FORGOTTEN LOVER, Carole Mortimer [chrysanthemum read aloud TXT] 📗

condemnation. ‘I couldn’t possibly hate the woman who has given my son so much happiness.’

Velvet shook her head. ‘Denying him Tony wasn’t giving him happiness. Could I—could I see Tony now?’

‘Of course. He and Vicki are already up and playing in the nursery.’

They both stood up, and Velvet ran into the other woman’s arms. ‘I’m sorry,’ she cried. ‘So very sorry.’

‘You have nothing to be sorry about,’ her mother-in-law soothed. ‘But I think you should give Jerard the chance to show you that it doesn’t change anything between you.’

‘I can’t,’ she shuddered, envisaging Jerard’s cold anger when he was told Tony was his son. ‘Not yet.’

‘Go and see the children now,’ Sarah encouraged. ‘Spend some time with them. You’ll see, children have a way of making the oddest things seem normal.’

Velvet gave a watery smile. ‘Not this,’ she shook her head, leaving the room to be with Vicki and Tony.

Both the children had just got out of bed, Tony looking adorable in his pyjamas, Vicki looking pretty in her flowered cotton nightdress. There were toys everywhere, and once the first ecstatic greeting was over Velvet sat down on the floor to play with them.

She had no idea when Jerard entered the room, wasn’t aware of his presence until Vicki called out excitedly, running over to launch herself into her father’s arms. Tony ran to him too, his arms clutching about his legs as he gazed up adoringly.

Velvet slowly raised her eyes to meet Jerard’s searching gaze, paling as she saw how ill he looked, his face suddenly gaunt, pain in his eyes that he made no effort to hide.

‘Your mother called you,’ she guessed jerkily, slowly getting to her feet, running sweaty palms down her denim-clad thighs.

‘Yes,’ his voice was husky with emotion. ‘Why, Velvet?’ he asked abruptly.

‘I—Your mother didn’t tell you?’

‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘You tell me.’

His gaze was mesmerising in its intensity, and Velvet felt her breath constrict in her throat. God, she loved this man!

‘Tell you what, Daddy?’ Vicki wanted to know.

He smiled down at his daughter, and only Velvet was able to tell the strain it was to him. ‘Grandma’s waiting for you to go down and have breakfast with her.’

‘Oh, goody!’ Vicki struggled to go down. ‘Tony too?’

‘No,’ Velvet’s tone was sharper than she intended. ‘Not yet, Vicki,’ she smiled to take the sting out of her words. ‘I—Daddy will bring him down in a moment.’

‘Okay,’ Vicki shrugged, food being paramount in her list of priorities at the moment.

‘Why, Velvet?’ Jerard repeated once his daughter had left the room.

She couldn’t tell him! She couldn’t destroy the love radiating from every pore of his body; she wanted to bask in that love, forget the rest of the world in Jerard’s all-consuming possession.

‘Shall I help you?’ his voice was harsh. ‘You didn’t love me after all? It was all a mistake?’

‘No!’ she cried. ‘Oh no, Jerard, nothing like that.’

‘Then what?’ He bent to pick Tony up as the little boy kept pulling on his trousers. ‘What the hell was so serious you had to run out on me in the middle of the night?’

‘I don’t even know where to start.’ She turned away.

‘The beginning is usually the best place,’ he drawled.

She shrugged. ‘There is no beginning, only an end.’

‘Then tell me the end!’ he rasped. ‘But for God’s sake tell me something.’ He was charged with a leashed tension. ‘Is there something you haven’t told me, is that it?’

‘Yes. Yes!’

‘Then tell me now,’ he ordered. ‘Maybe it won’t be the shock you think it is.’

Velvet looked at him searchingly. ‘Maybe you should sit down. Maybe—’

‘I’m not so old that I can’t take whatever it is you have to tell me while standing on my own two feet. Hey, stop that,’ he chided Tony gently, taking his hand out of his open shirt: ‘Don’t pull Daddy’s hairs,’ he teased, tickling the little boy until he giggled.

Velvet’s heart constricted in her chest. They looked so natural together, so—so right. She moved to snatch her son out of Jerard’s arms, holding him possessively to her. She couldn’t give Tony up, she just couldn’t!

‘So that’s it,’ Jerard said softly, his eyes narrowed.

‘That’s what?’ she queried sharply.

‘He’s yours, Velvet,’ he told her gently. ‘All yours.’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

Jerard sighed. ‘I mean the identical birthmarks.’

She gasped, almost dropping Tony in her shock. ‘You—you know?’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Since—when?’ she asked dazedly.

‘Since I looked after Tony a couple of days ago. You’d gone shopping with my mother and Vicki. Tony tipped orange juice all over himself, and I had to change his clothes.’ He shrugged. ‘I saw it then.’

‘And you said nothing?’

‘What could I say?’ he exploded savagely. ‘Oh, I’ll admit I was in shock for a couple of hours, but I worked it out that you didn’t know either. You would have told me if you had known.’

She swallowed hard, finding it hard to take this in.

‘You—you married me anyway, even knowing Tony was your son? Or was that the reason you did marry me?’ she demanded to know. ‘Is that the reason—’

‘If you say one more word I swear I’ll kiss you senseless—even in front of our son,’ he told her, dangerously soft so as not to alarm Tony. ‘I wanted to marry you before I knew about Tony, when I thought he was another man’s child. I can’t deny that I was ecstatic when I found out he was mine, but it made no difference to the desperation with which I wanted to make you my wife. You know how intensely I’ve wanted you, how much I need you. If I had to give up everything, including Vicki and Tony, I would do it, for you.’

‘But I even named your son after another man,’ she sobbed.

‘I’m proud that he bears that name,’ Jerard said huskily. ‘He must have been quite a man, taking on the responsibility of another man’s child.’ He took Tony out of her arms, putting him down on the floor and interesting him in a toy tractor.