‘Of what?’
‘Of losing him.’
‘Losing him?’ His tone was harsh and penetrating.
‘To you and your family.’
‘So you preferred to see him deprived of a father instead? Leading the disadvantaged existence he’s leading now?’
‘He isn’t disadvantaged!’ It was a ringing little cry, torn out of her guilt and anguish at being made to feel that she was somehow less than an adequate mother.
‘Or were you intending that Marcus Rushford—or even some other man—would somehow be able to take my place and fill the breach?’
‘No. I told you. Marcus was never anything other than my managing agent.’
‘And you really expect me to believe that?’
‘I don’t care what you believe,’ she tossed back, opening her door. ‘It’s the truth.’
She felt the tugging wind through her thin top as she jumped out, slamming the car door behind her. She heard him get out and close his door with far more respect than she had shown hers.
‘Anyway, I did try to tell you,’ she said defensively, stepping onto a grassy bank which sloped gently downhill before levelling off some distance away, offering a far better view over the lake.
‘When?’ Andreas pressed, following her.
‘Not long after I found out I was pregnant. I knew you had the right to know.’
‘That was very generous of you.’ His sarcasm was flaying. ‘So what changed your mind?’
‘You did.’
‘I did?’ He gave a snort of disbelief as he drew level with her.
‘I came all the way to the restaurant one day,’ she explained, keeping her eyes trained on the little sailboat whose skipper was finding it hard to keep a straight course in the buffeting wind. ‘But then I lost my nerve because I remembered what you’d said about if ever I got pregnant and wouldn’t marry you. You said you’d fight me for custody. And that was how possessive you were simply over a hypothetical child!’
Crossing her arms, she moved down to a levelled-off viewing point.
Aware of him right behind her, she murmured, ‘I was also worried that you might not believe that he was yours.’
She could almost see the derision lifting his eyebrow before he said, ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ But she chose not to respond to his censuring remark.
While he was still so angry, and so obviously hardened towards her, she couldn’t tell him the whole truth and put her heart on the line.
‘I tried to ring you once, but you weren’t there. Shortly afterwards I bumped into a girl we both knew one day when I was out shopping and she told me you’d gone to America. After I’d had the haemorrhage,’ she added resignedly, ‘I couldn’t have let you know even if you’d been around—because I didn’t even remember who you were.’
‘Surely you must have told someone you knew—or at least your mother—who the father of your child was?’ His tone was no less sceptical as he moved to stand beside her.
‘Yes.’
‘So what did you think whenever my name was mentioned? Didn’t it even arouse your curiosity enough for you to try and find out who and where I was? Didn’t you even care enough to want to find out?’
‘I would have—if she’d mentioned you to me,’ Magenta admitted, wondering how she could possibly explain her mother’s silence without discrediting her character too much in his eyes. ‘But she didn’t. I think she thought there had been something going on between us that would upset me too much if I remembered it and she just wanted me to get well.’
He made a sound of angry disbelief, and she couldn’t blame him. She couldn’t forget how stunned and angry she had been herself when she had found out.
‘So what did she tell you? That Rushford was the father? Or did she imagine you’d think your child had been produced out of thin air?’
‘Andreas, don’t...’ It was bad enough that he was angry with her without his turning his understandable venom on her mother. ‘She didn’t know what to tell me,’ she uttered in the woman’s defence, though she was still hurting unbearably because of it, and could see no reason for the way her mother had acted.
‘I see.’ From the grim cast of his mouth and the way his breath shivered through his nostrils he had clearly grasped the full extent of the situation. ‘So she willingly put her grandson in the same situation as she put her daughter. With no father. No security. No—’
‘Stop it!’ She couldn’t go on listening to him slating her mother, no matter how much he believed the woman deserved it, but above everything else she couldn’t stand his pain.