‘He walked out when I was fourteen,’ he said quietly. ‘It was a really rough time before he left.’ His shrug and almost smile didn’t minimise the unease she sensed in him.
‘What happened?’
His attempt to smile failed. ‘Another woman is what happened.’
‘He had an affair?’ Lena’s body temperature plummeted.
‘With a manipulative number way nearer my age than his. She got pregnant.’
‘Did she have the baby?’ Lena uncurled her fingers so he’d let her hand go. She wanted to hide how clammy her palms had just got.
‘That’s how she got him to go back to her. He’d told Mum it was over and that he was staying. I thought it was all going to be okay—that they’d got through it. He was better, more involved, working. But six months later he told us his lover was pregnant and that he was leaving for good. It was more of a shock than when he’d first admitted the affair.’
‘Oh, Seth.’ Her heart sank.
‘She was three months pregnant. He said seeing her again had been a one-off. A mistake because she’d been so devastated after he’d ended it. And now she was too vulnerable to manage on her own.’ He shook his head derisively. ‘She’d done whatever she had to, to catch and keep him.’
‘You think she got pregnant on purpose?’ His words scraped her skin, leaving her nerves and heart so exposed.
From the poisonous mood in the hotel room before she’d sailed to paradise, only to drop into a corrosive horror now. This was worse than her worst nightmare.
‘Of course she did. It was the killer for my mum. She wanted more kids, but for whatever reason it didn’t happen. I was it.’
‘So she had the baby?’
‘A boy. They married. And my feckless, charming father finally got his act together. They lived in Auckland. Moved into the home that had once been mine and Mum’s, too, and left us with nothing. Tainted the whole damn town.’
Lena’s heart blistered. ‘How old is your half-brother?’
‘I’m not sure, early teens maybe?’
She could tell from his eyes he knew exactly how old the kid was, he just didn’t want to think about it.
‘Have you ever met him?’ she pressed anyway, her own demons pushing inside her.
‘I had to visit a few times when I was a teen until I point-blank refused. I saw him at the funeral. We didn’t chat.’
‘You don’t want to know him?’
‘Why would I?’
‘Because he’s your half-brother.’
‘He’s not.’ Seth shrugged. ‘We have no real connection. And I sure as hell don’t want anything to do with Rebecca Walker.’
Rebecca Walker. The name somehow made her real—and Lena felt so sorry. ‘That’s who that letter was from,’ she said, suddenly making the connection. ‘The other day. I thought it was odd that you chucked it because the sender had the same surname as you. R. Walker.’
‘She only has the same surname because she married my father.’
‘Why’d she write to you?’ Lena’s nerves pulled tight.
‘Money,’ he grunted.
Lena watched his barriers shut down—his face expressionless, his stance rigid on the sunny beach. ‘But you don’t actually know because you didn’t open the letter.’
‘Why would I?’
‘You’re not even curious?’
‘No.’
From the uncompromising response she knew there was no point telling him he should be. He was too frozen to want to know. But what if something was wrong? Surely the woman wouldn’t go to the trouble of writing to an estranged stepson without a good reason. His ruthless dismissiveness struck an ice-cold blade of fear into her. She understood his anger, she understood how hurt he must have been, but she hoped he could understand there might be another side to an age-old story. ‘You know, it’s not always the other woman who starts an affair,’ she said nervously. ‘Sometimes the married guy instigates it.’
‘You’re defending her?’ His eyes widened.
‘I just don’t think one party is ever wholly to blame.’ She dug her toes into the sand, trying to hide her discomfort. ‘Sometimes a woman might be seduced. Your dad lied, Seth. Maybe he kept on lying. Maybe he’d been seeing her the whole time.’
‘But she was the one who got herself knocked up so he felt like he couldn’t abandon her.’
‘It usually takes two to get pregnant.’ She wished the water washing over her feet could wash away her festering wounds. But they just kept on stinging.
‘Your parents are still happily married, right?’ he said roughly. ‘It’s not something you can really comment on unless you’ve lived through it.’
But she had lived through it. She knew all about extramarital affairs. About flip-flopping emotions and false promises. About lies, counter lies and self-deception. And desperation.
The revelation about Seth’s parents crushed the fledgling fantasy that this could be more than a fling for her and him. Now she knew he’d never be able to understand. She’d heard the scorn when he talked about his father’s other woman. No shades of grey—Seth was black and white all the way.
She’d made some huge mistakes and she’d been trying so hard to move on and not make those mistakes again. Not to be the immature, attention-starved, vulnerable girl who’d messed up so royally. And she’d been succeeding. But she didn’t think Seth would understand how her past had happened. Her affair with a married man had been more about her need to be wanted than her really wanting the man himself. It had been the attention—for the first time feeling that someone thought she was special, rather than feeling anything terribly special herself.
With Seth it was all different. With Seth it was all about her deepening feelings for him. Her incredible desire to be near his laughter, his light, his whole self. And that desire was expanding—she wanted to be part of his life, to share it all with him. She didn’t want to give him up.
But soon she would have to. She couldn’t hide her past for ever and she knew that the second he found out, it would be over.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LATER in the week, after more out-of-town meetings, Seth told Mike he wanted to fly back to Christchurch that evening, after all. He knew he should spend the night in Wellington—he had more meetings tomorrow. But now, last minute, he didn’t want to. He’d fly back in the morning. And then back to Christchurch again in the afternoon in time for the game. Screw the carbon footprint. He’d plant some trees on a station somewhere.
He hadn’t spent a night away in days. And there was only one green-eyed-brunette reason for that. A night away should have been good, would have been sensible, would have been a test. But he failed it gladly. Because he wanted nothing more than to be back with her as soon as possible. He didn’t copilot as he sometimes did. Instead he sat in the cabin and stared into space. Trying to work out what the hell he thought he was doing.
He knew what she wanted—a man who was one hundred per cent there for her. Who’d pay her the attention she’d never got from her folks. He’d seen her mother’s Facebook page in the weekend when they’d been playing on the computer. Lena hadn’t been exaggerating. In all the photos of her siblings and their achievements, there was only the one of Lena—with Cliff Richard. She’d tried to laugh it off but he’d seen her face in that unguarded split second when she’d realised there were no other shots of her in the online album. She’d been hurt. And then resigned, as if she shouldn’t have expected anything else. That was when she’d tried to laugh. But he didn’t think it was all that funny.
Beautiful inside and out, she shouldn’t be left in the shade. Like most flowers she needed full sun to bloom. The caring sweetheart had given so much more than she’d got back from her family. She deserved more from them. Deserved more than the little he could give her, too.
She needed absolute attention, utter security. And though she never mentioned it, had even once denied it, he knew that for her that would eventually mean marriage.