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‘Two weeks before we met in that bar I had a visit from...well, her name isn’t important. She’d had an affair with my brother two years before and apparently he’d proposed to her, which I have to admit fairly blew my mind at the time. I’d always thought Roman had the same mindset as—’
‘You?’
‘Well, anyway, she told me she was still married at the time but he didn’t know.’
‘She didn’t tell him she was still married?’
Rio’s hand, which had been raised to emphasise a point he’d been making, clenched and fell back to his side. ‘Not until after his proposal. She had her reasons for that and they seemed right to her. Just as mine seemed right to me at the time. But that part is not my story to tell. Roman’s proposal came with a demand that she get divorced immediately. She refused and...well, let’s say their parting was not what you’d call amicable. A few weeks later, she discovered she was pregnant.’
‘She passed the baby off as her husband’s child?’
‘He never knew about it because he died before she even knew she was pregnant. So fast forward now to the two weeks before you and I met in that bar. She turned up, made me promise not to tell Roman, then told me the whole story and explained that her son was seriously sick. He needed a bone-marrow transplant and his blood group was rare.’
Her eyes widened. ‘The DNA results.’
He nodded. ‘The thing about being an identical twin is that our DNA is identical, so I could donate instead of Roman.’
‘You did?’ He nodded. ‘And the little boy...your nephew...he’s okay now?’
‘Fine, the last I heard.’
She gave a little sigh of relief.
‘Marisa sends me a Christmas card and photos of the boy every year.’
He seemed unaware he had revealed the woman’s name so Gwen didn’t draw attention to it. He didn’t need anything more to beat himself up over.
‘Were you ever tempted to tell Roman? No, sorry.’ She moved her head in a negative gesture. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘Why not?’ He seemed genuinely puzzled by her statement, which made her think how much their relationship had moved on during the past few days. ‘And, yes, I was,’ he admitted. ‘There were several occasions where I was on the brink of breaking my word. If my brother hadn’t taken himself off somewhere and turned into a hermit writer I might have done it, but instead it became an out-of-sight-out-of-mind situation.’
‘But I don’t understand—why didn’t she just ask your brother to donate? Why didn’t she tell him about his son?’ She stopped, the irony of the recrimination in her voice hitting home. She was judging someone else...but what had this woman done that she hadn’t?
She stared down at her clasped hands.
‘I suppose pride played a part.’ She looked up, a question in her cobalt-blue eyes. ‘At the time she came to me, my brother was in a relationship, a pretty well-publicised one.’
‘Oh...’ Gwen felt a wave of sisterly sympathy for the other woman. ‘It must have been hard for her bringing up a child alone, especially a poorly one.’
Rio watched the expressions drift across her soft features and felt a strong wave of protectiveness rise up in him.
‘You managed.’
‘That really isn’t the same thing at all.’
‘No, it isn’t, because you had no support network.’ The idea of her parents abandoning her still made him see red and now he had a daughter of his own it seemed utterly inexplicable that Gwen had been cut off by the people who should have loved her the most. He knew that it didn’t matter what Ellie did, he would always be there for her. ‘And not much money to cushion you. Don’t compare the situations, Gwen. You had to fend for yourself while she didn’t have to worry about paying the rent.’
His unexpected defence brought a glow of pleasure to her face. ‘But Ellie is not ill,’ she pointed out, ‘and I can’t imagine how bad it would be if her life was in danger, especially when you have to make all the decisions yourself. That’s the worst part really,’ she mused.
‘What is?’ he asked, watching her closely.
‘It’s not just about the money though, gosh, yes, that helps. It’s about not having someone to share the decisions with...someone to bounce ideas off and share the responsibilities with. Was she still in love with Roman, do you think?’
Rio shook his head. ‘I’m not the expert on that subject,’ he said. It was hard to be an expert on something when you’d spent your entire adult life running away from it. The love he’d seen up close and personal as a child had been a destructive force and the idea of embracing it had made as much sense to him as walking towards a tidal wave...knowing you would be completely helpless once you were in its grip.
Gwen’s little glow of pleasure faded. Was she back to reality already? she wondered. The reality was that whatever future they had in front of them depended on her accepting the message in his words, and not expecting an iota more. Rio would never love her but he did love their daughter...which was what was most important, she reminded herself, ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach.
‘Is your brother still in a relationship?’
