‘You need to talk with Holly,’ Gina advised when he had finished.
‘Whatever I say now will sound as if I’m grasping at anything to hold on to Max,’ he argued, a frown etched into his brow as he struggled to come to terms with the knowledge that Max was not his son. Nothing before had hurt as much as this.
Gina shook her head, clinging to Seb’s hand, a smile forming for the first time. ‘You told her how you felt before you found the journal. She told you what concerned her. Think about it. Tell her what you’ve told us, Gus. I don’t think you’ll be sorry.’
He wanted to, but he was scared, daunted, riddled with doubts and what-ifs.
The phone rang—a shrill intrusion—and his heart lurched when Gina told him it was Holly. ‘She’s worried…scared for you. She’s been trying to find you. You left your mobile phone at home,’ she said, her hand over the mouthpiece.
He listened as Gina reassured Holly. ‘Gus is here, hon. Seb found him. We’ll bring him home.’ Gina paused a moment, glancing at him with a smile of encouragement before continuing. ‘You two have a lot to sort out. You need time. Will you let us have Max tonight so you can talk?’
Gus nodded his consent as Gina looked at him in query. Whilst he’d hate being without Max, even for a moment, he knew it was a good idea, and clearly Holly had agreed as Gina ended the call.
Max. His miracle baby. His son…who wasn’t his son after all. Pain, anger and confusion fought for supremacy. He had no rights whatsoever. Holly was Max’s true guardian now. What if she didn’t want Gus in either of their lives?
* * *
Gus looked terrible. Shell-shocked. Holly wanted to go to him, but she waited until Max and the bag she had packed for him had been handed over to Seb and Gina. It took minutes, yet it seemed a lifetime before the door closed and they were alone.
Tension fizzed in the air. Unable to wait another moment, uncaring that fresh tears were coursing down her cheeks, she wrapped her arms around him.
‘I’m sorry, Gus.’ Her voice was thick and unsteady. ‘So very sorry. I can’t understand how Julia could do such a terrible thing to you.’
For a dreadful moment she feared he was going to reject her. Then a pained groan escaped him and his arms encircled her, drawing her tightly against him.
Holly had no idea how long they stood there but she clung to him, absorbing his pain, trying to make sense of all the revelations that had bombarded them in the last hours. Eventually he loosened his hold, drawing back far enough so he could cup her face in his hands, his thumbs gently wiping away the remains of her tears. She saw the glimmer of moisture in his eyes—eyes that were clouded and devoid of their usual life and warmth.
‘We need to talk,’ she murmured, a knot of nervous tension clenching within her. She had no idea which way this would go.
Gus nodded, taking her hand and leading her to the living room. They sat side by side on the sofa, the silence building, their fingers twining together as their clasped hands rested on the cushion between them.
‘I’m sorry that I allowed myself to be so taken in by Julia and that I let her lies and deceptions override all I had come to know about you,’ Gus blurted in a rush, shaking his head, self-derision lacing his husky voice.
‘Don’t blame yourself, Gus,’ she chided gently, hoping to ease the burden he’d unfairly placed on himself. ‘I certainly don’t. No one knows better than me how clever Julia was at manipulation.’
He swore softly, opening up to her for the first time about the night that should have been their first date. ‘I thought you’d stood me up—made a fool of me, rejected me. I waited all the next day for you to apologise, to explain, to say it was a mistake, but I heard nothing and you blanked me when I came back to work. I was gutted. I couldn’t believe I’d been so wrong about you, or that I had so misjudged what I’d thought was something special between us.’
‘You weren’t wrong. I felt the connection the first moment I saw you,’ she admitted, feeling the blush that warmed her cheeks, smiling as the clouds began to lift from his eyes and he smiled back. ‘Now you know that I had a text from your phone, cancelling. When I heard that you’d been with Julia instead…that she’d stayed the night…’
‘A night I had no memory of. Damn it, I knew things weren’t right. I couldn’t understand what had happened, and I knew deep down that I never would have slept with her, but when she came and told me she was pregnant I couldn’t take a risk with the baby’s life. I insisted on a marriage of convenience to safeguard my rights.’
As he ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair Holly tightened her hold on his other hand. ‘I understand. Given your own background, I know you would have done anything to ensure your own child had the things that you missed out on.’
