‘I would never have set out to trap you. Or anyone,’ she defended herself. ‘When I was diagnosed with PKD, I was also diagnosed with an ovulation disorder. I was told that I would likely need fertility treatment to conceive, which would only be given if my PKD wasn’t a factor.’
‘I see.’ His brain felt as if it were working through treacle to process the information. How could he be sure she wasn’t lying to him now? He took in her ashen pallor, her pinched nose, her shaking hands. Was he being churlish?
‘I’m sorry. I should never have said all that.’
‘No, you...you shouldn’t have.’
‘It doesn’t make sense for you to have set out to trap me, to want money from me, because if you had then you’d have hit me up for it as soon as she was born. So at least you have that in your favour. But right now, it’s the only thing you’ve got in your favour, Evie.’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Yes, it is that simple. How could you have failed to tell me about the baby? If I hadn’t had a plastics consult in that transpl
ant unit yesterday, if I hadn’t walked into that corridor at that moment, would you ever have sought me out to tell me about her?’
She didn’t respond and the silence settled over them like a heavy shroud, bleak and suffocating. Trees moved in the breeze outside the window, creating a gap to allow the sunlight through. The heat warming up his back was a discordant sensation.
‘Well, would you have?’
‘I wanted to tell you.’ She shook her head at last. ‘But things were...are...more complicated than that.’
‘Bull,’ he snorted. ‘I have a daughter. I deserve to have been told about her. You should have told me about her.’
‘I wanted to...’ Evie began uncertainly. ‘But you were in Gaza and when I tried to—’
‘That’s pathetic, Evie,’ Max cut her off. ‘You could have found a way. You could’ve got a message to me if you’d wanted to.’
‘It isn’t that simple, Max. Please believe me.’
‘Regardless of your claim that it isn’t about money, I intend to meet my financial obligations.’
‘I don’t want you to do anything out of some sense of obligation,’ Evie cried. ‘That’s why I didn’t tell you. Imogen and I don’t need resentment in our lives because you never wanted to be drawn into a family.’
‘And yet here I am.’
She pushed up off the couch with a sudden burst of energy and made for the living-room door. But it didn’t escape him that she was clinging onto it for support as much as holding it open for him.
‘Then let me make it clear that you’re free to leave. I will never contact you again. Imogen will never need you.’
‘It doesn’t work that way.’
The harsh bark didn’t sound like his own voice. His head was swimming, emotions he couldn’t identify crowding his brain—all bar one.
Fear.
He was a highly regarded surgeon on his way to the top of his profession. He controlled crisis situations and managed people through some of the worst times in their life. He relished the feeling of being calm and in control.
None of that was helping him now. He hadn’t felt such fear since he’d been a kid. Helpless and vulnerable. All because of his parents. He’d sworn he’d never have a family, never put a child of his through the hell that his parents had laid on him without them even meaning to. And Evie was offering him the chance to walk away from a situation he would never, ever have chosen to put himself into.
But the choice had been taken out of his hands. He was a father. There was a child out there who needed him to be that father. He could never turn his back and walk away.
But so help him he had no idea what he was supposed to do. The only thing he could do was begin with the practical, the bit he knew.
‘I’ll start making arrangements straight away.’
‘What kind of arrangements?’
‘I told you.’ He straightened his shoulders. ‘Financial arrangements.’