‘Why did you think he might have lost his temper, Cassie?’ Adam managed, though he felt like breaking down and weeping. ‘Because you knew that Samuel and Liam were one and the same? Because you realised that Ryan might have found out?’
‘No! I didn’t know,’ Cassie protested adamantly. ‘Not until I read the text. I couldn’t let them take Samuel, don’t you see? I had to—’
‘But you knew that Josh was the father of Jemma’s child!’ Adam shouted over her. ‘You paid her to keep quiet, for fuck’s sake. Why? Why wasn’t that child important to you when you were so desperate to have Samuel in your life?’
‘He was!’ Cassie turned to him, her eyes beseeching. ‘But I thought it was best if… Jemma and I thought it was best if I didn’t see him. Ryan might have suspected. Josh might have found out. There might have been blood tests. When I saw the letter from the DNA people, I—’
‘Found out what?’ She was making no sense. Adam ran a hand furiously through his hair. ‘That woman in there could have died, Cassie. Do you not see the seriousness of what you did? If you’d acknowledged that Liam was Josh’s, none of this would have happened.’
Gulping back a sob, Cassie looked away.
‘Talk to me,’ Adam demanded. ‘Make me understand. For pity’s sake, just tell—’
‘He’s his brother!’ Cassie cried. ‘Ryan and Josh are brothers! They didn’t know.’
‘What?’ Adam choked the word out.
‘They didn’t know of each other’s existence,’ Cassie went on unsteadily. ‘Ryan was brought up in care.’
Adam studied her intently. Did he know this woman at all? he wondered. Had he ever?
‘Jemma said she was going to tell him, now that Josh was no longer…’ Cassie kept her eyes fixed down. ‘She must have. I tried to stop her. I tried to tell her she would lose him.’
Stopping, she gasped out a breath. ‘I robbed Josh of his brother. I stole him. How was I supposed to tell him that? That the woman he’d fallen in love with, made a child with, was his brother’s wife?’
Emitting a tortured moan, Cassie buried her face in her hands. ‘He would never have forgiven me. Not ever. How could he have?’
Sixty
Cassandra
‘Ryan and Josh…?’ His expression thunderstruck, Adam could barely get the words out.
Why hadn’t she told him? Why had she done this to him? To Jemma? Poor Ryan, his heart had been utterly broken. She hadn’t considered what the consequences might be. She’d been furious with Jemma for what she’d done to Josh, but she had understood why, after losing her baby, she would have behaved uncharacteristically. Suffering a similar loss herself, Cassie hadn’t been able to see anything beyond her own precious baby’s little body. She pictured him as she’d cradled him, saying her last heartbroken goodbye. Blue, he’d been blue… but entirely perfect. His eyelashes, his tiny fingers and toes, all perfect. And then there had been Joshua. Beautiful. Vulnerable. Lonely and helpless. Born to a woman who would put him at risk. A woman who’d barely looked at him since he’d arrived in the special care unit. Cassie swallowed hard, trying to will the tears back. Adam wouldn’t comfort her, dry them for her. How could he?
She felt Adam’s eyes burning into her. ‘You’re telling me that Josh wasn’t yours?’
Cassie bowed her head. ‘I lost my child,’ she tried to explain, an impossible, unbelievable explanation after all this time. ‘He was stillborn. He would have been Josh’s age. Exactly Josh’s age.’
Adam sucked in a sharp breath.
Cassie looked over at him. She saw the agonised look in his eyes, the flash of sympathy. And then his face hardened. ‘You need to explain,’ he said, his voice gruff.
Lowering her gaze, Cassie nodded, defeated. ‘I knew his mother,’ she said, knowing she had to tell him now. She didn’t dare hope he might understand. She didn’t understand why she’d perpetuated the lie. Lied to hide her lies. Lies that had led to Josh’s death. There could never be any forgiveness.
‘I first met her when I did an article for a magazine,’ she went on tremulously. ‘It called for some research into drug dependency. Her name was Susan Anderson. She was an addict, incapable of looking after her children. Josh was born with neonatal abstinence syndrome. Drug dependency,’ she clarified, when Adam looked at her in bewildered confusion. ‘He had to be weaned off the drugs.’