Scarlet’s chin lifted. ‘I can defend myself,’ she told Roman. Then turned to his father. ‘Nobody tells me what to think, Mr O’Hagan,’ she declared proudly.
‘Fine words. You’ll be telling me next he isn’t the father.’
‘Roman is Sam’s father,’ she admitted.
Roman’s father gave an impatient snort. ‘Exactly, there’s nothing more to be said. The facts speak for themselves.’
‘No, actually, they don’t, Mr O’Hagan. Roman didn’t seduce my sister. None of it was an accident.’
‘What are you talking about, Scarlet?’ Roman asked.
‘Abby wanted a baby.’
‘I know.’
‘No,’ she interrupted loudly. ‘You don’t know. Abby planned to have a baby and she picked you out as the father.’
‘Picked me?’ Roman shook his head. ‘What are you talking about, Scarlet?’
‘Abby picked you out to be the father of her baby. I think having a child became an obsession.’ Her trembling lower lip caught between her teeth, she lowered her eyes guiltily.
She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She could only imagine how angry and disgusted he must be feeling and how she was the natural focus for his anger. She couldn’t expect him to understand that telling him the truth was a betrayal of her sister’s memory.
She took a deep breath before continuing.
‘Abby told me shortly before her death that she planned it all. She spiked his drink and…she made sure that any…any precautions didn’t work. She never had any intention that he would be involved with Sam,’ she admitted miserably. ‘The morning after,’ she added, determined now she had begun to make a clean breast of it, ‘to make sure Roman wouldn’t suspect anything she told him that nothing had happened, that he had fallen asleep.’
There was a thunderstruck silence. Finn O’Hagan stared at her, then turned to his son. ‘My God, can this be true?’#p#????#e#
Roman, his dark shadowed eyes still on Scarlet’s face, didn’t respond to the incredulous question. His impenetrable expression made it impossible to know what to read into his silence.
There was a husky note of appeal in Scarlet’s voice as she addressed her words directly to a stony-faced Roman.
‘Abby wasn’t a bad person,’ she faltered huskily. ‘She’d had a couple of relationships over the previous year that ended badly. I think she thought that she’d never find a man to love but she wanted a baby.’
‘And her solution was to get a man drunk and sleep with him…?’
Scarlet could hear precious little of the understanding she’d been praying for in his voice. She felt her throat close over with unshed tears and drew a deep, slow breath.
‘Please don’t think badly of her!’ she pleaded. Tears stood out in her eyes as she turned towards the door. ‘And, Mr O’Hagan, nobody has told you, but it wasn’t Roman who called off the wedding to Sally, she did. She ran off with the best man. So you see this isn’t the first time you’ve blamed Roman for something that wasn’t his fault. I’d say he’s earned the benefit of the doubt…wouldn’t you?
‘If I were you I’d be grateful I had a son like Roman, not spend my time looking for things to be mean to him about.’ She barely managed to get the rebuke out before her self-control snapped and she fled from the room, tears streaming down her cheeks.
For several minutes after she’d gone neither man moved. It was Finn O’Hagan who finally broke the tableau. He looked at his son’s profile without comment and went over to the bureau. He poured a generous measure of Irish whiskey from an unopened bottle and drained the glass in one swallow. With a sigh he poured a second, refilled his own and approached his son.
‘Is it true about Sally?’
Roman gave a shrug. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘I assume that was a yes. It would seem that I owe you an apology.’
Roman’s fingers curled around the glass extended to him. ‘You thought I’d been a selfish bastard. I thought I’d been a selfish bastard.’ His powerful shoulders lifted before he raised the glass to his lips. ‘Forget it,’ he advised.
‘That took some guts…coming in here like she did.’
‘You think?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘This isn’t about courage,’ Roman began forcefully before visibly restraining himself. He ran a hand down his jaw.
‘What is it about, Roman?’ his father asked quietly. With a groan he lowered himself into a chair. ‘I’m as stiff as a damned board,’ he complained. ‘Your mother might be right, maybe I do need a bit of sun in my old age.’ His eyes followed the panther-like, prowling progress of his son as he trod a path down the length of the room and back again.