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I tried to move, wanted to face him, but he wouldn’t let me. Why wouldn’t he?
I wanted to look in his eyes, tell him that whatever it was, everything would be okay, but…
“Is this to do with what you told me last night?”
It made sense that talking about his childhood would raise some issues. He’d had a few nightmares in the past, nothing major, though. I’m sure I did too. They were just dreams, after all, except he’d lived a nightmare. Had discussing it brought things back to him?
Shit. I should have left things alone. I should never have told him about my knowing Fiona. I already knew what he’d endured at the hands of his father, thanks to Lena. My selfishness in needing to understand the depths my own father would sink to in order to preserve his reputation had raked Finn’s past over the coals.
I’d disturbed something that should never have been mentioned.
Guilt filled me, then he whispered, “Gerry O’Grady wasn’t my father.”
Whatever I’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that.
“What?”
“He was…” He sucked down a ragged breath. “I spoke with Aidan. He says Gerry wasn’t my biological dad.”
“And how the hell would he know?” I snapped, wondering what kind of game the old man was playing.
“He’smy dad, Aoife. He admitted it this morning.”
“Huh?” That was literally all I was capable of saying.
Three letters.
One syllable.
Huh.
It summed up the swirling cocktail of bewilderment, confusion, and the outright ‘wtf?’ that was this moment.
“H-He had a girlfriend when he was newly married.”
After what Lena had warned me about, that all men cheated, that didn’t come as a surprise. She’d been bitter enough for me to know that Aidan had fucked someone behind her back.
“That was a shitty thing for him to do,” I whispered, dropping my hand to cup his. He’d stopped stroking my belly, was just holding me in place so I couldn’t turn around and look at him.
“Yeah. He said things changed after Aidan was born.”
Uncertain what to say to that, I stroked his fingers, trying to comfort him, even knowing that there was nothing I could do to ease this burden.
What the hell had made them talk about this all these years later?
Hell’s bells.
We’d gone to bed at ten! What had happened in the past eleven hours—hours where most people were asleep—to make them raise this topic of conversation?
“Why did he tell you now?”
Finn tensed, then he blew out a breath. “I was handling something else and it came up.”
‘Came up.’ I had to stop myself from snorting out a laugh.
Things like this didn’t just come up for no good reason.
Aidan had kept the truth of Finn’s paternity for almost forty years, for God’s sake. It would take something major for him to reveal all now.
