Lovers' Lies (7 page)

"Why wouldn’t I?"

The flat toneless words revealed far more than he knew.
 

"That's just plain wrong." Victoria fumed. "No matter what happens between parents, every child has an inalienable right to know their mother."

And its father. Here’s my chance. Tell him about Connor now. He has the right to know.

Maybe, but not while we're guests under his father’s roof.

Coward!

Keir maneuvered her back against the trunk of a huge plane tree. "Intellectually, I know you’re right. But practically, given Muriel’s hatred of my mother, I can understand the lie."

Apprehension hindered her breathing. This subject touched far too close to the bone. The temptation to confess was squelched by fear of his reaction.

Chicken!

"No matter the cause, such a lie is never justified."

Hypocrite!

A loaded silence fell.

Would their lives have been different had Keir been straight with her that summer? He looked at her, his expression wry.

"You're right, of course. In my defense, my mother did always call me Seth."

My mother calls me Seth Donahue.
That's what he'd told her that long-ago summer.

"Why? Why not Keir?"
 

They continued walking, his boots crunching fallen leaves, the sound loud in the stillness, her smaller hand secure in his. It seemed to Victoria that even the birds were silent, awaiting his answer.
 

"A major difference of opinion. She hated the name Keir, my father hated Seth."

Outrage rendered Victoria almost speechless. Compassion warred with indignation.

Whatever were his parents thinking to put any child in the middle of such an awful tug of love? Didn't they know how damaging such a stance would be to a small child?

"That’s awful," she said, indignantly. "Why let me think Seth Donahue was your name?"

He gave another of those expressive shrugs. "It was more protecting my identity."

Only it was Donovan not Donahue.
"Why would you need to do that?"

"Donovan money garners attention. Most of it not at all welcome."

"You thought I was attracted to your money?" Hurt threatened to blindside her.

"After seeing that floozy of a cousin of yours—"

Heat flooded Victoria’s entire body as humiliation seared and another memory leaped out of the closet—

—mortified, she'd watched Susan cross the gravel in a skimpy bikini just short of indecent.

Victoria cringed with shame.

Her father would have a stroke if she wore anything even approaching that revealing. A tiny square of cloth front and back was held by a narrow cord at the sides.
 

When Susan laid a hand on Seth’s arm, jealousy, hot and painful sat like a lead ball in Victoria’s gut.

"You gorgeous hunk," Susan’s shrill voice turned heads in every direction. "You have my country cousin panting with desire."

Seth looked in her direction and Victoria wished the ground to open up and swallow her. Whole.

What could she say?

Susan had acted the trollop, and suddenly Victoria fully understood his reticence. How could he know in the beginning that she was any different from her cousin?
 

"You’re not responsible for your cousin. What’s the voluptuous Susan doing now?"

"She’s married with three preschoolers, the perfect wife and mother and a veritable paragon. I’m the family pariah," she said with wry irony.

And this role reversal still jarred.
 

It was Susan who'd acted the trollop but Victoria who'd ended up pregnant. It was so clichéd.
 

"So what have you done to put you on the outer with your family?" He watched her, his expression laser sharp.

Ooops! Put my foot in it, why don't I.

Almost too late, Victoria saw the trap she’d created with her unwary words. With a dismissive shrug she turned away, mind racing. Any conversation with him was fraught with perilous craters. Sooner or later she would step in one. And when that happened—

Keir gently caught her arm and made her face him. "What’s happened in your life, Victoria?"

"Apart from leaving home and starting my own business," she weighed her words carefully. "Not a lot."

If I don’t take into account raising this man’s son, alone.

"You own
Victorian Grace?"

"My mother left me some money and I used it as seed money to start my business."

"Yet you had such big plans, a lucrative scholarship, university, a degree in finance then overseas travel."
 

Victoria’s heart thudded in her chest, embarrassed now to remember how she’d shot her mouth off.

Big time.

Mentally sifting the past, she edited out revealing information. Of one thing she was absolutely certain. Keir Donovan was no fool and the last thing she wanted to do was raise his suspicions about her life, hell, about anything.

Then why are you walking alone with him in the early morning? And holding his hand?

Talk about sending mixed messages.

Guilt had her freeing her hand from his. She pushed it deep in the pocket of the borrowed jacket.

"Plans and people change," she said with quiet emphasis, praying he'd drop the subject. "Now, I can’t imagine doing anything else. Working with flowers is a joy."
 

While not her first choice, floristry provided a home for her and her son and also enabled her to schedule her work around Connor’s care. But most of all it allowed her to escape her father’s censure and domination.
 

She shivered.
 

The fierce battle waged over Connor still held the power to wound. When Andrew demanded Victoria give up her baby for adoption and resume her university scholarship, he'd underestimated her determination.
 

No one could coerce her into giving up her child.

But this wasn’t something she could explain. "Your plans changed too, Keir. You went to America. What happened to your ambition to take over the family firm?"

As his glance roved over her face, she felt heat seep into her cheeks.

"I needed to escape. The family pressure to take over Donovans was stifling me. An overseas post and the chance of gaining wider experience was by far the easiest way out."

