers. She’d borne him, raised him, nurtured him, and loved him. What the hell had Mac ever done? It was beside the point he hadn’t known about him. You shouldn’t be able to walk into a ten-year-old’s life and say “I want him, he’s mine” when you had nothing to do with his birth or his upbringing.

Now Mac’s solicitors were demanding DNA tests. And the birth certificate.

Disgusted after coming to what she had believed a semi-amicable agreement, it appeared solicitors were already involved up to their armpits in Mac’s business.

She had no idea what the law stated in America about fathers’ rights, but she’d looked them up in the U.K. It appeared he had no rights unless he proved Ryan’s DNA, found the birth certificate, and applied for parental rights through a court of law. The process required her agreement.

She had no doubt he could do it, though. Or get his expensive lawyers to do it for him, more likely. He was a multimillionaire. He had plenty of money to throw at them, while in comparison she had virtually none.

She chewed on her thumbnail as she agonized over what to do. Her chest ached with all the sighing she’d done over the last few days. On one hand, she wanted to turn back time and let life roll on the way it had; peaceful and quiet with just her, Ryan, and her father. But the moment she’d seen Mac, she’d known things were about to change.

Change they had.

She leaned out of the car window and scanned the vast array of fields, able to see for miles over the rolling Shropshire plains.

She didn’t know exactly where he was filming or staying, but it couldn’t be difficult to find out. The place was probably in a furor if she cared to look close enough. It’s what she intended to do. Track him down.

She pacified herself with the thought that at least he wanted to share. He was only asking for visitation rights. He hadn’t said he wanted to take Ryan away from her. Not yet, but the paparazzi had feeding frenzies, and she hoped to God he wouldn’t be influenced by them, pressured into trying to take his son. The son he hadn’t even attempted to see yet.

She was going to have to find him. Glancing at her watch, she sucked air in through her teeth and tapped the steering wheel. Just not today. She had to get back home for her son coming in from school. Putting her car in gear, she gave one final glance across the landscape before she made her way home.

Ryan was hurt. A confused little boy. It had been five days since Mac had descended upon them. Since then, no contact. Nothing. Apart from the lawyer’s letter, which she folded and slipped back into her jeans pocket as Ryan came in from school, his backpack dragging on the floor as his feet scuffed.

“No one believes me.” His bottom lip poked out. His black eyes, framed with thick, sooty lashes, looked at her in abject misery, and her heart ached for him. “The teacher told me not to lie.” The ache stuttered to a halt, turned to mild irritation. “She said it was bad to lie, and I should be old enough to know better than to encourage my classmates to believe in a fantasy world.” Irritation evolved into annoyance as she smiled, ran a hand over his hair, gritted her teeth, and offered him a piece of chocolate cake.

Distracted momentarily, he scooped it up, pushed it into his mouth, and spoke around it as she rolled her eyes.

“Jason said I was talking bollocks!”

She offered him a tissue to wipe his mouth.

“Well, Jason would, sweetie, but it’s not a word we use in this house.” Not within earshot anyway.

“I know. He’s a little sod!”

She almost choked. That was a new one for her, but her son appeared to be sucking in swear words at the moment. She wasn’t sure she could directly blame Mac, but bloody hell, cursing seemed to be more prolific in their household than it had been prior to his visit. Even her father had issued the odd blasphemy in front of her. In fact, it was probably where that latest one came from.

“Mrs. Todd made me stay in at lunchtime, said I had to learn the difference between f…f…fantasy and umm…” He rolled his eyes, thinking of the word. “Reality.”

Her jaw ached as she plastered on a smile for her son. “Don’t speak with your mouth full, Ryan. Drink your milk.”

She knew it wasn’t the done thing to bludgeon a teacher, but she was sorely tempted. Had the woman taken him aside, spoken to him? Tried to understand why he was telling people a movie star was his father? She’d never been particularly possessive before, but bloody Mac was making her neurotic. It wasn’t the teacher who needed bludgeoning but bloody Cormack Blunt.

She ran a hand over her weary eyes.

“I’ll speak with Mrs. Todd tomorrow, let her know the situation. I’ll put things straight.”

She was going to have to see Mac as soon as possible. Now, in fact. She glanced at her watch. It would be impossible; her father wasn’t home, and she could hardly drag Ryan with her. Watching the live burial of his newfound father was probably not in the top ten things you should allow your child to witness.

Bloody man.

“Mum, don’t forget I’m going to Chester Zoo tomorrow. We have to be at school at eight. I need a packed lunch.”

“Oh I’d forgotten, sweetie. It’ll be a lovely day. I’ll ring Mrs. Todd on Thursday. It’ll be easier to speak with her then.” Great, she had forgotten, but there was bread in the freezer and chicken in the fridge. She could drop him off at eight. It would give her plenty of time to go stalk a movie star.

* * * *

He was probably still asleep; after all, he was a movie star, a…what was it? A superhero.
Some superhero
, she thought as she sneaked around the static trailers. It hadn’t been very difficult to find the movie set; you could see them for miles. Those flat Shropshire plains she perused yesterday had hardly done much to disguise dozens of static trailers.

Mr. Blunt, however, proved a little more difficult to track down. Unfortunately, hotels weren’t in the habit of telling young women whether or not mega movie stars were in residence.

It was easier to go to the set and loiter until he appeared. It couldn’t be difficult; in fact, it was Mac who had taught her how.

The last time she’d sneaked around a film set, she’d been eighteen. She’d had to run four miles across the fields to get there because she hadn’t had a car. Most of the time it had been easier for Mac to get away. He’d been twenty-one with a driving license and turned up in a different car each time. She smiled as she thought he’d probably boosted them back then. He’d hardly been a star. He’d had some small support part which the producers had suddenly expanded halfway through the film as they’d realized he had more than just a little potential, together with a leading lady who had taken a shine to him.

It wasn’t so easy any more, she thought as she climbed between the strands of barbed wire, feeling the pinch of it as it caught the back of her shirt. Holding her breath, she waited a moment and then dipped down, her face almost touching the bottom wire. It hadn’t seemed such a big deal years ago; it had been exciting. Now, she wondered what would happen if she got caught. Or if pictures of her shimmying underneath security fencing to get to the hunk were published all over the local newspapers. She could just see the headlines now: LOCAL VET STALKS CORMACK BLUNT—SCALPEL AT THE READY!