Revealed: His Secret Child (14 page)

“Why not? I get the feeling it might be my best chance against you.”

He straightened. “Carter exaggerated.”

“Your ability or your mood?”

“Both.” He stepped back from the table, gestured with an open palm for her to take her shot.

“I haven't played in a long time.”

“I didn't know you'd played at all.”

Just another example of all that was unknown and uncertain between them. “Only enough to know the basics.”

She leaned low and drew her arm back. Sensation tingled and she glanced back to see Max watching her. Trying to block out the disconcerting intensity of his scrutiny, she retrained her
gaze along her cue. She played her shot, sending the white into the side of the triangle of balls, scattering them haphazardly. And sinking none of them.

Max walked the length of the table, stopping at the far end. He made his shot, sinking first one and then a second ball.

“Are we going to talk?” she asked.

“Nothing to talk about.” He moved along the table, his concentration absolute. He leaned down to line up his next shot, a frown creasing his brow.

“I don't think Carter exaggerated.”

She wasn't even certain he'd heard her. She needed to get through to him, needed to find a chink in his armor. Gillian leaned opposite him, resting her forearms on the edge of the table so that when he sighted along his cue he got a view of her gently gaping blouse, a glimpse of the cream lace beneath it.

His frown deepened. “At least Carter doesn't play dirty.” But he looked a little longer before taking, and missing, his shot.

It was her turn and Gillian leaned over the table.

“Nice,” Max murmured from where he stood behind her.

She felt him move nearer, felt his hands close around her hips. She played her shot—badly—sinking nothing, then set her cue down, straightened and turned to him, recognizing the heat in his eyes.

“I can lock the door.”

If she said yes she would bridge the distance between them. They would connect—physically, but it would be a way of avoiding rather than dealing with what was bothering him. “We can't keep using sex to gloss over things between us.”

His hands skimmed her hips and waist, slid up till he linked his fingers behind her neck. “We can.”

Already she felt herself responding to his touch. “You heard what I said to Kristan?”

He released her and stepped back.

“About wanting more children.”

Max picked up his cue and studied the table. He bent and drew back his arm.

“I didn't mean for you to hear that.”

He sank the red ball cleanly.

“I do want more children. But it's hypothetical.”

He sank another ball and lined up his next shot.

Gillian stepped in to cover the white ball with her hand, forcing him to pay attention. “It's not like I'm ready or even thinking of more children now or ever. It's just a wish. Like wanting world peace. I know things are far too uncertain between us to bring another child into the mix. I know you're not ready.” She slid the ball back and forth across the green baize. “I know that you might never be. And I'm okay with that.” Finally, she let go of the ball and looked at him.

“Thank you.” The words were clipped. He played his shot.

Instead of reassuring him, all she'd achieved was to drive a wedge further between them.

She hadn't expected him to say anything encouraging, give some kind of hint that one day, perhaps, they could be a proper family, because that wasn't what he wanted. But damn it, her foolish heart had hoped anyway. The foolish heart that was just laying itself open to be trodden on.

She turned from the table and placed her cue back in the rack.

The dawning awareness that she'd been trying to hold at bay—like resisting an incoming tide—crashed through her defenses.

She loved him.

She loved him with every breath she took. Loved everything about him. His strengths and his wounds, his honor and humor and passion. And he wanted to withhold all that from her.
Wanted to shut himself off. To give her only meager parcels of who and what he was, who and what he could be, if only he let himself.

Her throat tightened.

Behind her, she heard the door open and close.

T
heir trip back to Vista del Mar was strained and silent. As soon as they'd put Ethan to bed, Max went out.

Gillian listened for his return and ached for a way to close the distance she'd brought between them. It was late before she heard his tread on the stairs. He hesitated outside her door. Since they'd first resumed their physical relationship he'd slept every night in here with her. She held her breath—let it out when finally, finally, her door swung open.

And when she turned to him in the darkness and they made love, she tried to give him with her body and her touch what he wouldn't let her give him in words.

He'd made it clear from the outset that his love wasn't on offer. But surely hers was her domain, her right to feel and to give.

It wasn't as though she'd intended to fall in love with him. It had happened on its own, like a seed that had fallen into the earth where no one expected it to grow that germinated and
flourished till it was a living, thriving thing that wouldn't be denied. One moment she'd thought there was no room in her heart for anyone other than Ethan and the next, this man was there. Max.

He might not want to hear the words, but she could think them. She couldn't not. Couldn't deny the fundamental, lonely truth of them.

He didn't have to love her back. It would be unfair to expect that, even if she couldn't stop a rebellious corner of her heart hungering for it regardless.

 

“Where's Daddy?” Ethan asked as she tucked him into bed three days later.

“He's at work, honey.” It might have been the truth or it might not. Work was certainly the reason he'd given Gillian for his long absences. But given that the extended hours dated from that day at his parents' she had to assume there was more to it than just work.

