Oh. Wow. Itwashim, then. He’d obviously suspected it too.
‘Yes, if you’re the person I slept with in Glasgow one New Year’s Eve. The ghostbuster.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Oh my goodness.’ She was standing next to Max’s father, after all the time she’d spent searching in vain for him.
‘Are you certain that he’s mine?’
‘Yes. No question.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You were the only person I slept with that whole year. That was why I had the one-night stand. I’d made a resolution at the beginning of the year that I’d have a better love life, or atleast sex life, by the end of the year, and by New Year’s Eve I was feeling desperate.’ She shook her head. That was all so irrelevant. ‘Yes, he is definitely yours.’ They were going to have to tell Poppy as soon as possible. Georgie hoped beyond hope that she wouldn’t take the news too badly.
Declan frowned. ‘Did you try to find me?’
‘Of course. Poppy spent a lot of time trying to help me. But because I was drunk and I’ve always been bad with accents I thought you were South African and I couldn’t really remember what you looked like and I thought you were a current Glasgow student, and we just couldn’t find you. I think there were about two thousand people at that party.’ It had been in a huge nightclub.
He nodded. ‘I’d already graduated and was just back visiting friends who were still in Glasgow. Fuck me. Max is my son. Wow.’
‘Can I ask?’ Georgie had always wondered whether – hoped that – Max’s father would be interested in getting to know him properly if she ever found him. ‘Max. Would you…? Do you…?’
‘I would like to be in his life, yes, if that’s your question. He’s my son. He’s Daniel’s half-brother. But right now you have to come and speak to Poppy. She’s unbelievably upset. She thinks I’ve been lying to her. That’s my biggest concern at this minute.’
‘So you’ve already told her?’
‘No. She read your secret.’
‘She…’ No. Raf must have shown it to her. Wow. Obviously he’d been angry that she’d gone through his stuff, but she hadn’t expected him to do that. Irrelevant, though; this was all about Poppy. And Max. And Declan, his father, his actual father.
‘Where is she?’
‘At the house. She’s locked me out. I need you to explain, corroborate my story. I think it read to her as though we’d had an ongoing affair and she’s devastated.’
‘Oh, no, I’m so sorry. Oh my goodness, what a nightmare. I’m so, so sorry that I wrote it down and that she found out like that.’
Georgie couldn’t even begin to sort through the emotions crashing around her head as she and Declan walked fast across the cobbles. She’d found Max’s father and he was a lovely man who wanted to be in Max’s life. Unbelievable and wonderful. But Poppy had read her secret and taken it very badly, which was awful, and maybe Poppy would refuse to speak to her again. And, worse, it sounded as though she was very angry with Declan.
And Raf was apparently out of her life almost before he’d entered it.
Max and Declan, though: that felt wonderful.
But Poppy, though. Awful.
19
POPPY
‘Go away,’ Poppy said through the front door. She wanted toyellbut waking Daniel right now would not help her.
Bang. The door was going to fall off its eighteenth-century hinges if Declan and Georgie carried on like this. They’d been calling and hammering on the door for several minutes.
‘Please, please open the door, Poppy,’ Georgie said through the letterbox.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.Fine.
She opened the front door and Georgie and Declan both came inside.
