I swallowed hard.
“And he…wanted her. Probably for the sheer fact alone that she knew nothing about hockey. It was her friend who loved the game. My mom was just there for her.”
I did the mental math, my stomach tightening. “He was married.”
Jansen nodded. “Yep,” he said. “Not that my mother knew that. All she knew was…” His voice trailed off. “Well, you know how alluring celebrity athletes can be,” he tried to joke, but there was too much raw pain in his voice. “Anyway, it lasted a few weeks before she figured it out. She was crushed, naturally. He already had another kid with his wife, and one on the way.”
“When she found out she was pregnant with me, Sergei had the audacity to demand a paternity test. My mother didn’t want anything, wasn’t asking for money. She just felt he had the right to know he had another child on the way.” His eyes lilted to the side and cleared his throat. “She did everything he asked. Got the test. Proved he was the father. And, I guess he was banking on her not being faithful to him, or he hoped for it because when she showed him the proof…” His knuckles turned white he gripped the counter so hard. “He turned her away. Tossed her out like she was nothing but trash.”
Angry tears bit the backs of my eyes.
“She never went public,” he continued. “But Sergei’s wife found out, somehow. I think she found a copy of the paternity test or something. Asshole had been dumb enough to hang onto it.” He shrugged. “Maxim was born a few weeks before me,” he said. “And I didn’t even know any of them existed until I was thirteen. When my mother finally felt I was emotionally mature enough to handle the truth and take my own actions, whatever they may be.”
My heart clenched. “What did you do?”
He huffed a dark laugh. “I was a thirteen-year-old boy without a father,” I said. “I did what any kid would do. I begged to meet him.” He shook his head. “I’ve told you the rest before,” he said, and I remembered the moments he’d let me in when we’d been stuck in that amusement park ride.
I shook my head, stepping toward him, but he continued. “Sergei agreed to meet with me, but only in a public place. He sat down with me at some bullshit restaurant, ignoring my mother who lingered just outside. He told me I’d never be his real son. That me simply existing had nearly torn his real family apart. He called me a coward for reaching out, and threatened to stop sending the child support I didn’t even know about if I continued to try.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. “You were thirteen?”
He nodded. “I walked out of that restaurant a bit older,” he said. “My eyes were opened in a way they never had been before. My mother had raised me as both a mother and father, playing two roles and shuffling two jobs to keep us fed. And the money he’d sent? That paid for all the hockey lessons, the gear, the insurance for the inevitable injuries I sustained.” He shook his head. “I realized that day that I had to do whatever it took to take care of my mother. To make up for what that asshole put her through. The same asshole who knew I was his son and decided he’d rather treat me like a dirty secret than a human being.”
“Jansen,” I said, my heart breaking for him. It made sense now, the nerve I struck every time I said I didn’t want to go public. But he wasn’t something I was ashamed of. I adored him. Craved him. Was a better, stronger woman because of him. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s in the past,” he said, but it so wasn’t. The tension between Maxim and him? The rage and hate? That was still very much current. And everything he’d told me tonight and before? It made so much sense—Maxim was the son allowed in the spotlight, the one worth claiming, and Jansen had been the one tossed in the dark without a second thought.
“I hope you know that I don’t want to hide—”
“I know,” he cut me off, and I wrapped my arms around his middle. He slid his hand over my hair, holding me to him. “I know it’s a different situation, London,” he said. “But, I just wanted you to know. To understand…why I get a little cold when that comes up.”
I nodded against him. I completely understood—not how a father could do that to his child, but the source of Jansen’s pain. His drive to be the best without help. The way Maxim grated on his nerves. And I didn’t know if it was simply because Maxim was who he was or if they had a deeper kind of history, but I wasn’t about to push that issue now. Not when he was an exposed nerve, raw and vulnerable.