by Paula Roe
If Keith Jackson had intimidated her growing up, Stephen Blair had done so tenfold. Even now, passing by his office on their way to her father’s, catching a bare glimpse of his towering, expensively suited presence in heavy discussion with similarly suited men, was enough to set her nerves on edge. He was a man who silently judged, for whom perfection meant everything, and nothing was good enough unless it was his way.
What a nightmare for Connor to have a father like that.
Five minutes later, Kat left Marco in the waiting room and strode into her father’s office, a mix of anger, intimidation and frustration congealing in her belly.
Calm. Stay calm. She had the truth on her side, and she had the courage to confront him because what he did was wrong.
“Katerina,” Keith Jackson said with a thin smile as she walked into his office then closed the door behind her. “I’m surprised the network let you go amidst all the cyclone coverage.”
“It’s only one afternoon.” Not to Grace it wasn’t, and she had the feeling her boss would be calling in the favor fairly soon.
“So, what’s so urgent you had to fly down to Brisbane to talk to me?”
She took a seat opposite him, saying nothing. On the two-hour flight south, she’d rehearsed this over and over, until her head spun and she’d exhausted herself.
It simply wasn’t possible for her father not to know. Which meant beyond a shadow of a doubt that he also knew the chances of her having her mother’s disease were low to none.
He could have told her anytime. They both could have told her. Instead they’d said absolutely nothing, letting her go through the pain, the anguish, then the ultimate decision to not get tested. Anger had surged every time she thought about that, so she’d vowed to not think about it until she had confirmation. Then she could silently go to pieces.
“I need to ask you something and I need you to tell me the truth, okay?”
His eyebrows went up, mouth in an impatient “okay” expression, as if she’d just told him she was buying a new handbag or going to the Gold Coast for the weekend.
“Dad,” she said without preamble, her gaze direct. “Am I adopted?”
His expression froze, a perfect display of shock and confusion all rolled into one. She waited calmly as he leaned back in his chair with a dark frown, his face faintly flushed.
“What kind of question is that?” he said tightly.
“A perfectly legitimate one, considering it’s impossible for Mum’s blood type, O, to produce a child of my AB type.”
His long pause was telling. “And why on earth are you getting blood tests? I thought you didn’t want to know.”
“I’m pregnant, Dad.” Wow, that came out way smoother than she’d practiced. It felt liberating, actually. “And I wanted to know if I had the disease. I don’t, by the way. But then, you probably already knew that, considering Mum isn’t really my mother.”
She’d never seen him so still. Wow, she’d actually robbed him of speech—an ironic first. Swallowing the hysterical little laugh, she just slowly folded her arms and stared at him. And yet, he said nothing.
Great. It was up to her, then.
“Did you have an affair? Did the woman leave you with the baby?”
“No!” He flushed again, this time deeper. “That’s ridiculous.”
“So I’m adopted.”
His nod, when it came, was frustratingly short.
She clamped down hard on her anger, but it still ended up bubbling over. “Oh, my God, Dad! I’ve had that disease hanging over my head for years, sitting there in the back of my mind, a death sentence.” She sprung to her feet, fury flushing her face hot. “How the hell can you justify not telling me? Why on earth would you let me go through all those years of worry, of thinking...of thinking...” She couldn’t stand there and finish the sentence, not with her father’s face twisted into such uncharacteristic lines of pain that it hurt her heart just to look at him.
It was like the night of her mother’s death, the only time she’d ever seen him weak and vulnerable, a man without power, without control. Just a man.
It had scared the hell out of her. Just as it did now.
She slowly sat, hands gripped on the armrests. “So why adopt? And why keep it a secret?” Her gaze softened. “Dad, if Mum couldn’t have kids, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Why didn’t you just tell me?”
He sighed, leaning back in his chair. “Because we made a promise.”
“To whom?”
When he shook his head, her irritation spiked again. “Dad, tell me!”
He scowled. “Why bring this up now, Kat? Don’t you have other things to worry about—like how the press is going to react to you being pregnant?”
She blinked and bit back a curse. That was what he was worried about? “I’m handling that.”
His expression was borderline skeptical. “Right.”
Dark, hot anger surged, making her skin tingle with the power of it, but her voice was calm, unwavering. “We’re talking about my blood tests, Dad.”
Oh, she desperately wanted to spill the entire story of the past few days, throw the false positive in his face and reveal her anguish, anger and every other single emotion that had accompanied it. She even choked on a sob as the words caught in her throat, but at the very last minute she clenched her fists and bit her tongue.
He lapsed into silence again, and she just stared at him. She knew her face reflected all the thoughts and emotions bubbling to the surface, every single one of them. When he broke eye contact first, she took just a little joy in that.
“Your mother wanted to tell you, you know,” he said, carefully moving his coffee cup from the corner of the desk to the middle. “Many times.”