‘Yes.’ He closed his eyes briefly, before long, dark lashes rose and his gaze clashed with hers. The expression in his smoky green eyes was full of torment. ‘But Max isn’t my own child, is he?’
‘Gus…’
Her throat tightened with emotion. She couldn’t bear his distress, and a renewed flash of anger ripped through her at what Julia had done. How had she dared toy with people’s lives this way—especially an innocent child’s?
‘She played us off against each other,’ Gus continued in a monotone. ‘I think she truly loved Paul. Those later entries showed evidence that she regretted many of the things she had done.’
Holly nodded her agreement, a shiver running down her spine. ‘I know what she did to you was unforgivable, but I can’t help but be thankful that instinct or conscience got to her and stopped her from aborting the baby.’
‘Yes.’ He paused, his fingers tightening on hers, his voice husky when he spoke again. ‘If you don’t want to talk about it I understand, but I’m so very sorry about your own baby. What happened, darling?’
‘It was nearly two weeks after I’d split with Euan. I had no idea I was pregnant. I had a terrible pain and was bleeding abnormally, and…and my GP confirmed I’d miscarried,’ she finished, her voice catching as she tried hard not to cry again.
‘And Julia?’
Gus swore as she told him how her sister had reacted to the news. ‘As she wrote—how ironic that unexpected pregnancy then happened to her,’ Holly finished sadly.
‘When Julia died everyone was so kind, and I felt so guilty,’ Gus confided after a moment. ‘I still do.’
‘You have no need to,’ she reassured him, thinking of her own feelings of guilt and the mixed emotions she had experienced.
‘Yes, I do.’
Holly’s heart nearly stopped beating when he looked at her and she saw the anguish in his eyes. ‘Why?’
‘Because I wasn’t grieving for a wife I had loved,’ he confided, his voice low and raw. ‘Do you know what I felt, Holly? Relief. Freedom. Anger that she had risked Max’s life. Not that I would ever have wished such a horrible thing to happen to her. But I couldn’t tell anyone how I felt—not even you—not without seeming the lowest form of life and admitting all the lies and deceptions.’
‘Don’t.’ She choked out the word. ‘You’re not the only one, Gus. Truly. I felt relief, too. There were times I hated her, but I didn’t want her to die. She did so many bad things. I tried to preserve the family, but she’d keep throwing everything back in my face. After she betrayed me with Euan and then cheated me out of the house I didn’t think she could hurt me any more.’ She drew in a shuddering breath and met his gaze, allowing him to see all that was in her eyes, her heart, her soul. ‘But then she did the worst thing of all. She took you away from me.’
* * *
As Gus drew Holly into his arms and held her, he wondered if he dared to hope that there might yet be a future for them.
‘Hush, darling,’ he soothed her. ‘No more tears. You’ve cried enough for her. You did all you could. Neither of us is responsible for her decisions.’
She nodded and gave him watery smile. ‘You’re right.’
‘So where do we go
from here?’ he asked after a moment, fear and uncertainty gripping him. ‘I’m not Max’s father,’ he continued, choking out the words. ‘I have no rights over him. I—’
‘Of course you do,’ Holly interrupted with gusto. ‘But—’
She wriggled free, and he waited as she sat up and faced him, raising their joined hands and holding them against her heart. ‘I know you must be hurting. Julia tricked and deceived you. And I know how much you love Max—and how much he loves you. Any man can father a child, Gus, but it takes a special one to be a loving papa. And you are, in every way that matters, Max’s papa.’
‘Thank you.’
Her words choked him, and he felt as if he’d been given a precious gift. ‘The same way that you are and always will be Max’s mama,’ he added, smiling at the emotion in her eyes.
What he had not foreseen when he’d found the journal and learned its shocking secrets was how easily the truth would set them free.
‘I love you, Holly, my darling,’ he told her, praying she would believe him. He drew in a shaky breath and laid his heart on the line once more. ‘I want us to be a family, to put the past behind us and make a happy life for us, Max and any other children. You said you felt something for me. Is that in the past tense?’
She shook her head, a shy smile curving her mouth, banishing the last of the shadows from her eyes and thawing any remaining ice inside him. ‘I love you, Gus…past, present and future. If you’ll let me.’
