A Shameful Consequence - By Carol Marinelli Page 0,51

inside her when she told him about the family they were.

‘Tell me.’ He rolled on top of her, he kissed her face, he welcomed the news, for he had been wrong. You did not lose, love did not leave. She felt his thigh part her legs, felt the claim of his kiss, and she turned her face away.

‘Nico, please …’ He slipped inside as if he belonged there. Her body was ready for him but her mind was not, for she had to tell him. ‘I know who arranged your adoption.’

She waited for him to stop, for him to die inside her, for him to haul himself off, but there was just a pause, not even a second, an energy that changed.

He looked down at the woman who would have made him a father, who he would have loved for the rest of his life, and she held the answers he had been seeking, just not the ones for which he had hoped.

She knew it was over even as he thrust inside her, she knew from this they could not survive—that he would never hold her again, that she would never feel him again—and she wanted this time, shared in his anger, for she, too, lost.

He pinned her with his body, and she wanted the weight because she wanted to feel him. She wanted the power and the energy and anger of this man, and the anaesthetic of being conjoined.

She tightened around him and tried to halt her own orgasm, tried to calm the flare, tried for it not to be over, for then she would have to face him.

But Nico wanted otherwise.

He wanted it over, he wanted release; he felt her body tame when he wanted it wild, and he worked faster for it, harder for it, till her body could hold back no more and she cried as he pulsed inside her, because she knew now she must face him.

‘You know?’

He looked down at her. He was still inside her and there was no escape from his eyes.

‘How long?’ He did not ask about his past, his questions were solely as to her part in this. ‘How long have known?’

‘I found out last year.’ She wanted to be back in his arms, but he rolled from her, breathless, ominously calm. He sat up in the bed, shot out an incredulous, mirthless laugh and then his face turned to hers and she saw him look now at the witch who had deceived him, for the love had gone from his eyes.

‘And you let me keep looking? You’ve seen me searching …’ His mouth was in the shape of a smile, but she made no mistake that he was taking it well. She could see the muscles on his shoulders tighten, fury descended as he took it all in.

‘I didn’t know how to tell you.’

‘Well, darling, you’d better find the way now.’ It was no endearment. The word curled with disdain as he voiced it.

‘I found your birth certificate, the real one …’ There was no easier way to say it. ‘In my father’s office.’

Had he gone mad or had she?

How could she have known it had been his? It made no sense, and he didn’t want it to. The truth was nearly here and suddenly he didn’t want to know.

‘My father arranged …’ It wasn’t even been an adoption and her mind begged for a different word. ‘My father facilitated …’ And she searched for words that were kinder, tried to minimise even then what her father had done, but Nico did not wait for her to find the right words. Nico got straight to the brutal point.

‘He sold me.’

‘No.’ It was too hard, even now, to face. ‘A couple, your parents, wanted you. He arranged your birth certificate …’

‘He sold me.’

‘It wasn’t like that …’ She started to crumple, for she had seen the fees. She watched as he dressed, could feel the anger, the contempt, the rage that was building and would soon explode. She pulled the sheet around herself, wrapped it around her and held it tight as he demanded that she be honest. ‘Yes,’ she sobbed, ‘yes.’ She covered her face. ‘Yes, he sold you.’

It was true, and now he knew it, and he knew too why he didn’t belong—his father had swanned in and bought him, thought a baby was his God-given right. His father had taken him from his parents and he was taking from him now, because how could they come back