Chapter 51
fifty-one
GRAY
Gray’s body might be stiffly sitting in a chair, but on the inside, she was a quivering, emotional mess. Ciar had finally come, and though she’d told herself he was too late, that he’d left her hurting too long, her heart pounded in relief at seeing him again.
She was aware that he stalked her movements when she went to Dublin for checkups, just like she knew that if she didn’t wish to see him, she could have switched to a doctor in Inverness.
In fact, she had told her mother that she would ask her doctor to recommend someone for the last few weeks of her pregnancy.
But here he was, wanting to speak to her.
Regardless of how upset she was with him, she and their son needed to hear whatever he had to say.
For closure, if nothing else. Gray would also hear him out for Imogen’s sake.
She loved Ciar’s daughter, and it destroyed her to hand the baby back to Tina and walk away.
She finally looked at Ciar, really looked at him standing before her family. He was nervous, though only she probably knew it since he was keeping his face as expressionless as possible. His father kept nervously glancing up at his son. Ciaran knew too.
She was about to stand and take him somewhere private when her dad said, “You want to speak to Gray privately, do you, after running around on my daughter for months?”
Her mother tried to intervene, but he was having none of it. “Whatever you have to say at this late date, boy, can be said in front of her family.”
Gray found her voice at that. “Dad. Enough. I’ll speak to him.” She was about to rise, not as easily as it used to be, when Ciar stopped her.
“Stay where you are, Gray. Your father’s right. I’ve hurt you, and your family deserves to know why.”
“Ciar. No,” his father demanded before standing and placing a hand on his son’s shoulder.
Gray was taken aback. Something felt wrong. Whatever Ciar had been hiding for months surely wouldn’t make his father react that way.
Ciar patted his father’s hand. “Sit, Dad, please. It’s the only way.”
More worried than ever, Gray stood. “Ciar, no matter what this is,” she paused and gave a halfhearted wave between him and his father, “you don’t owe my family your privacy.”
“The hell he doesn’t,” her brother growled. “Whatever he has to say must be bad, and you’ll need your family if he hurts you again.”
Ciar nodded at Lochlann, then her mom and dad. “Sit, Dad, and you too, Gray. Please.”
Once they were settled, Ciar cleared his throat and took a sip of his water. Gray felt tears prick her eyes, and he hadn’t even started.
“This is difficult for me to speak on, so bear with me, please. I don’t deserve any more chances from you, Gray, and my fear is that once I’ve finished, you’ll ask me to leave you alone for good, but if there is even a small chance that you can forgive me, I’m willing.”
He was only looking at her, speaking to her as if no one else was in the room. She could only nod, affirming that she would listen.
“I’m not quite sure where to begin. I’ve practiced,” he said, wiping his hands down his shirt and clearing his throat again, clearly uncomfortable.
Gray didn’t know at this point if she or Ciar was struggling more. She glanced at her mother, who shrugged and winced.
“I was eight when I went to live with Dad,” he began and then shook his head, cursing under his breath. “No, I won’t start there. I’ll begin with Imogen. She isn’t my daughter.”
At Gray’s gasp, Ciar corrected with, “I mean, she is my daughter, completely and totally mine. I adopted her. Imogen’s mother gave up her rights.”
Gray’s head was spinning until she had to lay both her hands on the smooth wooden top of the table to steady herself.
“Christ. I’m doing this all wrong,” Ciar swore again.
“Take a deep breath, son. You’re doing just fine,” Ciaran said firmly, nodding at his son to continue.
“Before Gray and I…before we made a go of things, I slept with a client’s wife in London. She and her husband have an open relationship. He’s a very old, extremely wealthy man, and Marie is only in her late thirties.
“They’re Russian, and I admit that I enjoyed speaking to Marie in my native tongue after we concluded business. She asked me to join her in her hotel suite for sex, and I did.”
Lochlann choked, and her mom scolded, “Ciar, there are children present.” To which Gray’s red-faced brother replied, “I’m not a child anymore, Mom, Jesus.” Her father patted his wife’s hand, “He knows about such things, babe, and has since he was thirteen. Remember, I told you.”
“Without my consent,” her mom growled, “and clearly you didn’t stop with the birds and the bees. The absolute hell is that about, Thomas?”
Gray’s dad grasped her mother’s waist and sat her back in her chair, saying, “Might we discuss this later?”
