Tempting Taine (17 page)

"My mother does."

"Every day?"

"We moved in with her when I finished college, after
gran
died, and the three of us have lived together ever since.
 
It works out well.
 
I bought the house with my salary from the hospital, and Mom does the cooking and looks after Aroha each afternoon."

They drove in silence for a few minutes.
 

Verity broke it with a question.
 
"Did you
really
not know before today?
 
No idea at
all
?"

He hated that she even had to ask the question.
 
Where was her faith in him?
 
Once upon a
time
she would have believed him without needing reassurance he was telling the truth.
 
"What sort of man do you think I am?"

"I thought I knew once," she said quietly.
 
"And I have spent the last ten years thinking you were someone quite different.
 
Now I
don't
know what to think.
 
I don't know any more
who
you are, or what sort of a man you turned out to be."

Chapter 8

A mess of butterflies did somersaults in Verity's stomach as she pushed open the door to her home.
 
Aroha was going to meet her father for the first time today.
 
How would her daughter react?
 
Her hands closed into fists so tight that her fingernails bit into the skin of her palm.

She forced herself to uncurl them.
 
Wasn't
this what she had always wanted?
 
For Aroha to have a father like other kids her age?

Verity's mother gave Taine a wary look as he followed Verity into the living room.
 
"I haven't seen you in a long time."
 
Her words were an accusation rather than a greeting.

Verity tossed her handbag down on the couch.
 
"He's come to meet Aroha."

"And
that's
long overdue," her mother muttered, not mollified in the least.
 
"She's in her room."

Just
then
a whirlwind burst into the living room and launched herself at Verity.
 
"Hey, Mom.
 
Guess what?"

Verity caught her daughter up in a hug.
 
"What, poppet?"

Aroha screwed up her face.
 
"Don't call me that.
 
But
I'm in the school play.
 
I'm
gonna
be a fairy.
 
All my friends wanted to be fairies but only
me and Kara
got picked.
 
All the other girls are
sooo
jealous.
 
You'll have to make me a costume with sparkly wings and a pink skirt that
pouffs
out."
 
She paused to take a breath and noticed Taine, standing over to one side.
 
"Who's that?" she asked in a loud stage whisper.
 
"I haven't seen him before."

"This is Mr. Hunter.
 
His father is one of my patients."

Taine shot her a filthy look, which she ignored as well as she could.
 
She just was not able to blurt the truth out to Aroha with no preparation.

Aroha screwed up her nose.
 
"Did he come to talk to you about work?
 
Coz I wanted to talk about my fairy costume.
 
I wanted a pink
pouffy
skirt that sticks out and wings with sparkles."

"Hello, Aroha."
 
Taine stepped forward, his face taut with emotion.
 
"I didn't come to talk about work with your mother.
 
I came to meet you."

Aroha looked at Taine and then at her mother and then back at Taine again.
 
A tiny, puzzled wrinkle sat between her eyes.
 
"To meet me?
 
But
why?
 
Are you a doctor?
 
Because I'm not sick or anything."

"Because he is…"
 
Verity's voice tailed off into silence.
 
Damn Taine for putting her into this position.
 
She
couldn't
do it.
 
She just
couldn't
.
 
"Because he's someone special to you."

"Because I'm your father."

Aroha turned her head on one side and looked at Taine.
 
"My father?
 
Really?"

"Yes, really?"

She put her hands on her hips.
 
"Then why didn't you come visit me before?"
 
Her little voice was harsh, accusing.
 
"Everyone else in my class has a Dad who visits them.
 
Except for Harry.
 
His dad is in
Rangipo
prison and Harry has to take a bus and visit him there in the weekend.
 
But at
least he gets to
see
his dad once in a while.
 
You've
never come to see me before.
 
Why not?
 
Have you been in prison, too?"

"I've been overseas, in America.
 
I left just after you were born.
 
Until today I didn't know I had a daughter to visit," Taine said evenly.
 
Verity could see the strain he was under by the tautness of his throat.

Aroha turned on her mother.
 
"Didn't you tell him about me?
 
How could you keep me a secret from my dad?"

"I
did
try and tell him."
 
She held out her arms to her daughter, but Aroha ignored her peace offering.
 
"I went to see him when you were born, but he wasn't there.
 
So
I left him a message.
 
