No Greater Love - Eris Field Page 0,40

to deliver twins but you may stand at the head of the table if you like.”

Twins! Pieter glanced at Janan for permission to stay, and when she nodded, he pulled a linen handkerchief from his pocket and wiped her forehead. “It will be over soon.”

As the obstetrician prepared to deliver the babies, Pieter was startled to hear Janan reminding the doctor that she had made arrangements to have the umbilical cord blood of both babies saved and frozen. His mind whirled. Why was she insisting on having the cord blood frozen? Did she fear that the babies might need a stem cell transplant in the future?

Unable to help himself, Pieter slumped against the wall as he heard the doctor telling Janan that she had a beautiful baby girl and then a few minutes later that she had a fine son. He felt drained of all energy. He had given everything to help her and now it was over. He managed to push himself erect as the nurse approached the head of the table with a baby in her arms.

“Your daughter,” she said to Janan.

“Barina,” Janan murmured, holding the tiny body close. “Her name is Barina.

Unable to help himself, Pieter had moved to stand beside Janan and now was speechless, entranced by the tiny baby girl with the dark hair and eyelashes and the finely chiseled lips of her mother.

“Your son, Mevrouw,” the nurse said as she tucked a tiny baby into Janan’s other arm.

“Tomas,” she said firmly as she gazed at her son and then glanced up to meet Pieter’s eyes.

“This is Tomas.”

He nodded and turned to the other baby, with a broad forehead and square chin punctuated by a tiny cleft. He cleared his throat and said formally as he shrugged into his jacket, “My congratulations, Mevrouw, Janan. You have two beautiful children. I wish you all happiness.” He backed toward the door. The finality of her soft reply, “Thank you, Pieter Effendibey,” broke his heart.

Shaking with fatigue and drained of all emotion, Pieter drove to Carl’s home. He would collect his mother, drive back to Amsterdam, and block out the memory of this night for all time. Janan was married, a mother. She was lost to him.

It was Carl who answered his knock on the door and, as soon as Pieter saw his long, narrow face with its pointed chin, a vision of the baby boy’s broad forehead and square chin with its tiny cleft flashed in his mind. In that moment he knew that the babies he had just seen were not Carl’s.

They were his!

Anguish burned through Pieter as he stared at his mother standing beside Carl. Without waiting for either of them to speak, he raged, “You’ve robbed me of my children. I’ll never forgive you.”

There was little traffic on the road as Pieter drove back to Amsterdam, his thoughts blacker than the night. He had lost everything. Was there any way out? Any way he could have Janan and his children? Could he ask her to leave Carl? Could he go to court to claim his children? He clenched his teeth against the churning nausea threatening to overwhelm him. Could he put Janan through such a painful process? Another thought claimed him. Janan had said that she had spent her early years taking care of her ill parents, that the caretaking had robbed her of part of her life. He might never achieve remission. If so, he faced a lengthy, debilitating illness. As he edged the car into a parking slot in front of his mother’s house he knew that he could not put Janan through that, but there was one thing he could do. He could move out of his mother’s house, tonight.

Chapter 11

“You have a message from your uncle.”

The secretary’s words startled Pieter as he walked into his office. “My uncle?” He scowled, hanging up his hat and raincoat. “I don’t have an uncle.”

“He said that he was Maarten Bentinck, your uncle. He asked that you come as soon as possible.”

Pieter lowered himself into the chair behind his desk as his mind raced. His grandfather’s older brother, Maarten Bentinck, the family recluse who had cut off all contact with the family nearly seventy years ago, had contacted him? But they had never even met. Why would he be contacting him now? “Was that all of the message?”

“Yes. He left his phone number and asked me to write down his address.” She passed him a slip of paper with a faintly questioning look.

Of course