The Heart Surgeon's Secret Son

Now’s the time. Tell him about Ryan. Tell him that he has a gorgeous, wonderful fourteen-year-old son.

Seeming to sense her thoughts, he took her hand and lowered his voice to a soft, seductive purr.

“Tell me about your son, Kimberly. I’ve not asked much about him because I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear about someone else’s kid, but I do for the simple reason that everything to do with you interests me.” He interlaced their fingers. “How old is he? What’s he like? Does he look like you?”

“He looks like his father.” She needed something stronger than beer to drink. Much stronger.

“Your ex-husband?”

She shook her head. “No, Ryan was three when I married Thomas.”

Daniel looked taken aback.

“He worked in administration at the hospital where I worked while earning my BSN,” she explained. “I didn’t trick him in any way. He knew I loved my baby’s father very much and despite the time that had passed, I was still on the rebound in many ways.”

Too many ways. She’d been scared and trying to figure out her life when Thomas had come along. His friendship had offered her hope and she’d desperately taken it.

“Ryan’s father left you?” Daniel sounded incredulous.

“He didn’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” he snorted, disbelief written all over his face.

This wasn’t the lead-in she’d hoped for to tell him about Ryan. Maybe there wasn’t a good lead-in.

“Sometimes life’s choices aren’t easy ones and a person has to do what they think is right.”

“He thought leaving you to raise a baby by yourself was the right choice?” He shook his head. “He didn’t deserve you.”

She closed her eyes, prayed her eardrums wouldn’t burst from the loud roaring of her heartbeat. She had to tell him, right now.

“Daniel—” she began.

“It’s none of my business, right?” He smiled wryly, turned her hand in his and traced her lifeline. “You know, I wasn’t sure how I felt when I saw you on Monday morning. But I’m glad you came to Boston, Kimberly. Glad our paths crossed again.”

He lifted her palm and kissed the center. “Very glad.”

“Daniel, I need to tell you something.”

Her tone must have warned that what she had to say was serious, because he squeezed her hand. “Tell me.”

“When I told you that Ryan doesn’t look like me, that he looks like his father, well, there was more to it. About his father, I mean.”

He winced. “I don’t want to hear about this guy. What’s in the past is in the past. Ryan’s father no longer matters.”

“He does. I need you to understand why I made the choices I did.”

He regarded her, his eyes dark and unreadable. “Okay, tell me.”

“I loved Ryan’s father.”

“You’ve already said that,” he interrupted, shaking his head. “You’re talking in circles.”

Frustrated, she glanced around the noisy restaurant. Maybe telling him that he was a father while in the middle of a boisterous pub wasn’t such a good idea, but the moment pressed urgently, and she had to tell him. Right now, before she found an excuse not to.

“You’re Ryan’s father.”

His hand fell away from hers and he stared at her, his eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”