“Why didn’t she?”
He sighed. “The timing was never quite right. Because she knew you’d start asking questions, and she couldn’t answer any of them.” He slid her a glance. “That was why we never pushed you to get tested. The likelihood of you being positive was practically nonexistent.”
She swallowed, dragged in a shaky breath as the past few days crashed over her. You’re negative. The test was negative, remember? “Who are my birth parents?”
He paused a moment. “I can’t tell you. I gave my word.”
“Who on earth would make you promise something like that? Who would hold either so much power or so much loyalty...that...that...” She petered out, her mind clicking through the possibilities until she finally latched on to something crazy, something so far-fetched that she realized it fit perfectly.
No. It couldn’t be him.
And yet...
It so totally could.
But that would mean...
Her back straightened in the chair. “It’s Stephen Blair, isn’t it?”
“No,” he snapped quickly, the tight lines bracketing his mouth deepening.
It was so quick she barely had time to register it—the tiny twitch of a muscle near his eye, the clench of his hand. The almost imperceptible thinning of his lips. All signs of guilt.
“It so is.” She stood, head spinning. “And I’m going to ask him.”
“You will not!”
Her father’s harsh command stopped her midturn. Slowly she turned back to face him, and his expression—a mix of fury, tension and...yes, fear—was enough to temper her anger.
“Tell me, Dad,” she said softly. “Please.”
He paused, pursing his lips. She could practically see his brain working through the different outcomes of telling versus silence.
Thankfully, he made his decision quickly. “You can’t say anything. Not even to Connor.”
She blinked, gripping the chair back for support as the implication suddenly sank in. Oh, God. Connor was...
Connor was her broth
er. This was...
She couldn’t even wrap her head around this. Connor. Her brother. Stephen. Her father. So...
“Who’s my mother?”
He sighed then nodded to the chair. “Sit.”
* * *
Marco sat in the waiting room, flicking through his phone and resisting the urge to get up and pace. For the fifth time he glanced up at the receptionist, and just as she had those five times before, she quickly dropped her gaze and hurriedly pretended to be doing something else.
Finally he strode over to the huge twentieth-floor window, to the panoramic view of Brisbane spread before him.
He sighed. When Kat was growing up, Keith Jackson had been the quintessential workaholic, but where he was gruff, terse and had little time for people other than his social circle, Kat’s mother, Nina, had been his polar opposite. Whenever Kat talked about her mother, her face lit up, her eyes alight with love, even though she hadn’t been a perfect parent herself. Marco had lost count of how many times he’d watched Kat swallow disappointment over her mother’s prior commitments and broken promises. Yet all of that had become unimportant in the wake of her illness. And boy, he clearly remembered the time Kat had turned up on his doorstep in France, barely a few weeks after her mother had died. It was as if something essential had been stolen, something he wasn’t sure she’d get back. But slowly, over time, she’d found her way back to who she was—his Kat. Changed, with added maturity, yes. But still Kat, deep down.
“I’m sorry, but aren’t you Marco Corelli?”
His thoughts scattered, and as he glanced up at the receptionist, he quickly put on an automatic polite smile. “I am.”
Her grin widened. “I knew it! My little brother plays local league and watches the European games religiously on cable. He’s so excited for the World Cup selection next year, I can’t tell you.” She laughed. “He’ll be so jealous I got to meet you.”
Marco couldn’t help but return her smile. “Thanks. We’re all pretty excited about the selection, too.”
“So will you be calling the match again? Our whole neighborhood stops to watch, you know,” she added, rising from her seat, clutching pen and paper.
“That’s the plan.” When he held out his hand, she shook it in silent awe, and for the next few minutes, he answered her breathless questions, signed an autograph and smiled for a photo.
“Congratulations on the FFA award, by the way,” she said, finally returning to her seat as the phone began to ring. “My cousins in Sydney will be stalking the red carpet on the night.” She paused and picked up the handset with a smirk. “I’ll have to text them that photo and make them jealous. Good morning, Jackson & Blair. How may I help you?”
“Marco?”
His soft laugh abruptly cut off and he whirled at the sound of Kat’s voice, her pale face choking off the last of his amusement. He said nothing, just pushed the doors open for her, sent the receptionist a smile and a wave and followed Kat to the elevators.
“Well?” he asked as they rode down to the ground floor. “What did he say?”
She opened her mouth once, then closed it, then just stared at him, a dumbfounded expression on her face.
He gently took her shoulders. “Kat?”
“I am...” She shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe it. “My father is...”
“Yes?”
She dragged in a harsh breath. “My birth father is Stephen Blair. Connor is my half brother.”
His soft expletive bounced off the walls, but she barely winced, just turned back to the elevator doors, staring as the descending floor numbers lit up.
“Apparently Stephen had an affair with his housekeeper’s daughter and I was the result.” Her mouth thinned. “This was after my mum discovered she had motor neuron and decided not to have kids.”
