And here it was. The horrible reality. Did she try to dress it up into acceptable bite-sized chunks so that her friend might understand? Tara wondered desperately. No, there wasn’t a single chunk of this which could in any way be described as acceptable. In the end she managed to condense it down into a couple of bald sentences which she still found difficult to believe.
‘I had sex with Lucas,’ she said. ‘And I’m expecting his baby.’
‘You had sex with Lucas Conway?’
‘I did.’
‘You’re kidding me?’
‘I’m afraid I’m not.’
Stella shook her head from side to side, her thick black hair gleaming in the autumn afternoon sunshine. ‘I wasn’t even aware you fancied him!’ she exclaimed, blinking at her in astonishment. ‘Or that you were his type!’
‘I didn’t. And I’m not.’
‘So what happened?’
Tara shrugged and the bitter taste in the back of her throat only intensified. ‘I still can’t quite work it out.’
‘Well, try, Tara.’
Tara worried her teeth into her bottom lip before meeting her friend’s incredulous gaze. ‘He said something pretty mean to me, which focussed me into thinking I should get a new job.’
‘Which I’ve been saying to you for ages,’ said Stella darkly.
‘He told me he didn’t want me to leave—’
‘Please don’t tell me he seduced you so you’d change your mind?’
Tara shook her head. ‘Of course he didn’t. It wasn’t like that.’
‘Then just how was it, Tara?’
How could you put into words something which had flared between the two of them over dinner that evening? Something which had changed the way they were with each other, so they’d suddenly gone from being boss and employee to a man and a woman who were achingly aware of the other? Even if you could, it wasn’t something you’d dare admit to a friend, for fear of coming over as slightly deranged—or even stupid. Both of which were probably true in her case. ‘It just happened,’ she said simply. ‘I can’t explain it.’
There was a pause and Stella’s eyes bored into her. ‘So now what happens?’
This was the question which really needed answering and Tara knew that there was no alternative than to face the thing she was dreading more than anything else.
‘I’m going to have to go to New York and tell him.’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE WORLD AS he knew it had just come to an end but Lucas kept his expression blank as he finished reading the letter the attorney had given him. It had shocked and sickened him—the final sentence dancing before his eyes—but somehow he kept it together. He could feel the punch of his heart and the faint clamminess at his brow, but his hands were steady as he folded the piece of paper carefully and slipped it back inside the envelope.
‘Do you have any queries, Mr Conway?’ the lawyer was asking him. ‘Anything you’d like to discuss with us, regarding the contents?’
A million things, thought Lucas grimly—and then some. But they were the kind of questions which couldn’t be answered by some anonymous attorney he could see was burning up with curiosity. Not when he could manage to work out the most important bits for himself.
And suddenly it was as if a heavy mist had lifted and everything which made up the sometimes confusing landscape of his past suddenly become clear. It explained so many important things. Why his ‘father’ had always been so cruel to him and why his mother...
His mother.
He felt a twist of something which felt more like anger than pain as finally he understood why he’d never felt as if he belonged anywhere. Because he didn’t. His parents were not his parents and he was not the man he’d thought himself to be. Everything had changed in the time it took to read that letter.
And yet nothing had changed, he reminded himself grimly. Not really. He was still Lucas Conway, not Lucas Gonzalez. A pulse flickered at his temple. And no way was he ever going to call himself Lucas Sabato, his birth name. He shook his head. He was the man he had set out to be. A truly self-made man.
‘We had some difficulty tracking you down after your father’s death,’ the lawyer was saying smoothly. ‘Given that you’d changed your name and settled in Europe. And given, of course, that you were estranged from your family.’