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He remembered that day as if it were yesterday, felt the shock that he could lose hishis body He’d looked at his stepfather and for the first time since his own father had walked he’d wanted to cry He’d been barely a teenager and already he’d known the pain of watching his father reject him, reject his mother and walk away and now this

‘Is she going to die?’ The forthright question had floored his stepfather, but he’d at least been honest in his reply Too honest

‘It is not good’ Rerief in his stepfather’s eyes sucked hinosed while she was expecting Angelina and refused any treatment until after she’d been born She didn’t want to risk your little sister She wanted her to live’

‘But I don’t want my mother to die’ The words had torn fro to the moon and his stepfather had wrapped hi to be there for hirief to nurse Max had seen and felt how much love hurt, how much pain it caused when the person you loved left you, and had vowed then to shut that painful eood

‘Neither do I,’ his stepfather had said as he’d held hi a better father than his real father had ever been His mother had paid for the delay in treatment with her life He wished he’d been told when she’d first found out, wished they’d considered hih to know then Maybe he could have talked her round, e her mind By the ti attachelina, and as much as he’d wanted to hate her he couldn’t, but he’d pushed her away e happened to her too just because he’d loved her?

As the English winter winds blew around him, he remembered more, could see hi his four-year-old sister hugging a kitten her father had given her

‘So for you to love, Lina,’ his stepfather had said as he’d placed the elina’s lap

Max had looked at the kitten as it tried to nestle down on his sister’s lap and that first wave of bitterness that shaped the er, had crashed over hiood, just as it wouldn’t do hiood Love set you up for disappointment, rejection and worst of all heartache

He’d loved his father and then had been forced to stand and watch him walk away He’d called after him as he’d marched to his car, but he hadn’t looked back once He’d just got in the car and had driven off, tyres spinning as he’d made his escape Max had waited, hoped he would co and back to anger he’d accepted he wouldn’t, that he now had to be the man of the house After all, he loved his mother and she wouldn’t leave him

Then she had Snatched in the cruellest way because she’d chosen her unborn baby over herself—over him

Max shrugged the painful memory away In rational moments he kneould never have been able to help her She’d had to make a terrible decision but done what any mother would and had protected her unborn child, but it still hurt like hell, that she’d risked leaving hi his baby sister Now here he was, a father-to-be, wanting to do anything that woulde his life, change hio of the pain of the past and allow love back into his life

‘Women have babies every day’ Lisa’s words hauled him unceremoniously fro it for away If only his childhood pain could evaporate so easily

‘That may be so, but you rowl as he wrestled with the past, insistently pushing it back where it belonged He wanted to look after Lisa but ell aware that in doing so it was giving her false hope of a loving e How could he, the son of a s as love and commitment? Hadn’t he already failed at that? He was certain Lisa wouldn’t even be here with hi his child

He took in a deep breath of cold fresh air and opened the gate, aware that Lisa was looking at him sceptically Her cheeks were pink from the cold and the collar of her coat was pulled around her tightly, but all he could see was the ie of her wrapped in the faux-fur throw as she’d sat on the bed thisher look so desirable yet so vulnerable and fragile that so he’d never felt before So he didn’t want to feel