‘A very long time,’ he agreed in a voice turned to ice.
Remembering Thea’s happy face the moment she’d spotted Lizzie, waiting to take her seat, Lizzie knew she was overreacting in this instance, and that neither Damon nor Thea had made any connection between them until Thea had run up to Lizzie. Then Damon must have known.
‘And in all that very long time you couldn’t find the right moment to tell me that we had a child?’
He was incredulous. And furious. But she was armed too. ‘It wasn’t all about you, Damon.’
‘Or you,’ he fired back. ‘Was a child so unimportant you just forgot to mention it?’
‘Thea—not a child. And there is nothing more important to me than Thea.’
‘How about giving me a chance to feel the same?’ he suggested cuttingly.
Damon was incandescent with fury, but she hadn’t expressed her feelings for almost eleven years. She hadn’t had that luxury. She’d been too busy being a mother and keeping food on the table, a roof over their heads.
‘I had a lot going on,’ she said, battling to rein herself in. ‘When I did try to contact you, your people blocked me, and I didn’t have the resources to keep on trying to call. And even if I had...’ She shrugged angrily. ‘What would you have done?’
His jaw ground tensely. ‘I wouldn’t have been as insensitive as you.’
‘Insensitive?’ Lizzie clenched her fists. ‘This from the man who turned his back on me after the court case, in spite having slept with me the night before? No doubt you’d washed your hands of everything to do with my family by that time. You’d got your victory, so everything else—including me—was done and dusted.’
‘I moved on—as you did,’ Damon countered coldly.
‘I moved on because I had to. I didn’t have a home to go to. You walked away without a backward glance.’ Her shoulders lifted tensely. ‘You didn’t care what happened to me after the court case.’
‘You weren’t my responsibility,’ Damon said coldly, and with a good deal of truth.
‘Correct,’ Lizzie agreed. ‘But you can be quick to help those you want to, can’t you Damon? You just couldn’t see beyond bedding me, and you certainly didn’t care about me, did you? So don’t you dare come back now and start accusing me of handling things badly. We both made mistakes—’
‘You can’t turn this around on me.’
‘Why not?’ Lizzie challenged. ‘You walked away.’
‘There was nothing to walk away from.’
With a shake of her head, she laughed angrily. ‘Exactly. All I am to you—all I ever was—is a one-night stand.’
‘And you had so much going on in your life that letting me know you were expecting my child came well down the list.’
‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ Lizzie exclaimed. ‘I didn’t have your resources. I was thrown out of my childhood home with just the clothes I stood up in. I didn’t have any money. I certainly didn’t have a phone. I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from, let alone whether I could manage to put a roof over my head. And at that stage, Damon, you were the last person I’d have thought of calling. Why would I, when you’d made no attempt to find me?
‘I had no one to rely on but myself—and don’t think for one moment that I’m complaining, because it was a good thing. Being alone taught me self-reliance and helped me to be a better mother for Thea. It made me strong and determined, and I learned that if I took one step at a time I could survive—I could put a roof over my head and I could care for my baby. Those were the only things that mattered to me—not you, nor me. Beyond keeping healthy for Thea’s sake, the only thing I cared about—still care about and always will care about—is Thea.’
‘You should have come to me,’ he ground out.
‘Should I?’ she demanded. ‘If I could have found you, do you mean? After I’d repeatedly contacted your people and been turned away I made one attempt to appeal to my stepmother, one woman to another. I told her I was pregnant and begged her to help me find you. She laughed in my face and told me never to return. She couldn’t have a slut damaging her reputation, she said. Yes, it was a slap in the face,’ Lizzie agreed, ‘but it pulled me together fast and I managed very well without her—and without you too. It didn’t take me long to learn that I was better on my own.’
‘You didn’t give me the chance,’ Damon said with a shake of his head. ‘You didn’t give me the chance to know my child. And, yes, I was away for a lot of the time, but since I came back I’ve taken you out twice, and yet you never hinted that we had a daughter together. Do you have an explanation for that?’
‘Yes, I do. Thea had to know first. I was protecting her. And if you can’t see that then you’re not fit to call yourself her father. That’s the difference between you and me,’ she added. ‘You have all the power and money in the world, and I have nothing, but when it comes to Thea you won’t get past me.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure. I have rights,’ he said.
‘You have no rights,’ Lizzie argued, feeling calmer.
‘I... I have no rights?’
Damon almost laughed—as well he might. A man who could command anything that money could buy, would find it difficult, if not impossible, to conceive that there was something on this earth he couldn’t have.
Lizzie felt as if ice had invaded her veins, but nothing would stop her when she was in defence of her child, and Damon had to hear this. ‘You have no rights because there’s no father listed on Thea’s birth certificate.’
‘A DNA test would soon establish my rights as Thea’s father,’ he said confidently.
‘If I allowed such a test to take place.’ Lizzie lifted her chin. ‘The fact that your name doesn’t appear on Thea’s birth certificate means that you have no legal rights over Thea unless I allow you to.’
‘I’ll fight you every way I can,’ Damon threatened, frowning.
‘Again?’ Lizzie said quietly. ‘Before you deploy your legal team, you should know this. Thea doesn’t want to know her father. She never has. She asked me to stop talking about him because we were all right as we were, and she didn’t want some mystery man entering her life.’
‘She might change her mind if she knew it was me.’
Damon’s voice was so cold it chilled her.
A burst of applause drew their attention to the window. The conductor was mounting the stage.
‘I have to go.’ She turned for the door. Damon remained where he was. Sh
e hesitated with her hand on the door handle. Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she drew in a breath and then turned back to face him. ‘You should hear her play. You’ll regret it if you don’t.’
She walked out of the room and didn’t stop until she was outside the school. She felt as if she were suffocating, and gulped in air. There was no one behind her...no sound...no footsteps...no Damon.
* * *
He was incapable of feeling anything—numb, existing on autopilot. He was breathing, maybe. He stood in the silence of an empty room until the first swell of music from the youth orchestra prompted him to act.
Lizzie was easy to spot, with her shining red hair in a sea of ebony locks. There was only one empty seat left in the entire audience and that was next to her. He could have stood at the back, or at the side, but that might have looked odd to Thea.
Lizzie didn’t acknowledge him as he sat down. He didn’t acknowledge her. They might have been two strangers. Two strangers with a daughter between them.
He had a daughter.
He kept on repeating the phrase over and over in his head, as if it would finally make some sense to him.
The young musical sensation Thea Floros was his daughter... Floros was Lizzie’s mother’s maiden name.
The pieces clicked into place one after the other as he sat immobile in a state of shock. Another part of his brain was agitatedly wondering how to make up for eleven years. He had a child, and that changed everything.
The little violinist he’d got on with so well with was his daughter. And Thea was her name. He had a daughter named Thea...
Repeating this was both surprising and wonderful, and he kept on repeating it as the orchestra played.
‘Damon?’
He heard Lizzie murmur something to him, but he couldn’t answer. He didn’t want to answer her. He didn’t want to speak to her. He wasn’t ready to share the way he felt right now with anyone—especially Lizzie. He couldn’t have put his thoughts into words, anyway, and not just because the concert had started and even a cough would be inappropriate. They couldn’t discuss something as monumental as this in public.