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Di how catlike they looked against her flushed skin Her dark hair was tu over her tiny breasts and every instinct in his body was urging hiain But so to shift Didn’tto Because she was right As the mother of his child didn’t she deserve to hear the truth?

He gave an expansive flick of his hand—as if to draw attention to the die rooed ely successful businessh ‘Or that’s what I thought I was—until the whole pack of cards ca down’

For once she was silent, but he felt her grow very still beside him

‘I discovered thatbut an illusion based on lies and deception,’ he said ‘It was all s was as it seemed My father wasn’t the respectable businessht His respectability was just a front for his underworld dealings He , and fro and misery’

He could see her eyes widening in shock, but he forced hi the burden of having kept this to hiacy of criminality—that the secrets it created tainted everyone around with the sense of nothing being as it should be?

‘My relationship with hiood He was the coldest man I’ve ever encountered So inside hi to do with h me as if I was invisible, or worse As if he actually hatedtime for me to discover why’

‘Why?’

He could hear her holding her breath

‘Because he wasn’t actually my father,’ he said slowly ‘I was the cuckoo child A product of a passionate liaison between ardener’

‘Your ardener?’

He nodded and waited while she processed this piece of information

‘And as he like? This gardener’

Die Was it that which made him stray deeper into the memory—into the dark place he usually kept locked and bolted?

‘A striking man,’ he said slowly ‘Tall and muscular, with tawny hair and blue eyes I remember how much the maids used to idolise him and hoomen turned to look at him whenever he walked by But most of all, he was kind I didn’t realise that men could be kind It never occurred to me to question why he used to spend so much time with me—way more than my father ever did It didn’t even occur to me untilin theto acknowledge that I was his But he never did’ He saide her green eyes had grown ‘Shocked, Erin?’

‘Not half as shocked as you must have been’ She seemed to choose her next words with care ‘But if your other father knew you weren’t his child, then why did he stay with your mother? Why didn’t he just divorce her and cut his losses?’

‘And lose face?’ Dih ‘Admit that some labourer had succeeded where he had failed? No That wasn’t the way he operated My e Locked in a relationship based on fear with a man who despised her And I think she felt the sa warm towards me’ He sucked in a breath ‘Maybe she didn’t dare show e my father Or maybe she saw me as a constant reminder of what she had done Maybe I represented the failure she’d made of her life and her relationships’

‘And the gardener? What happened to him?’

There was a long silence before he shrugged ‘Onehe just wasn’t there any more I remember it inter and the front door was open and I went looking for my mother I found her in the forest, in the little shed where he used to keep his tools She was curled up on the floor crying her eyes out, half rief’

‘And did you’ Erin’s hand crept over his and squeezed it ‘Did you ever ain? Did you ever form some kind of relationship and make peace with the past?’