‘Only if you’ll let me love you back,’ he teased her, joy and relief blooming inside him. ‘What do you say? Will you marry me?’
‘Yes, please!’
Gus wasn’t sure he deserved to be this happy, but he’d been given a second chance and he was going to spend the rest of his life proving to Holly how much he loved her. They’d known so much hurt and loneliness these last months, but now they’d found each other again, and with Max, their miracle baby, they could look forward to a loving and happy future.
EPILOGUE
AS HOLLY carefully laid flowers on Julia’s grave the late August sunshine glinted off the simple but beautiful aquamarine stone set in the white-gold engagement ring Gus had so recently put on her finger. Her birthstone and, Gus insisted, the colour of her eyes.
He stood beside her, strong and supportive, Max cradled against his chest. They’d had a difficult, often painful journey, but they had come through it and were stronger for it, their love for each other winning out and unable to be denied. Despite all Julia had done.
‘Whatever else she did, she gave us Max,’ she whispered, hoping that, in death, her troubled sister had found the peace she’d never known in life.
Gus’s free arm came round her and she leaned into him. She loved him with every fibre of her being and she knew now that he was hers, that he had never been Julia’s in any way. Free of the lies, they could be a proper family.
‘Let her go. She can’t hurt us any more.’ Gus pressed a kiss to the top of her head before stepping back and taking her hand. ‘Come with me. I want to show you something.’
Curious, Holly let him lead her back to the car. As he settled Max in his safety seat she reflected on the last few busy days. Days which, amongst other things, had seen Ruth leave for her new life in Italy with Rico. She already missed her friend, but gave thanks that Ruth and Gina were as happy with their respective partners, Rico and Seb, as she now was with Gus. Which left George, she reflected with a smile.
‘Oh, that look means trouble!’ Gus teased as he slid into the driver’s seat. ‘What have you been up to?’
Her smile widened to a grin. She wasn’t remotely repentant about her spot of matchmaking. One look at the delicious new consultant paediatrician who had begun work on the children’s ward had set her mind buzzing. And when she’d discovered he was looking for somewhere to stay, the card George had put on the staff noticeboard advertising rooms to rent had somehow found its way into Rafael’s pocket! George hadn’t seen him yet, because she was off work on an annual leave, but Holly wished she could see her friend’s face when they did meet.
Gus chuckled as she told him what she’d done. ‘Did you tell him George was a woman?’
‘Oops, I forgot that bit!’
‘Your mama is a very bad woman, Maxie,’ Gus advised their son solemnly.
Holly’s heart swelled with love and happiness. Gus switched on the car’s CD-player and the soft, haunting tones of the music he’d composed on the sax and which had so moved her began to play—a piece she now knew he’d composed and named for her. Holly’s Lament. Joy had replaced the heartache that had inspired it.
When Gus drew the car to a halt, it took a moment for reality to set in. ‘What are we doing here?’
Her breath caught as she looked out of the window at the house she loved so much—the one in which she had grown up; the one she had lost because of Julia. Her dream of getting it back had long since turned to dust. She frowned as Gus got out of the car and came round to open her door.
‘Gus?’
He took her hand and led her to stand on the wide pavement in the quiet, attractive road. Her eyes widened as she saw the ‘For Sale’ board fixed to the silver birch tree that stood in front of the house. A ‘Sold’ sign was pinned across it at a jaunty angle.
‘I know what this house means to you. When I found out it was for sale…well, it was destiny,’ he told her with a self-conscious smile. He placed a key in her palm. ‘This isn’t the real key—that will come in a few weeks, when we complete and move in. This is symbolic of my promise to you, of my gift to you—and to Max and me. A special home in which we can raise our family.’
Tears stung her eyes and she threw herself into his arms, laughing and crying at the same time. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, although the words seemed inadequate to express her feelings.
This special, wonderful man always surprised her, showing her in endless ways how much he loved her and what their family meant to him. She was the luckiest woman in the world and she wanted to shout it from the rooftops.
Instead she settled for kissing the man who had made her world complete, and with whom she anticipated living and loving for the rest of their days.
ISBN-13: 9781460377437
BROUGHT TOGETHER BY BABY
© Margaret McDonagh 2012
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