He left early in the morning. Usually came back for dinner with Ethan, and then went out again. Tonight he hadn't even made it back for dinner or bath time. Ethan had asked twice already for him.

It was hard to see it as anything other than a rejection of her. Not Ethan, she knew it wasn't that, though she only hoped their son wasn't picking up on Max's tension around her.

She turned at the sound of footsteps to see Max filling Ethan's doorway.

“Hi.” His greeting encompassed both her and Ethan. He walked slowly in and sat on the bed beside her.

“Read me a story, please, Daddy.”

Gillian watched his face, tried to read his body language. “I've just finished one, so you don't have to if you don't have time.”

His gaze narrowed on her. “Of course I have time.” He
turned to Ethan. “Which do you choose,
Goodnight Moon
or
The Little Yellow Digger?
”

“The Digger, The Digger.”

“Okay, then.” He started reading, finding the gentle rhythm of the story. By the time he got to the end of the book Ethan's eyes were drifting closed.

Gillian and Max stood. She leaned down to hug and kiss their son. “I love you, Ethan.”

He wrapped his arms around her neck. “I love you, Mommy.”

Max bent down to kiss him. “I love you, Daddy,” Ethan said as he hugged Max.

She saw Max's arms tighten around Ethan but he said nothing. Ethan had no expectation of a response so didn't notice its absence as he pulled his blue blanket up under his cheek.

Gillian and Max walked down the stairs.

On the bottom stair she stopped. “And, Max.”

He turned back to her, his face blank.

“I love you, too.” She couldn't go on pretending she didn't. She needed to say the words out loud. Needed him to hear them from her. Unlike Ethan, she did have an expectation of a response, or a reaction, something, anything. More than the working of a muscle in his jaw. She tried to make it easy for him, tried to find a way to make this work, to get past the dread in his expression. “I know you might never love me back,” she said quietly. “But that's okay. Really it is. Just don't leave us.”

“I'm not leaving. I told you that when I moved in here.”

“I meant emotionally. Please. Ethan needs you. And I need you.”

Max studied her, a mix of horror and pain in his expression. He backed away from her till his hand rested on the door handle.

“Stay.”

“I have to go out.”

Looked a lot like leaving—running—to her.

Gillian watched him go. Prayed for him to stop and turn around. As he got into his car and drove away, the gaping hole in her chest yawned wider. She'd thought she could do this, love enough for both of them. She'd thought she could give love and not need it back. Her jaw tightened and her throat locked up.

 

The blood still rushed in his ears and his heart still pounded as Max sat on the high stool at the far end of the bar at the Beach and Tennis Club.

“Whiskey,” he said a minute later when he looked up from the polished mahogany to see the bartender waiting in front of him.

The murmur of conversation rose and fell around him. Upbeat music played through the sound system, a prelude to a night of socializing and dancing for the club's patrons.

Upbeat was the last thing he felt.

His whiskey arrived and he stared into the golden-brown liquid. For a time, in his late teens, he'd tried drinking as a way to deal with his problems. It hadn't worked then. And he knew it wouldn't work now.

But it might make the problems go away for a while.

He took a sip, savored the slow warmth. How had it come to this? He'd had a plan. A good plan. Marry Gillian, be a father to Ethan, be a presence in their lives.

But not their hearts.

He didn't want them to need him or love him. And worse, he didn't want to need or love them back. He
couldn't
love them back.

He carried his glass across to the wide windows, to stand in a dimly lit corner. Night had fallen and the other patrons had
turned away from the dark vista of the ocean. Max welcomed that forever endlessness. Yet still it felt as though walls were closing in on him and a band was tightening around his chest.

“Didn't expect to see you here.”

He turned at the sound of Chase Larson's voice.

“I heard you'd gotten married.”

Max glanced at his left hand and the gold ring on his finger. “Yeah.”

“Congratulations. Everything going all right?”

Which Max translated as “What the hell are you doing drinking alone in a bar when you have a beautiful wife and son at home waiting for you?” And she would be waiting. And she would ask no questions, make no accusations. She offered only acceptance and warmth and understanding. And love.

And he didn't want that.

He wanted barriers. He wanted protection. He wanted things to be simple.

But none of that was anything he was prepared to discuss with Chase. He glanced beyond Chase, saw his pregnant wife, Emma, sitting and laughing at a table with several other people. She had that glow that being deeply in love gave some women.

Unlike the look that supposedly being in love with him gave Gillian. A look of someone waiting for bad news.

“Emma's doing okay?” Just two months ago Emma had been involved in a car crash.

“She and the growing baby bump are doing great.” Warmth suffused Chase's voice and face. Turned out men could get that same madly-in-love look. Max shook his head. Who knew.

Chase raised the glass of orange juice he held. “I'd better get this over to her.”

“Sure. Good talking to you.” Max hid his relief. He needed thinking time.

“You, too.” Chase turned, stopped and turned back. “I might be out of line here but…well, life can be pretty unpredictable. You never know what's around the corner. Finding and then almost losing Emma has taught me to appreciate every day, every minute, every second I have with her.”