"And yet, here you are back at the helm of Donovans."

"Yes, here I am, older and infinitely wiser."
 

The harsh thread in his voice caught her attention, as did his expression, emotion so raw, she averted her eyes.

Intuition screeching, Victoria knew some shattering event brought him back to New Zealand and home to a family he clearly held in contempt.

Why?

Something—or was it someone—had changed and hardened this man. Was this why he's prepared to settle for marriage to a woman as cold as Davina Strathmore?

He looked so—she searched for the right word—alone.

That was it.

There was a decided air of aloneness about him. Not a state usually associated with a man on the brink of marriage.

Victoria, well acquainted with the ache of loneliness, recognized it. She’d endured long years alone, caring for her child without the support of a mate.

She’d learned that just living was often the most difficult undertaking of all.

They continued walking, Victoria’s hands deep in the pockets of the jacket.

The more they talked the greater the sense of intimacy. And this made her nervous. His revelation about his mother made her very glad she’d never lied to Connor.

Caine Donovan didn't strike her as a stupid man. Surely he must have known such a massive deception could not remain a secret forever.

Had he not anticipated his son's reaction when he discovered the lies he’d been fed?

And he was surprised he was closer to Logan than his own son? A snort of disbelief almost escaped her.

Even as a small boy, Keir had a way of looking at you, judging you and finding you wanting.

Had Keir sensed he was being lied to?

No. She shook her head. That was Caine's guilt talking. The movement caught Keir’s attention.

"What is it?"
 

He tilted his head and looked at her, an eyebrow quirked.

Yet another trait he shared with his son. The likeness between father and son was uncanny. Had Logan guessed the connection? Was that the reason he'd badgered her into this weekend visit?

"Caine probably thought he was acting for the best," she said grasping the subject uppermost in her mind.

"Whose best?" He turned, gripping her shoulders, "Certainly not the best for a grieving child."

That was unanswerable.

What a shattering disillusionment. How would she cope with such deception? Not at all well, she suspected.

"How did you learn your mother was still alive?"

She watched him from beneath lowered brows as he struggled to frame an answer.

The silence stretched.

High in the treetops a thrush serenaded the morning, its clear musical notes joined by other birds. The first fingers of sun crept over the hills, turning the floating mist into a moving cotton wool shroud.

Keir walked on, the crunch of his boots on gravel and fallen leaves strangely soothing.

"I met her, quite by accident," he said at last.

Victoria sensed the words cost him an enormous effort.

"Where?"

At her soft question, he glanced her way, and then frowning, concentrated his attention on the path beneath their feet.

"I was staying with a school friend for the school holidays. And she brought one of her daughters over. The daughter was my friend's girl friend."

Victoria halted, staring up at him frowning. "How did you know she was your mother? After all those years?"

Keir stopped. His black brows met in a heavy frown, his clenched fists bulged in his trouser pockets. He looked at her shaking his head.

It was all Victoria could do not to cry out as she glimpsed his devastation, even now. Devastation she sensed he would deny with his dying breath.

What had his parents' lies done to this man?

She had the strongest urge to cradle him in her arms and soothe away his hurt.

"Would you believe it was her perfume?" Keir gave a bark of scornful laughter. "And then she tried to explain."

"Explain?" The word exploded from her in a fury of disbelief. "How the hell can anyone even try and explain away such an iniquitous lie?"

"Precisely." He rocked back on his heels, looking down at her. "Believe me; I was in no mood to listen. And I took my anger out on my friend's house. And that is something I do regret."

As Victoria turned over his words, she had little difficulty imagining the scene.

The discovery of such a huge betrayal would throw anyone, let alone a teen already chock full of testosterone ridden angst just waiting for someone to light the fuse.

Am I glad I resisted the temptation to tell Connor his father was dead?

This was another of her father’s suggestions.

Now he was at school, Connor’s questions about his father were coming with increasing frequency. He wanted a father, wanted to be like all the other boys.

And now I've found him.

Uncomfortable, she asked the first question that came to mind. "You visit your mother and sisters?"

"My sisters, yes. My mother? Not if I can help it."

The clipped response enough to let her know Keir still harbored ill feelings toward his mother. Did he blame the woman for the lies?

"Elizabeth is wary of me and my rage, but the Courtney family has forgiven me."

"You were staying with them that summer?"

"For someone so shy, you discovered a lot." His smile was amused. "Beth married Rafe Courtney."

Victoria stopped and stared at him, eyes wide, her heart suddenly hammering like a wild thing. "Beth Ellison is your sister?"

"She's Beth Courtney now," His smile was one of pure, wicked devilment. "She was highly amused at my fascination with a golden eyed witch, so tiny I could have carried her off to my lair in one hand."

Victoria scuffed a boot in the gravel. His words eased an ache in her heart that she hadn't even realized was there. Knowing she hadn't been mistaken, and that the explosive attraction they generated hadn't been all one sided, brought her a measure of relief.

"Why didn't you say something last night?"

"Mention my sisters here? You have to be joking. Muriel would throw a fit. And Dad—" he broke off and spread his hands.