Louisa Heaton - A Father This Christmas?

It was like looking at a mini-me.

And he was three years old...

Three years that he had missed out on. Three years of important milestones—his first word, his first steps, his first tooth, his first Christmas!

I’ve missed everything. Birthdays and Christmases...

How had he not known about his own son? More important, why had Eva kept it from him? For three years! The last woman who had kept a secret from him had almost destroyed him.

Jacob called for one of the healthcare assistants to sit with Seb. ‘Don’t let him out of your sight,’ he said, then guided Eva into the staff room and slammed the door closed behind them.

Three years! I’ve had a son for three years and she never told me!

Fury and rage that he’d never thought it possible for one human being to contain filled his body, making it quake, and he had to grit his teeth to try to bring it under some form of control.

‘What the hell have you done?’

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and defiant as a solitary tear dribbled down her face. Even crying she was beautiful, and he hated her for that. Why couldn’t she look wretched? Why couldn’t she look awful, as if she were suffering for the pain she’d caused him?

He recalled Michelle standing in front of him, crying, begging for his forgiveness...

‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’

He looked at her, incredulous. ‘Nothing wrong ?’

‘I’m raising a boy on my own and I’m doing a damned fine job, thank you very much!’

‘Oh, I’m sure that you are—but what about me? Did you not think our son deserved a father?’

‘Of course I did!’

A horrible thought occurred to him. ‘Are you with someone else? Is another man raising my child?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Then, why didn’t you find me and tell me?’

‘I tried! Believe me, I tried! But I only had your name, and I knew you were going to work for a charity in Africa. I had no way to track you down.’

‘Did you even try?’

She wiped the tear from her cheek. ‘Do you know how many charities do work in Africa? Do you know how much research that would have taken?’

‘You could have asked my friends from the party! They would have known!’

‘I did! They told me you were working with Change for Children, but when I contacted them, they told me you’d already left!’

He stared at her. It was true. He had worked for them, but only for a little while. And then he’d met that doctor working for a different charity and he’d gone with him, hoping to assist with an eye clinic...

Had he told anyone? Had he told anyone the specifics of where he was going next? He couldn’t remember. Surely he must have said something? But even if he had, would she have been able to track him down? He’d still been running then. He would not have left a way for himself to be traced by his family...

Was all this his fault? If he’d only thought to leave a forwarding address... Only he hadn’t, had he? Because he’d been trying to avoid his family tracking him down and sending him letters, bothering him with all their worry and their ‘Are you all right?’ and ‘Are you coming home?’

He’d always assumed that when the time came he would be there for his children. As his father had been for him. He’d imagined what it might be like to hold his baby in his arms... And Eva had had his child, not found him to tell him about it, and his own son had been without him for three years. If he’d known he wouldn’t have stayed in Africa for so long...or even gone there in the first place!

Words couldn’t adequately describe how angry he felt right now.

And for it to be Eva who had done this to him. The woman who had sashayed into his life one night, blown his mind and made him feel more alive than he’d felt in a year! The woman who’d filled his dreams for many a night subsequently. The woman who’d made him regret leaving England. The woman he’d thought about coming back home for.

He’d never have expected that she would do this to him!

‘So...what does Seb know about me?’

She folded her arms. ‘Nothing yet. He’s too young to have asked about his dad. I had planned, when the time came, to tell him that you were in Africa, with no means of communication.’

‘Africa...’

He’d loved it there. It had been such an education for him—would have been for any doctor—to go from a high-tech medicalised hospital to work in a ramshackle, dusty building that barely had instruments, lights or monitoring equipment. Many a time he’d been so frustrated at the lack of equipment, at the numbers of people they’d lost because they didn’t have adequate resources, that he’d decided to come home again and again, after every loss, but he never had.

If only I had...

Then he might have learned about Seb sooner. Learned about Eva. Could he forgive her? This was Eva—the woman he’d...

Jacob cleared his throat. ‘I’ve lost so much time with him already. He needs to know who I am.’

She stood up instantly, her body blocking the door. ‘You’re not going in there to tell him right now.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘He needs to know.’

Eva nodded. ‘Then, I’ll tell him. At home. In his own space. Then maybe... I don’t know...perhaps you could come round later? Get to know him? Next week, perhaps...’

‘Give me your address. I’ll be round tonight.’

‘Tonight? I don’t—’

‘Tonight. I’ve already lost three years.’

She looked down at the ground. ‘I need more time.’

Jacob stepped forward so that he faced her, his nose mere inches away from hers. ‘You’ve already had three years. Tell him today. Or we both tell him tonight, when I come round. Your call.’

Eva backed away from the intense, angry stare of Jacob’s eyes. She’d had no idea of how angry he’d be. Or, really, what type of man he was. She’d allowed herself to be seduced by a stranger that night. She only knew one side of him.

‘I’ll tell him. I was the one who kept it from him after all.’

The way she looked at him then, with those beautiful crystal blue eyes of hers—the palest of blue, like snow ice on the polar caps—he had a flashback to how those eyes had looked into his that night they’d spent together, and a smack of desire hit him hard and low in the groin.

How could he still desire her when she’d just driven him mad with anger?

‘You know what hurts the most, Eva?’

She shook her head, her full, soft lips slightly apart, so he had to fight the urge to kiss her. It was as if there was a battle going on in his body. Half of him wanted to be furious with her; the other half wanted to take her to bed and make her gasp with delight.

‘Not only did you keep Seb from me , you also kept Seb from my parents. Grandparents who would love him. Aunts and uncles who would adore him. Cousins who could be his friends. My family would adore Seb.’

‘They still can...’

‘But only because I came here.’ He reached up and removed a wave of red hair from her cheek, then realised what he was doing and dropped it like a hot coal. ‘How much longer would you have kept the secret if I’d gone elsewhere?’

She seemed nervous of his touch, her breath hitching in her lungs and then escaping when he let go of her hair. She was breathing heavily, and he felt empowered to know he had that control over her. That she still responded to his touch.

He’d never forgotten that one night...

‘Jacob, I—’

‘What’s your address?’

Reluctantly, she told him.

He stepped past her and yanked open the locker room door.

‘I’ll be round at six.’