AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Max glowered, trying to work out whether she was lying or not.
‘How would they have known?’
‘I didn’t know how to contact you out there, and I didn’t want a letter like that sitting on your doormat for months, so I went to HR and got your emergency contact details.’
‘And my parents’ address,’ he realized, raking his hand through his hair. ‘Why didn’t you just send it to the charity to forward on to me?’
Evie looked aghast.
‘I never thought of that.’
And so she’d trusted that his parents would pass the letter on. But they never had.
The truth hit him again and a fresh wave of nausea bubbled in his gut.
‘What did your letter say?’
‘It...explained how I first found out I was going into first stages of renal failure when I came to Silvertrees. The week we first slept together. Then, a month or so later, I found out I was pregnant.’
‘So they read your letter to me, and visited you at your brother’s house?’ he reminded her flatly.
‘Yes,’ Evie answered after a moment. ‘They accused me of deliberately setting out to trap you.’
Just as he had. The irony wasn’t lost on him. His parents were undoubtedly the people he least wanted to emulate and yet here he was, more like them than he had ever realised. It didn’t make him feel any better about himself.
But neither did it change the fact that Evie had betrayed him. Lied to him.
‘And what did they say?’ he asked grimly, not wanting to ask but needing to know their response.
‘They told me that losing the baby would be for the best.’ Evie gulped, clearly struggling to contain her emotions. ‘They told me that if the baby did survive, given that we knew my PKD had developed into kidney failure by that point, the chances of him or her being completely healthy were slim. They also said that you were a successful surgeon with a promising career and they weren’t going to let me ruin it.’
A firewall of fury swept through Max. No one should ever treat anyone in that way, least of all someone as kind and giving as Evie. He knew his parents were callous, but even he wouldn’t have believed they could stoop so low.
And any promising career only reflected well on them, Max knew. Their consideration had nothing to do with him, only with themselves.
As Evie hiccupped beside him, he realised she was still fighting to compose herself.
‘They told me you weren’t interested in a family—which I already knew—but that you would
feel obligated to do the right thing.’
That brought Max up short. Obligation had definitely been his motivation in the very beginning, but that had quickly, subtly—so subtly he hadn’t even noticed it at first—changed. Now he missed both Evie and Imogen when they weren’t around, and actively looked forward to going home to them.
Or at least, he had done, until that phone call had turned everything on its head.
Now he felt used, unwanted, a means to an end.
Just as his parents had made him feel as a kid.
‘I once told you the one thing I couldn’t accept was people making decisions which impacted on me, without even consulting me about it,’ he snarled.
‘I know. But they told me you would end up resenting me for curtailing your career and ruining your future. More importantly that you would end up resenting Imogen for it.’ Evie gave a helpless shrug. ‘I could never put my daughter in that position.’
‘So you took the money,’ he surmised curtly.
‘No. Not then. I told them I didn’t need their money. I’d stay away if it was for the best, but I wouldn’t be bribed to do so. I even ripped the cheque up in front of them.’
Max frowned. He hadn’t been told this.
