Illusions of Love (31 page)

He squeezed her hand, but he didn’t break the stare.
 
One set of piercing blue eyes looking right into the others.
 
‘It’s okay, baby.
 
Really, it’s okay.’

Michael laughed, throwing his head back, pushing a hand through his hair.
 
‘You really believe that, do you?
 
After what you’ve done?’

India
felt herself starting to panic.
 
What the hell was going on here?
 
This was crazy, she didn’t understand any of it.
 
But, looking at Dominic, she knew
he
did.
 
He knew exactly what was going on, and it scared her.
 
‘What’s he talking about, Dominic?’

He squeezed her hand again, turning to look at her, tilting her chin up and quickly kissing her mouth.
 
‘It’s going to be okay, honey.
 
I promise.’

‘What is?
 
What’s
going to be okay?
 
I don’t understand…’

‘There’s something I need to tell you,
India
.’

She stared up at him, every inch of her body gripped with a fear she couldn’t describe.
 
Everything had changed in an instant.
 
The whole atmosphere had turned, and she suddenly felt cold and nervous, wary of anything anyone was about to say to her.

‘Telling her now isn’t really going to help, is it?’ Michael said, and Dominic swung round to look at him, his ice-blue eyes angry now.
 
‘You’ve left it too late.
 
Haven’t you?’

‘Left
what
too late?’
 
The rising panic in
India
’s voice was evident as she stared at the two of them.
 
‘Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on here?’

Dominic said nothing; he just clung onto her hand, a fear building up in him that he just hadn’t anticipated.
 
He’d dreamt of this situation so many times, dreamt of facing Michael and letting him know just what it was that he’d taken from him, but it wasn’t working out like that at all.
 
Nothing was going to plan, nothing was happening quite how he’d envisaged.

‘Dominic…’
 
India
’s voice was shaking now, an anxiety she couldn’t explain completely taking over.

‘Do
you
want to tell her?’ Michael asked, unable to look at her because he knew how much this was going to hurt her.
 
But it had to happen.
 
She needed to know.
 
‘Or shall
I
do it?’

Dominic felt his breath catch in his throat, preventing him from saying anything at a time when he really needed to speak.
 
He needed to make sure she understood.

‘I told you there was something you needed to know about Dominic MacDonald, didn’t I?’
 
Michael said, finally looking at
India
, his heart breaking at the confusion in her eyes.
 
But he’d make it better, just like he’d used to.
 
He’d make it all better, and she’d forget about Dominic MacDonald and all this pain he was about to cause.
 
With his lies.

India
couldn’t say anything.
 
The fact her ex-husband was involved in all of this only served to make her panic more, after what she’d experienced at his hands in the past.

‘He’s lied to you, baby.
 
He’s been lying to you all along.’

India
looked up at Dominic, a questioning look in her eyes.

‘Honey, let me explain, I need to explain…’
 
He should have told her upstairs.
 
He should have told her himself and prevented this from happening, but he’d had no idea Michael already knew.
 
How could he have?
 
The guy had given nothing away.
 
How
could
he have known?
 
Jesus, he’d handled this really badly.
 
The minute he’d started to feel anything for this woman he should have told her the truth.

‘Explain what?’
India
whispered, slowly letting go of his hand, but her eyes didn’t leave his.

‘I… Jesus, this is hard…’
 
He pushed a hand through his hair, but Michael saved him the trouble of trying to explain any more.

‘He’s my son,
India
.
 
Dominic MacDonald, movie star – he’s my son.’

CHAPTER 22

Dominic MacDonald was born in Manhattan, New York, thirty-six years ago to a woman called Elizabeth Holt.
 
She was nobody important, just an ordinary young woman who’d worked as a legal secretary at a large
Manhattan
law firm.
 
Until she’d met a young, aspiring actor called Michael Walsh one night in a diner after a visit to an off-Broadway theatre with some girlfriends.

They’d hit it off, she’d fallen head-over-in-heels in love, and within a matter of weeks they’d married in a small and quiet civil ceremony before
 
moving into Michael’s modest Manhattan apartment.
 
Less than six months later she was pregnant and rapidly falling out of love with Michael.

Back then he’d been just another struggling young actor trying to find work wherever he could so money had been in short supply.
 
The bills were mounting up, and Michael had started to become more and more controlling.
 
Elizabeth
hadn’t been happy, she’d wanted more from her life than scrimping and saving with a man who wanted to know her every move.
 
She wanted a man who could look after her, give her everything she wanted.
 
Not someone who was only going to dominate her, and possibly their baby too.

But she carried on, trying to make things work for the sake of their unborn child.
 
Until, five months before Dominic was born, she met Alan MacDonald, a partner at the law firm where she worked.
 
He was an older, kind and sensitive man who’d moved from
Scotland
to
New York
when he’d been just twenty-three.

He’d always held a torch for Elizabeth, and after a particularly emotional lunch one beautiful, sunny New York afternoon, Elizabeth had found herself opening up to him completely, telling him how unhappy she was with Michael but how frightened she was to leave because she wanted this baby to have a father.
 