“I'm glad for you.” Really, he was.

Chase's smile was pitying. “You're a smart man. You'll figure it out.” He strolled toward Emma's table.

Max looked back down at his whiskey. He, more than anyone, knew how unpredictable life could be. How someone could be ripped from you before you'd even stopped to think about how much they meant to you.

Gillian shouldn't have said what she did. She shouldn't have said she loved him. For all the world he didn't want to hurt her. He'd warned her.

He caught his reflection in the glass, saw for an instant Dylan's eyes. Dylan who'd been afraid of nothing, who teased and pushed. And his brother laughingly whispered “coward” in his ear.

Coward?

The sounds of the bar ebbed and flowed around Max, leaving him in a pocket of utter stillness and clarity. Comprehension rushed in, overpowering the denial.

It wasn't Gillian he was afraid of hurting.

It was, he understood with blinding clarity, about protecting the shell of a life he'd been living. It was about fear.

His fear of loving.

That was why he'd fought the rising tide of emotions he felt for her. Because he didn't want to feel anything at all. Because the greater the love, the greater the pain of loss.

But if he carried on behaving like an idiot—doing the very thing he'd assured her he'd never do, proving all her initial doubts about him right—he
would
lose her. And that loss would be insurmountable.

Because he loved her, whether he'd wanted to or not.

This feeling he'd fought so hard to deny pulsed through him with every beat of his heart, permeated him with every breath he took.

Love.

She'd offered it tonight and he'd walked away from it. From her. From a woman who was so much more than he deserved.

He turned from the window and raced for the door.

He had to get back to her.

And he had to find a way to convince her he was staying. For good.

 

Mrs. McDonald, knitting in hand, had come over as soon as Gillian called her. She'd been going quietly insane stuck inside the house waiting—hoping—for Max's return.

She drove slowly to the beach and parked in the same lot she and Max had used when he'd brought her here for a picnic.

The view over the darkened sea was supposed to help give her perspective.

It did. But small and insignificant wasn't the perspective she'd wanted.

How did she find a way forward from here? For herself and for Ethan and for Max. She should never have questioned where their relationship was going, she should never have given voice, even in private, to her wish for more children. But most of all she shouldn't have told him she loved him. She had broken all the rules.

A dark gleaming sedan pulled alongside her car. She muttered her irritation with the lone driver. The whole deserted lot and he had to park right beside her. The driver got out.

Max?

He tugged on the handle of her locked passenger door. She
considered ignoring him but what would that achieve except prolong the inevitable? He had something he wanted to say to her. She may as well let him get it over with.

Taking a deep breath, she hardened herself against him and pressed the button for the central locking. Max opened the door and a chill wind swept in. He eased in beside her and shut the door. Shutting out the wind, shutting her in the confined space of her car with him and bringing with him the faint scent of Eternity.

“What are you doing here?” Wasn't that the very same question she'd asked him the first time she saw him just a few short weeks ago? Weeks that would turn her life upside down and inside out.

“We need to talk.”

And that could well have been his same answer. An answer that back then had sent her world careening down the unforeseen path. What new path would tonight's “talk” send them down? She could hardly bear to think. “You don't need to say anything.”

“Yes, I do. And you need to listen to it. I've made some changes.”

Her heart plummeted. A path over a precipice? She stared straight ahead. Even though the engine wasn't running and she was going nowhere, she gripped the wheel. It gave her something to hold on to. The illusion of control.
Please just let him get this over with quickly.
She waited, frowning at the ocean.

“I bought a new car. Actually, I bought two. I have a friend who's a dealer.”

That statement was so vastly different from what she'd been expecting, so seemingly inappropriate, that she turned to him for verification.

What was she supposed to say?
How nice for you.
The car's badge glinted in the glow from the streetlight.

He studied her face. “They've both got four doors,” he said as though that was supposed to mean something.

This was getting stranger and stranger. Surely he hadn't tracked her to here to tell her about his nighttime vehicle purchases.

Max looked up at the roof for a second. “I'm not doing this right.”

“If I'm supposed to understand what you're talking about then no, you're not doing it right.”

“The day I first moved in with you I asked what it would take to make you believe that I was going to stay. One of things you said was trading in the coupe for something more suitable for a child. I did.”

She remembered that conversation, remembered how back then she hadn't thought he had what it would take to be a part of their lives.

“And it's a hybrid. Better for the environment. I'm thinking of the future. Of all our children and of our grandkids.”

Of all our children and of our grandkids.
Now, darn it, hope was flickering. “You're not leaving?”

“How many times do I have to tell you that?” he asked gently. “No, I'm not leaving. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

“I thought I'd panicked you with…what I'd said.”

“That you love me?” She nodded.

His smile was soft. “You did. But in a good way—eventually. In a way that forced me to think things through and come to some realizations and to make some decisions about us and about our future.”