The Secrets She Must Tell - Lucy King Page 0,8

suddenly, out of the hot, bubbling chaos roared a protective instinct he didn’t know he had and a clamouring primitive need to claim what was his above all else.

He could forget for now that Georgie had kept the existence of this child from him. He could ignore the myriad questions bombarding his head, adding to the confusion and turmoil. There’d be time for explanations and answers and analysis later. Right now he wanted—no, needed—to see his son.

‘Where is he?’ he said, handing her phone back and knowing the images on it would remain imprinted on his memory for ever.

‘With a friend.’

‘Take me to him.’

She stared at him for a moment, her eyebrows shooting up. ‘Now?’

‘I’ve missed all six months of my son’s life,’ he said, his jaw tightening and his tone chilly as he thought briefly of how much she’d denied him even if he didn’t yet understand it. ‘I don’t intend to miss a moment longer. So yes, Georgie. Now.’

In an ideal world, Georgie would have chosen to introduce Finn to his son on neutral territory, such as a park or a café, or, really, anywhere other than the dingy bedsit she now called home. However, she hadn’t thought it wise to suggest they wait until morning. Once he’d recovered from the shock, Finn’s stunned disbelief had very obviously turned to simmering anger, and why would she want to provoke that?

Sitting in the passenger seat of the top-of-the-range car that he was driving through the dark streets of the city and feeling the tension still radiating off him in great waves, Georgie could understand his animosity and resentment. From his point of view, she’d deliberately kept her pregnancy and his son from him. She’d denied him key moments in Josh’s life. He didn’t know that she hadn’t even realised she’d been pregnant until she’d given birth. He didn’t know that, subsequently caught in the terrifying grip of post-partum psychosis, she hadn’t had the capacity to track him down. Nor did he know that as soon as she’d recovered enough to be able to make a choice about what to do next, she’d gone about rectifying that.

Nevertheless, despite Finn’s stony silence and tightly leashed displeasure, she was glad she’d managed to find him, and unbelievably relieved that he appeared to want to be involved. His reaction to her blurted revelation could have gone either way. They barely knew each other. When they’d originally met it had been all about the sex. Neither had been looking for an in-depth character analysis of the other and, while she had felt an odd sense of connection, conversation had been sparse. So, upon hearing about Josh, Finn could easily have simply handed her phone back, told her he wasn’t interested and thrown her out. But he hadn’t, and for that she was inordinately grateful.

She was also more than a little nervous, she had to admit as she laced her fingers tightly in her lap while her stomach began to churn. At the moment he looked to be too busy absorbing the shock of fatherhood to question why it had taken her so long to contact him, but there’d come a point when he’d ask. And when he did, what would she say? He didn’t seem the sort to be satisfied with a vague ‘it’s been a busy time’ kind of explanation, yet she’d never told anyone the full extent of what she’d been through, not even Carla.

So should she tell him? As Josh’s father, he deserved to know the whole unvarnished story, and as part of her recovery it had been recommended she share it. But if she did, what would he think? What would he do? There were so many possible outcomes to this thing she’d set in motion, she thought, her stomach knotting as she stared out into the damp night. Some she could only hope for, some she dreaded, some remained unknown.

But one thing was certain.

While she couldn’t avoid telling Finn the truth for ever, she could at least put it off until he actually asked. Maybe even beyond that. She didn’t have to share it all now. And so, until the moment of reckoning came, until she had no option but to confess all and hope for the best, she was saying nothing.

If Finn had been asked to describe the route he’d just driven or name the neighbourhood in which he now found himself he’d have drawn a blank. The moment he’d registered the fact that he was on his