that she still felt sick.
‘That’s the least of my worries,’ Sev told her bracingly, hand splaying in a supportive brace to her spine as he guided her out into the cold wintry air. ‘Well, are you pleased to finally find out who your father is? Or disappointed that I found out first?’
‘You knew who I was when you brought me here tonight,’ Amy grasped belatedly, stricken to the heart by that obvious fact.
‘We would never have met had I not found out who you were,’ Sev admitted in a curt undertone. ‘I know you won’t like hearing that, but I refuse to lie to you any longer. What I never counted on was being knocked for six the first time I laid eyes on you. That wasn’t supposed to happen but, now that I know you, I’m not sorry it did. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted a woman and even the fact that you’re that lying bastard’s daughter doesn’t change that!’
Amy felt like a zombie because her brain felt as though it were drowning in sludge. She let Sev walk her out and lift her into the helicopter and she said nothing. He had detonated a bomb inside her head, and she wanted to scream because all of a sudden she was seeing that she had made a cartload of innocent assumptions about Sev and that every one of those assumptions was hopelessly wrong. Naturally she had believed that he was a stranger when they met, but that had not been the case when he had already known who she was.
Apparently, he had deliberately sought her out to use her for some nefarious purpose of his own. The noisy racket of the helicopter combined with the turmoil in her brain in a deafening cacophony.
Her identity as Oliver Lawson’s secret daughter was the sole reason he had invited her to the party, heck, very probably the sole reason he had ever taken the smallest interest in her! Deeper shock engulfed her with sudden sharp emotional pain, all her secret dreams and fancies laid bare and smashed to smithereens. The helicopter flew back to London while Amy struggled to get a grip on herself because, while everything between her and Sev was now finished, she did want answers... At the very least she deserved that in recompense for the nasty little scene he had plunged her into at the party without her consent. If she had had to be a dupe, let her at least be a well-informed one, she told herself fiercely, refusing to give way to the biting hurt over his duplicity that was seething inside her... Sev didn’t care about her at all, didn’t care that he had hurt and humiliated her and betrayed her trust.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘IS IT TRUE? Is that man my father?’ Amy asked sharply as the limo ferried them away from the airport. It was the first time she had been able to speak and expect to be heard since they had left the party and it was also the first moment that was truly private. The helicopter had been too noisy, and they had not been alone.
‘It’s true. I had Lawson investigated. Your mother worked in the same company with him for several years. He was actually engaged to her and living with her when the boss’s daughter began to show an interest in him. He ditched your mother and married Cecily not long afterwards,’ he explained curtly. ‘His affair with your mother started up again after the marriage and that was when you were conceived. He’s an ambitious man and marrying Cecily paid off handsomely. As soon as Cecily’s father died, he became CEO of her family insurance firm.’
‘It’s extremely weird to get those facts from you, facts I would have liked to have known years ago but which my mother refused to share.’ After making that honest admission, Amy released her breath audibly. ‘What I still don’t understand is what you have against Oliver Lawson that you would confront him like that with me tonight?’
Sev’s spectacular bone structure tensed, his dark golden eyes shimmering with sudden aggression as he sent her a cool flashing glance. ‘He’s also the father of Annabel’s baby.’
Further shock rippled through Amy and she froze then, her muscles bunching so tight that she ached all over. Oliver... Olly, she recalled his sister saying. More bad news, she thought unhappily, as if she did not already have enough to deal with, but there was the deeper, more