“And where’s the housekeeper now?”
“They paid her off and she moved back to New Zealand. She died a few years ago.”
He scowled.
“So they adopted you? Why keep it a secret? And how?”
“They went to the States for a year to hide the fact my mother couldn’t get pregnant.” She sighed. “Stephen begged my father not to say anything—gave him the whole ‘my wife will divorce me, my life will be ruined, the company will suffer’ spiel. Dad agreed.”
“And your dad just told you this voluntarily.”
“Well, not at first.” Her mouth thinned.
He paused, digesting that information.
“So are you going to tell Connor?”
The doors slid open and they walked through the elegant marble and crystal ground floor. “If you were him, would you want to know?”
He nodded. “Yes, I would. What about Stephen? Are you going to tell him you know?”
She remained silent as they pushed through the turnstile doors out onto George Street.
“I don’t know.” Her expression tightened. “I think it’s a fair bet to say he won’t care.”
“Yeah.” He glanced around then leaned in. “Whatever you decide, if you tell Connor—things always have a way of getting out.” At her look, he added, “I’m not saying any of us would deliberately say anything. But the more people who know, the higher the chances.”
She nodded then cast a casual glance up then down the busy Brisbane street, scanning the people going about their day. He noticed one or two do a double take as they passed, and he knew it was Kat they recognized and not him. The pull of her celebrity still amazed him, even after nearly a year of absence from the headlines.
Except that would soon end, and in spectacular fashion. His network had already fielded a handful of calls about his whereabouts during the cyclone, and he knew Kat had hired a publicist to issue a statement. Plus there was that thing with Grace, who was still on her case about an exclusive. After she announced her pregnancy, the press would start to piece things together, and then the nightmare would really start.
He suppressed a groan, remembering what it had been like the last time for her. All that stress, all that anxiety. Outwardly she’d handled it with aplomb, but he knew firsthand how much damage it had caused on the inside to her confidence, her self-esteem.
Not good for the baby.
They walked into the parking station, paid for the ticket and then made their way to his car, both wrapped up in their own thoughts until he glanced at his watch. Three hours before their flight.
With a frown he turned to face her, leaning against the door.
“Kat.”
“Marco,” she said in the same serious tone. God, he’d missed her humor. These past few days had drained him to the point that he wondered if things would ever get back to normal again.
He just wanted to see her smile again. Was that too much to ask?
“You don’t have to do this, you know. You could just issue a statement then move into my place for a few weeks, until it blows over.”
She stared at him for a moment and then slowly shook her head. “I have a job, Marco.”
“One that Grace is making very difficult, so you said.”
“She’s angry. I understand that.”
He let out a breath. “So if you’re not going to take my suggestion or give Grace her exclusive, then tell me again why getting married would be a bad thing?”
Her expression twisted, telling him it was precisely the wrong thing to say. “Marco, please...”
He sighed. “Look, I’m trying to wrap my head around this and work out the best way to deal with everything.”
“And you think I’m not?” She scowled. “My head is a mess. My life is...crazy. And my past, everything I just assumed was real? Gone. All thirty-three years of it.” She slashed her eyes away from him, her frustration palpable. “Asking me to marry you is—”
An audible
gasp interrupted her, and they both whirled to find two girls, shopping bags forgotten at their feet, busily clicking away with their cell phones.
One of them jiggled on the spot, a wide grin on her face. “Ohmygod, are you guys getting married? That is so awesome!”
Click, click, click.
Marco flushed, his hand instinctively going up to shield his face as he glanced to Kat, but she’d already moved and was yanking open the car door. She scrambled inside a moment later, and after he quickly joined her, he fired up the engine and they pulled out of the car park.
Her soft curse in the still air said it all, as did her glare in the rearview mirror. “That was—”
“Probably nothing,” he said, taking the next turn to get them onto the highway. “A couple of fans.”
“A couple of fans with cell phones and social media at their disposal,” she muttered, glaring out the window, her face tight with emotion. Just as during the times before, he knew exactly what she was thinking.
Here we go again.
The phone calls, the questions, the borderline stalking. Her family getting hassled. Photographers camped on her doorstep, at work, at the gym. TV and radio dissecting and analyzing their every move, offering expert damage control.
And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
“Kat...” he said now, but she quickly held up a hand and made a call.
“The press statement will be out today, for whatever good that’ll do me,” she said when she hung up.
“Maybe it’s not that bad.”
She gave him an “Oh, really?” look. “Trust me, something will show up.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
They drove another twenty minutes in silence, until they finally pulled into the airport parking station and Marco turned to her.
“I have to be in Darwin tomorrow,” he said.
She glanced from the window to meet his eyes. “Oh?”
He nodded. “One of the remote coaching clinics I set up. We’re doing a grand opening with the mayor.”
