Now she understood the origins of a deafening silence. This one rolled across the room, echoed in her ears until she wanted to shout. Instead she waited, saw his body freeze, saw the gamut of emotion cross his face, watched as it settled into an expression of anger so ice-cold a shiver rippled her skin.
Panic twisted her insides—the die had been cast and she knew that now, whatever happened, life would never be the same.
CHAPTER THREE
STAY STILL. FOCUS ON remaining still.
The room seemed to spin around him, the white walls a rotating blur, the floor tilting under his feet. Good thing he didn’t suffer from seasickness. Emotions crashed into him, rebounded off the walls of his brain and the sides of his guts. His heart thudded his ribcage at the speed of insanity.
A child. A son. His child. His son.
Fourteen months old.
Fourteen months during which his son had had no father. Anger and pain twisted together. Frederick knew exactly what it was like to have no parent—his mother had abandoned him without compunction in return for a lump sum, a mansion and a yearly stipend that allowed her a life of luxury.
Easy come, easy go.
Yes, Frederick knew what it was like to know a parent was not there for him. The anger unfurled in him and solidified.
‘My son,’ he said slowly, and he couldn’t keep the taut rage from his voice.
He saw Sunita’s awareness of it, but she stepped forward right into the force field of his anger, tawny eyes fierce and fearless.
‘My son,’ she said.
Stop.
However angry he was, however furious he was, he had to think about the baby. About Amil. Memories of the horrendous custody battles his father had instigated crowded his mind—Stefan, Emerson, Barrett—his father had treated all his sons as possessions.
‘Our son,’ he said.
The knowledge was surreal, almost impossible to comprehend. But it was imperative that he kept in control—there was too much at stake here to let emotion override him. Time to shut emotion down, just as he had for two long years. Move it aside and deal with what had to be done.
‘We need to talk.’
She hesitated and then nodded, moving forward to close the front door. She watched him warily, her hands twisted together, her tawny eyes wide.
‘How do you know he’s mine and not Sam’s?’
The look she gave him was intended to wither. ‘I’m not an idiot.’
‘That is a questionable statement. But what you have shown yourself to be is a liar. So you can hardly blame me for the question, or for wanting a better answer than that. How do you know?’
Her eyes narrowed in anger as she caught her lower lip in her teeth and then released it alongside a sigh. ‘Sam isn’t my boyfriend. He has a perfectly lovely girlfriend called Miranda and they live together. I asked him to fake it to try and explain to you why I left the modelling world.’
‘Is there a boyfriend at all?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
So there had been no one since him. The thought provoked a caveman sort of satisfaction that had no place in this discussion. Sunita had deceived him to his face in order to hide his son from him—now was not the moment to give a damn about her relationship status. Apart from the fact that it meant Amil was his.
Hold it together, Frederick. Shelve the emotion...deal with the situation at hand.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Sunita started to pace. Her stride reminded him of a caged animal.
‘Because I was scared.’