And
every year after that, on your birthday, I wrote to him about you and sent him pictures.
 
Photos of you, pictures that you had drawn for him.
 
Everything."

"It's true.
 
She did.
 
Only I never got your Mom's letters so I never knew about you."

Aroha looked him up and down again and stuck out her bottom lip.
 
"Mom told me you were a fairy prince who lived in a castle in the clouds.
 
And
that you were ferocious pirate who sailed the Seven Seas.
 
But
you're not.
 
You're
just a dad like anyone else's dad.
 
I
don't
want you.
 
You can go away again and pretend I was never born just like you did before and I don't care."
 
With that, she tore herself away from her mother's arms, ran down the hallway and shut herself into her bedroom with a resounding slam of the door.

Verity's mother stuck her head around the door of the kitchen.
 
"I'm just popping out to the store for a few things I forgot earlier."
 
And
she, too, left.

Verity sat on the couch feeling as though she had run a marathon.
 
Her living room, which seemed so cozy when it was only her and her mother and daughter,
was dwarfed
by Taine's presence.
 
He sucked all the air out of the small room, leaving her breathless and dizzy.

Taine sat next to her, his legs crowding hers.
 
She wanted to curl into a ball and lay her head on his shoulder for comfort, but it was ten years too late for that.

Taine tapped his fingers on his knees with a jerky movement.
 
"My daughter doesn’t like me."

Verity gave a wry smile.
 
What did he expect?
 
That she would rush into his arms with joy that he was finally bothering to come meet
her?
 
Knowing Taine, he probably
did
expect that.
 
"She doesn't know you.
 
Give her time.
 
She's still suffering from the shock of finding out
who
her real dad is."

There was silence for a moment, but the tapping did not stop.
 
"Did you know you were having a baby?
 
When you left me?"

There was no point in lying.
 
"Yes."

"And you left anyway.
 
Why?"

"My baby was the reason I had to let you go.
 
I thought you would refuse to go back to Lincoln University and insist on marrying me and taking a job to support the three of us."
 
It was all ancient history now, but at the
time
how she had cried at having to let him go.

"Of course I would have."
 
The indignation in his voice was almost thick enough to choke him.
 
"What sort of a man did you take me for?"

"I didn't want to be the reason you abandoned your dreams.
 
I
couldn't
face that.
 
So I let you go to follow them."

"They were empty dreams."
 
He told hold of her hand, cradling it in his.
 
"I would rather have had you."

She pulled away and crossed her arms over her chest.
 
"That's easy to say now.
 
But would you have felt the same if you had been forced to give up your studies, forced to work in a minimum wage job with little hope of ever getting ahead?"

She read the hesitation in his eyes.
 
"No, I thought not.
 
You would have resented me eventually.
 
Me and Aroha both.
 
And
eventually you would have left us anyway.
 
I did what was best for both of us."

"That is not fair.
 
I am nothing like your father or your grandfather, either.
  
I would have made my choice and been happy with it.
 
You took my choice away from me.
 
You decided for me."

"I knew I would not be strong enough to hold out against you if you insisted on staying with me.
 
I so badly wanted to be selfish.
 
I didn't trust myself to do the right thing."

"The right thing?"
 
He gave a bitter laugh.
 
"How can you say that now, when I have been deprived of the first ten year's of my daughter's life?"

"
That
was not
my
choice.
 
I never dreamed you would turn your back on your child once she was born.
 
Your cruelty took me by surprise."
 
Though
it had not been his cruelty, but his mother's.

"My mother hated you."

"I know.
 
Mom told me why at the time."

"We've made a right mess of things, haven't we?"

Verity nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

"I want to spend time with her now.
 
It's only fair."

"You can come and see her as often as you like.
 
Every weekend, if you want."
 
She felt her offer was reasonable, generous even, under the circumstances.

"That's not good enough."
 
His voice was hard.
 
"She's lived with you for the first ten years of her life.
 
It's my turn to have her live with me."

Her heart leaped with sudden fear. "Don't be ridiculous.
 
She hardly knows you."
 
He
couldn't
be serious about wanting to take Aroha away from her.
 
She was
Aroha's
mother, and the only parent she had ever known.

"I'm not being ridiculous.
 
That's
exactly why she needs to come live with me.
 
So she can get to know me."