The thought of bringing up a child alone terrified her, and although she felt trapped in a marriage that just wasn’t working, she didn’t want her child growing up without a dad.

Alan had listened, falling in love with her more with each second that had passed, and he’d grasped that chance to be her knight in shining armour with both hands.
 
His chance to save her from something that was making her so unhappy.
 
Because he’d known he could change that.
 
He’d known he could be the man she needed in her life.
 
The man both Elizabeth
and
her baby needed.

In a matter of days he’d persuaded her to move in with him, promising her the life she’d always wanted, and the father for her baby that Michael could never be.

Of course, at the time, nobody had had any idea that Michael would turn out to be one of
Hollywood
’s biggest stars, but even when that happened
Elizabeth
never regretted her decision to leave him without ever telling him about Dominic.

 
She had an amazing life with Alan.
 
He adored her, and she adored him twice as much, and he was a perfect father to Dominic.
 
Alan made sure he never wanted for anything, and he was the most loved child.
 
Both Elizabeth and Alan worshipped him, and Dominic had grown up thinking that Alan was his father – no-one had ever told him any different or alluded to anything other than that.

Even after Alan tragically died in a road traffic accident on his way home from work one evening early in 2009,
Elizabeth
had let Dominic go on thinking he’d lost his real father.
 
Alan had
been
his real father after all, hadn’t he?
 
He’d brought him up, supported him through school, been there for him when he’d got his first acting job, gone with him to his first movie premiere; loved him beyond anything else.

But then
Elizabeth
had fallen ill.
 
Breast cancer.
 
Too aggressive to treat successfully she went downhill fast, and that’s when the guilt had caught up with her.
 
She felt Dominic deserved to know the truth about who his real father was, and it was news that had stunned him as he’d sat there holding his dying mother’s hand, trying to take in everything she was telling him.
 
Michael Walsh, Hollywood superstar, was his real father.
 
It explained his acting talent, his mother had smiled as she’d closed her eyes and left this world, leaving Dominic confused, but not angry.
 
How could he be angry when he’d had the best life?
 
With two wonderful parents.

His mother had obviously had her reasons for not telling him the truth, and he didn’t blame her.
 
But he blamed Michael Walsh – a man who had no idea that Dominic even existed.
 
His mother had told him how controlling Michael had been, how dominating he could be, how things had to go his way or he just wasn’t happy, and how living with that wasn’t what she’d wanted.
 
She’d explained how she hadn’t wanted Dominic to be brought up with that atmosphere around him.
 
So Dominic blamed Michael completely.
 
He could never blame his mother.
 
She wouldn’t have left like she had without good reason.

So, Dominic thought maybe it was time for Michael Walsh to get a surprise he could never see coming.
 
Something that would blow that control issue straight out of the water.

But for months Dominic did nothing with the information he’d been given, because he’d known how much he needed to think about what his next move would be.
 
He had to think really hard if he wanted to get it right.
 
So he’d spent a lot of time looking into the life of Michael Walsh, finding out as much as he could about him, and it wasn’t difficult.
 
He came across as a tough but likeable man to work with, and a lot of people admired him.
 
But Dominic knew different.

He also knew that to really get at Michael Walsh it meant hitting him with something right between the eyes, something that he’d find hard to take.
 
And whilst finding out that Dominic was his son would be surprise enough, finding out that his estranged son was sleeping with his ex-wife – the only woman Michael Walsh had ever loved, and the woman he still wanted back in his life because he made no secret of that – well, that had to be something that would hit him the hardest.

So, when Dominic found out he’d landed the male lead in Michael’s new romantic comedy, alongside
India
Walsh, he knew that was going to be his perfect opportunity.
 
Fate had played a part when he’d needed it most.

Dominic didn’t want or need Michael as a father at this stage in his life, but he wanted him to know – when he finally revealed who he really was – that he wasn’t the only force to be reckoned with.
 
He, Dominic MacDonald, long-lost son, could be someone in control too.
 
He wanted to show him he’d inherited not only his acting talent, but also his determination to let nothing get past him.
 
What Michael Walsh wanted, Michael Walsh usually got, but not this time.
 
This time Dominic had been determined to show him that things were different now.
 
There was a new kid in town, here to shake things up, here to make him sit up and take notice.

Dominic MacDonald was going to take the only thing that Michael Walsh really wanted away from him.
 
That had been his plan.
 
That had been his intention…

But the best laid plans don’t always go the way you’d expect them to, and this plan had certainly veered way off course for Dominic as he looked at
India
, her face a mask of confusion as she stared at both him and Michael.
 
Father and son.

‘You knew about this?’ she whispered, looking from one set of blue eyes to the other, a sudden realisation making her feel sick to her stomach.
 
Those eyes.
 
Now she knew why there’d been times when she’d felt almost uncomfortable looking into them.
 
Because they were the eyes of Michael.
 
The same blue eyes.
 
With the same ability to lie to her whilst under some illusion that they loved her.