The odd clutch in the pit of Iona’s stomach made no sense, so she ignored it. She was just a casual fling—and Tess was the mother of his child. She had no call to feel possessive or resentful—or hurt. But as she pulled two mugs out of the cabinet she did feel she had a reason to be annoyed with Zane. Why hadn’t he told her about the boy? The cup clattered onto the countertop as her fingers shook. Surely even a casual fling deserved that much information?
‘Is something wrong?’ Tess asked, touching Iona’s arm. ‘You look rather pale.’
‘Yes, I…’ Iona began, righting the cup and turning to Tess, whose inquisitiveness was now tempered with concern. Iona sighed, deciding it was probably best to just spill it. She’d never had much time for pussy-footing about either. ‘You’re being ludicrously reasonable about all this, Tess. And I don’t know what the circumstances are surrounding the wee lad’s birth.’ For all she knew Zane might have donated sperm for his friend Nate. ‘Zane didn’t tell me about Brandon,’ she continued, picking up the invite. ‘Or this…But I guarantee you, I’m not the one stopping him from visiting his son.’
Tess’s perfectly plucked eyebrows launched up her forehead, and then she let out a delighted laugh. ‘You have no idea how priceless that is.’
‘Why?’ Iona asked, starting to feel as if she’d entered an alternative reality.
Tess gave her son a kiss on the nose. ‘Brandon’s not Zane’s son. He’s my husband’s son. He’s Nate’s son.’
Iona stared at the boy again. And Zane’s eyes stared straight back at her. ‘But then how comes he has the same—?’
‘Because that sky-blue colour and the dark ring around is a genetic anomaly,’ Tess interrupted, clearly knowing exactly what Iona was referring to. ‘An anomaly that runs very strongly through the male line in The Graystone family,’ Tess added, her tone patient. ‘Zane is Nate’s brother. Or rather his half-brother. They have the same father.’ The woman’s smile faded. ‘Not that anyone’s allowed to mention it. Because as it happens, pig-headedness also runs very strongly through the male line in the Graystone family.’
Iona stared, having been given more information about Zane’s father in a single sentence than she’d managed to prise out of him in a month. The one time she’d asked about his father, his reaction had been so cold and dismissive she’d never made the mistake of mentioning it again.
‘Doggie,’ the baby chortled and gestured wildly at C.D., cutting through Iona’s thoughts.
‘Why don’t you go and give Cookie Dough a hug?’ Tess said, letting the baby down and holding his hand as he toddled over to the dog’s basket.
Iona’s curiosity levels shot straight to fever pitch as she watched C.D. accept the baby’s attentions with a patient thump of her tail.
So the pinche gringo was his best friend Nate’s father too. And Tess seemed like a very nice, and very talkative woman, who was more than willing to be quizzed on the subject.
Iona depressed the switch on the kettle. ‘How much time have you got, Tess?’ she asked. ‘I have a feeling this is going to take more than one cup of tea.’
Tess laughed and checked her watch. ‘I’m at your disposal, for at least another half hour.’
Iona prepared the teapot, hunted up some chocolate cookies she’d made two days ago, and dismissed the twinge of guilt at talking about something behind Zane’s back that he’d gone to great lengths to keep private.
The man had shoe-horned pretty much every detail of her personal life previous to the moment she’d met him out of her during their long walks on the beach and over dinner every evening, and ante’d up very little in return, despite Iona’s concerted efforts in that direction—really dirty sexual favours included. Frankly, she was obliged to take Tess up on her offer—so she didn’t expire from curiosity like the proverbial cat.
And anyway, this was what happened when you dated a detective. You were forced to get sneaky back.
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ Iona remarked, dunking her second cookie into the now tepid cup of tea. ‘How can they be best friends, know that they’re also brothers and yet never talk about it? Or even acknowledge it?’
‘It’s beyond ridiculous.’ Tess hugged her son, who sat on her lap busy gumming his cookie into a soggy mess. ‘Especially now we have Brandon. Zane’s his uncle and yet we’re not allowed to say so.’ She hitched her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. ‘All I know is that they did talk about it when they were kids. And as a result of what happened, Nate refuses to bring it up again, until Zane says something first. And Zane never has. In fact, I have a suspicion that’s why he’s made himself scarce ever since Brandon was born. So now we’re at this ridiculous impasse. You see what I mean about the pig-headedness.’
‘What happened when they talked about it as kids?’
‘To be honest, Nate doesn’t talk about it much, because it still hurts, I suspect. He totally idolised Zane as a boy when he first went to live with his grandfather at San Revelle,’ she said, mentioning the fanciful castle that Nate’s great-grandfather had built near Half-Moon Bay and where Tess and her family now lived. ‘Maria worked as his grandfather’s housekeeper and she and Zane lived on the estate, so Nate spent all his free time at their cottage. Nate only found out years later that she’d gone to work there after Nate’s parents had kicked her out.’
For getting pregnant by Nate’s father, Iona thought, still disgusted by what Tess had already told her of Maria’s past and the behaviour of a man who had seduced a teenager in his employ and then discarded her like so much rubbish as soon as her pregnancy started to show. Seemed Juana’s assessment of Harrison Graystone was correct.
The Gallivanting Graystones, as the society press had dubbed Nate’s parents, had both died in a light aircraft crash over a decade ago, en route to a party in Martha’s Vineyard, but had left few people to grieve their parting, least of all their son Nate, who had been estranged from them both for years.
Iona thought it desperately sad, though, that the bad seeds Harrison Graystone had sown could end up destroying the friendship between his two sons. Why couldn’t Nate and Zane be brothers, even if their father had disowned one and never acknowledged the other? Especially as they had bonded so young—and had remained friends despite everything.
Tess sighed as she wiped Brandon’s mouth with a tissue. ‘All I know is that when Nate discovered the truth about Zane’s parentage he was overjoyed. He’d always wanted a proper family and he already thought of Maria as a surrogate mother. So naturally, he raced down to the cottage to tell Zane without thinking about Zane’s reaction…’ Tess’s voice trailed off, as if even she couldn’t bear to recall what she’d been told. ‘He was only twelve, for Pete’s sake.’
‘What happened?’ Iona prompted.
‘Zane went berserk,’ Tess said softly. ‘He punched Nate and kept on punching him until Maria pulled them apart.’
Iona gasped, her stomach hurting now, not only at the thought of what Nate had endured, but also at how angry and confused Zane must have been to react in that way.