‘The Firecracker Guy?’
‘He’s not the Firecracker Guy,’ Tess said as the telltale blush fired up her throat at the memory of how much of a firecracker he’d been six days ago in her kitchen. ‘He’s a pain in the backside.’
Eva wiped Carmine’s mouth with his bib and handed the baby the plastic spoon to suck. ‘What did his lawyer want?’
‘Apparently, I’m supposed to go to their offices for a meeting tomorrow. When the terms of our settlement will be negotiated.’
‘What settlement?’
‘I have absolutely no idea, and the delightful Mrs Shenberg didn’t seem keen to elaborate. When I asked for an explanation she started talking in tongues about their client Mr Graystone, his rights and responsibilities, and loads of other rubbish that made no sense whatsoever. What rights and responsibilities?’ Tess marched across the open-plan kitchen getting more agitated by the second. She felt as if she’d been sucked into an alternative reality in which Nate Graystone seemed to have invaded her life. ‘I’m not going. He doesn’t have any rights and responsibilities towards me. Which I have already made perfectly clear.’
She didn’t want to see him again. Look what had happened the last time. She was having a hard enough time forgetting about him, and yet he insisted on continually reappearing in her life.
‘Actually, he sort of does,’ Eva said, sending a pointed look towards Tess’s belly button.
Tess placed her hand over her midriff. ‘That’s not his responsibility, it’s mine. I don’t want him involved.’
‘Why not?’ Eva protested. ‘He’s the baby’s father.’
‘No, he’s not...’ Tess waved the thought away, feeling flustered. ‘Not in any real sense. His involvement’s just an accident of genetics.’
Eva gave an incredulous laugh and smiled at her son, who was hammering an invisible nail into his high chair with his spoon. ‘I’ll be sure to tell Nick that, next time he drags himself out of bed at two in the morning to change Carmine’s nappy.’
‘It’s not the same. Nick’s a fantastic dad. You can see how much he adores his son every time he looks at him. Nate Graystone’s not interested in being a father.’
‘How do you know that?’ Eva leaned forward to emphasize her point. ‘He may have said some stupid things when you told him about the baby. But maybe he was in shock.’
‘No, he wasn’t,’ Tess said, remembering the easy dismissal when he’d first heard the news.
Eva brushed aside the observation with a flick of her fingers. ‘Fine, but he must have had a change of heart or why would he be offering you a settlement? And getting his lawyers involved?’
‘I told you, I don’t know, especially as I saw him six days ago and told him I wasn’t even pregnant.’
‘You did what?’ Eva looked so shocked, Tess felt the lead football form in her stomach again. If Eva knew what else she’d done that afternoon, she wouldn’t just be shocked, she’d be appalled.
‘Don’t look at me like that.’ She didn’t want to feel guilty. She’d done the right thing. ‘He came to see me to ask about the baby. But I could tell he was only there because he thought he had to be. He doesn’t care about the baby.’ Or me.
The football got bigger, weighing down her stomach like a boulder. She pushed the silly moment of vulnerability away.
Who cared if Nate Graystone had feelings for her? She didn’t need an emotional connection with a man like him.
‘So you told him the baby didn’t exist?’ The concern in Eva’s voice made Tess stiffen.
‘It seemed like the sensible thing to do. I don’t want my baby getting saddled with a father who doesn’t want it, like I did.’
Concern clouded Eva’s eyes. ‘What makes you think your father didn’t want you?’
Tess stood up, determined not to get suckered in by Eva’s sweet-natured attempts to always see the best in people. ‘He kicked me out of the house when I was fifteen, and I had to go live with my aunt. I’d call that pretty conclusive proof.’
‘Oh, Tess, that’s dreadful.’ Eva’s eyes widened with distress. ‘I never knew that. Was that after your mother died?’
‘Yes. Three years after.’
‘That’s terrible. How could he? I’m so sorry.’
Tess nodded, smothering the slither of guilt at Eva’s heartfelt show of sympathy. The truth was her father’s actions hadn’t been entirely unprovoked. She’d gone through a bad patch after her mother’s death. A very bad patch. In fact, she’d made her father’s life hell. But that was hardly an excuse for him to bury himself in work, to close himself in his study for hours on end and virtually ignore her. The truth was the only time he’d shown her any attention was when she’d got into trouble—so she’d got into a lot of trouble.