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He didn’t know. He never could know.
It wasn’t worth his time or his headspace.
‘No,’ Malachi ground out, not sure if he was trying to convince Sol or himself. ‘I don’t. I don’t ever think about it. It’s in the past. Done. Gone.’
‘What the hell kind of childhood was that for us?’ Sol continued regardless. ‘Our biggest concern should have been whether we wanted an Action Man or Starship LEGO for Christmas—not keeping her junkie dealer away from her.’
‘Well, it wasn’t. I wouldn’t have asked if I’d known you were going to get maudlin on me.’
‘You were eight, Mal. I was five.’
‘I know how old we were,’ Malachi growled, not sure whether he welcomed the reminder or not. ‘What’s got into you, Sol?’
Their shameful past—their horrendous childhoods—they were the reason why he’d always sworn to himself that he would never have a child. Whenever he looked back—which he never usually did—all he could feel was age-old bitterness and anger tainting his soul.
How could he ever be a good father?
Yet if Saskia’s baby really was his—and he still needed to hear her say the words to him, not to some stranger—how could he turn his back on them?
He couldn’t. It was that simple. And Sol raking up wretched memories wasn’t helping.
‘It’s history.’ Censure splintered from Malachi’s mouth. ‘Just leave it alone.’
‘Right.’
His brother pressed his lips into a grim line and they each lapsed back into their respective silences.
He didn’t want Sol’s gratitude. He didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t taken care of their little family out of love, or a desire to be a unit. He’d done it because he’d been terrified of where they would all go if they were split up.
But he’d begrudged every moment of it. Resented the fact that at eight years old he’d had to effectively become a father to a five-year-old—had had no choice but to become the man of the house and earn money to put food on the table. At eight he had felt like a failure every time the electricity cut out and he had no money left to put anything on the card.
He’d sworn to himself that his adult life would be about himself, the way his childhood had never been. He’d been adamant that when he grew up he would never marry or have kids. His life would be his own. Finally. He had been determined that his business—which had made him a billionaire against all the odds—would be his only drive. As selfish as that might have sounded to anyone else—anyone who didn’t know what his life had been like.
And it had been. Nothing had stood in his way. Not his lack of experience, nor the competition, nor any relationship.
He’d been ruthless.
All too often he wondered if the only reason he had founded Care to Play—the centre he’d set up with Sol, where young carers from the age of five to sixteen could just unwind and be kids instead of feeling responsible for a parent or a sibling—had been to make himself feel good about his ability to shake other people off so easily.
He’d believed that he wanted to make a positive difference to other kids’ lives—if something like Care to Play had existed when he and Sol had been kids, then maybe it could have made a difference. He’d even convinced himself it was true.
But now, suddenly, he wondered if it had been just another selfish act on his part. If helping kids like Izzy, who clearly adored her genuinely struggling mother, was less about them and more about making himself feel better for the way he’d hated his own drug-addicted mother.
So now there was Saskia. Pregnant. With his child. And he couldn’t shake the idea that he had to do something about it. He was going to be a father, and fathers weren’t meant to be selfish. They were meant to be selfless.
Malachi was just about to open his mouth and confide in his brother, for possibly the first time in for ever, when Sol lurched abruptly to his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets the way he’d always done when his mind was racing, ever since he’d been a kid.
It was so painfully familiar that Malachi almost smiled. Almost.
‘I’m going to check on some of my patients upstairs, then I’ll be back to see Izzy.’
Malachi dipped his head in acknowledgement, but Sol didn’t even bother to wait. He simply strode up the corridor and through the fire door onto the stairwell, leaving Malachi alone with unwelcome questions.
‘You can go back in now.’
Malachi jerked his neck around, and the sight of Saskia standing there brought a thousand questions tumbling to his lips.
‘Is there anything you’d like to tell me?’ he rasped, before he could swallow the words back.
