Wealthy Australian, Secret Son

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“I beg to differ. It’s very much my business. Martyn’s father was too smart to let go of the purse strings. And your mother? The self-appointed avenger?”

“My mother has settled—or tried to settle—into a different life. I don’t see much of her. She has little interest in my beautiful Chrissie.”

“Our beautiful Christopher,” he corrected curtly, usurping her as the single parent.

“He’s not Mattie, you see,” she continued sadly. “Really there was no one else for my mother.”

Rohan’s striking face was set like granite. “She loved you in her way. Of course she did.”

“Not enough,” she answered simply.

“I think I might find that a blessing,” Rohan mused. “Your mother keeping her distance from my son. Your mother is deeply neurotic. She would never accept me in any capacity. Not in a hundred lifetimes.”

She couldn’t deny it. Rohan had been chosen as the scapegoat. She had been the daughter of the family—a girl of twelve. Martyn Prescott the only son of close friends. It had to be Rohan Costello—Mary Rose’s boy. “My mother has been steeped in grief, Rohan. Dad has soldiered on.”

“Good old Vivian!” Rohan retorted with extreme sarcasm. “The fire’s not out in the old boy either. Did you hear the way he bellowed my name?”

Charlotte flinched, defending him quickly. “It was cruel not to let us know.”

“Cruel?” Rohan’s brilliant eyes shot sparks. “The hide of you to talk of cruelty! I can’t believe your treachery! I’ve missed out on the first seven years of my son’s life, Charlotte. First words. First steps. Birthdays. The first day at school. How can you possibly make it up to me for that?”

“I can’t. I can’t. I’m so sorry, Rohan. Sorry. Sorry, sorry. Do you want me to go down on my knees? I’ve raised Christopher as best I could. He’s a beautiful, loving, clever child. He’s everything in the world to me.”

“So that’s okay, then, is it? He’s everything in the world to you. What about me? I never held my newborn son in my arms. I was robbed of that great joy. Tell me, how did you manage to put it across Martyn? Or didn’t you? It’s common knowledge he had a young woman in the car with him. It’s a great mercy she wasn’t killed or injured as well. Tell me—did he fall out of love with you? Or did he get sick of what little affection you could show him? You didn’t love him. Don’t tell me you did.”