Her mom clenched her teeth but nodded once, sitting back down, not before she looked at Ciar and said, “Keep it PG, or you’ll leave this house limping and not because I kicked your shin.”
If nothing else, some of the room’s tension dissipated. “Of course,” Ciar said solemnly. “Anyway, Marie and I spent the evening…together. The first time I heard that she was pregnant was the day after we got back from Colorado.”
He was back to speaking only to Gray, and she felt her face flush with the beginning of anger and jealousy.
“Marie’s husband had called my boss, Anders, and told him that I’d gotten his wife pregnant, and either I fixed the situation or we would lose them as a client.
Anders and I made millions off Marie’s husband, but that’s not why I stepped up.
Wait,” he smacked one of his fists into the opposite palm, “I’m jumping ahead again.
“Marie had told Anders that I was definitely the father, but I knew that was unlikely because I used…took precautions,” he amended, glancing her mother’s direction.
“Jesus, Mom, way to make this conversation more awkward,” her brother groused. “Do you think that I’ve no clue as to how a baby got in my sister’s belly?”
Her mom blushed fiercely, giving her father a stern look, to which he leaned over and kissed her. She sighed when he sat back and shrugged, conceding the battle to her husband for now.
Witnessing the exchange, Ciar scrubbed his face briefly, probably trying not to grin before continuing with his story.
“I set up a lunch meeting with Marie. After we discussed the situation, she finally admitted that me being the father was unlikely. She’d hooked up with some good-looking, blond playboy passing through London at an exclusive sex club two weeks after our encounter.
Apologies, Josephine,” he broke eye contact with Gray to dip his head toward her mom.
“I did a DNA test. I was not Imogen’s birth father. Marie was…what she was, but she did care for her child, just not enough to go against her husband or the lifestyle that she enjoyed. She said that she would give up all her rights if I adopted her baby.
“Her husband offered several million pounds for the child’s care if I adopted her, which I accepted in Imogen’s name, but that isn’t why I did it.
“If I hadn’t claimed Imogen, if I hadn’t given her my name, Marie would have given her over to an adoption agency with no guarantee of her safety. That was,” he closed his eyes and winced, before continuing with, “not something I could live with.”
Gray was moved by Ciar’s conviction, but she was even more confused by his secrecy.
Surely, he would have known Gray would have understood.
She couldn’t help but ask, “Why didn’t you just tell me?
You had to know I would love Imogen. I do love your daughter.
You didn’t even give me a chance. You left me rejected and alone for months. ”
“I knew you would ask me why I felt compelled to adopt a child from a woman that I only had the shallowest connection with, and I didn’t want to tell you.”
“But you said it was because you didn’t want to chance Imogen going to an unworthy home. How would I not have agreed to that?” Gray insisted. Ciar glanced quickly at his father before focusing back on her, making Gray wary of his answer. Again, she knew there was something she wasn’t understanding.
“That’s the other part of the story, or the beginning of it, I suppose. Dad hooked up with my mother one night after meeting her at a pub. She was Russian. Anna Morozova. Dad didn’t know I was the result.” Ciar turned to his father and grasped his father’s shoulder, probably in comfort.
“Mama was a drug addict. She worked odd jobs and left me alone in whatever shared flat or hostel she could afford that week. I liked the hostels the best because I could raid the trash bins for food more easily than in flat complexes. She made enough money for her drugs with very little left for things like food or clothing for her son.”
Gray’s stomach cramped, not liking the turn in Ciar’s recounting. This was not a happy ending story.
“I didn’t go to school, and mama couldn’t afford a television or books, so I was pretty ignorant when I was finally given to Dad.”
Ciaran slammed his palm against the tabletop, shaking the glasses of water. “You were never ignorant. Never say such a thing again,” he demanded.
Ciar sighed but nodded his agreement. “I was uneducated,“ he amended, “but there were a few neighbors that would let me sit in the hallway outside their flats and watch their televisions when I was older, and we had enough money for a real place to stay.
“I only spoke Russian, but I did pick up some English from whatever was playing. I also dug out old newspapers from bins on the street and would trace the letters. When Mama was sober, or soberer, she taught me to read and write, but only in Russian.
“I can’t be sure, but Mama got worse when I was around four. We moved constantly, sleeping in alleys or under bridges.
“But things changed. Some of Mama’s friends took a liking to me.”
Gray felt bile rise in her throat. “No,” she whispered, but Ciar didn’t hear her, deep in his thoughts.