She moved away from him, sitting down on the settee and moving her head restlessly from side to side.
‘Nicky and I don’t need you.’
‘You may not, but Nicky does,’ he corrected. ‘He needs a father.’
‘Then I’ll find him one,’ Briony announced tartly, gasping in protest as his fingers fastened cruelly round her fingers. She had made a tactical error, and Kieron’s eyes betrayed it. He would never let her give his son a stepfather.
‘You little bitch!’ he breathed angrily. ‘You would do as well, just to spite me, wouldn’t you? Well, two can play at that game. Nicky is my son and I want him badly enough to take you as well if I have to, but if you won’t agree then I’ll find Nicky another mother. One who can be at home with him all day to make sure he doesn’t go falling out of trees,’ he taunted cruelly. ‘In custody cases the court’s prime concern is for the child. I could give him the security of two parents; not a mother who has to leave him with child-minders while she goes out to work. I’m sure you don’t need to use much imagination to know who the court would favour?’
How could he be so cruel? A sob rose in her throat, to be instantly suppressed. She must stay calm if she was to win the fight for Nicky. She must use logic and clear-sighted arguments.
‘Until today you didn’t even know he existed,’ she persisted. ‘How can you say you want him?’
‘Didn’t you, the first moment you set eyes on him?’ he asked softly.
Her expression betrayed her.
‘I’d never have given birth to him if I’d known it would come to this!’ she spat bitterly, shocked into silence as he pulled her out of her seat and shook her until her teeth rattled.
‘Don’t ever let me hear you say that again!’ he grated furiously. ‘If I thought for a moment you meant it you’d be out of here before you could turn round—without my child!’
The unfairness of it all galled her. He had fathered Nicky without even knowing it, and yet here he was daring to accuse her of being an unfit mother.
‘Marry me, Briony,’ he said in a hard voice, ‘otherwise I’ll find someone else who will.’
‘Give me time,’ she said tiredly. ‘I must do what’s right for Nicky. Two quarrelling parents aren’t. Surely you can see that, Kieron? Surely you can see that marriage between us might not necessarily be the best thing for Nicky?’
A sound from the bedroom drew her anxious eyes, but Kieron was there first, and when she went into the room he was sitting on the bed with Nicky. The little boy looked solemn and uncertain. His voice wobbled a little as he spoke her name, cuddling up against her as she took him in her arms. He pressed his face into her breasts, ignoring Kieron, and for a moment she felt triumph that he had turned from his father to her.
‘I meant every word I said, Briony,’ Kieron warned her quietly as she stood up with Nicky in her arms. ‘I want your answer tomorrow. You can take the day off, that way you won’t be able to accuse me of not giving you enough time to think.’
She was too engrossed in her own thoughts on the drive home to pay much attention to Nicky and was taken by surprise when, when the car stopped and Kieron came round to open the door, he demanded imperiously, ‘Man carry me.’ It infuriated her that Kieron did not even exhibit any triumph but merely lifted the little boy into his arms with a smile, Nicky’s face split by an enormous grin as he laughed down at his father.
‘Don’t even begin to think about running out on me, Briony,’ Kieron warned her as he put Nicky on his bed.
He followed her out into the living room, watching her unrelentingly as she stared out into the garden.
‘This afternoon you were quite ready to think Nicky was Matt’s,’ she reminded him bitterly.
‘And now I know he’s mine I want to give you both the protection of my name.’
‘Big of you,’ Briony said savagely. ‘But we don’t need you, Kieron. And when we did, you weren’t there.’
He went white at that. ‘I didn’t know you were pregnant, damn you! I’ve already tried to tell you.…’
‘And I don’t want to hear,’ she interrupted, swinging round, her eyes burning with fury. ‘Why are you doing this to us? Nicky and I were quite happy on our own.’
‘You might have been, but was Nicky? A child needs two parents, Briony, and if you’re honest you’ll admit that. I only want what’s best for him, just as you do. The moment I saw him and I knew that he was mine I realised I couldn’t let him go out of my life. He is flesh of my flesh…bone of my bone.…’