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She shuddered.
“What is it?” Liam said. “Baby, you’re killing us here.”
She could tell he meant it, too. He sounded anguished. He didn’t deserve it. She knew both he and Mackenzie had been through the ringer today too.
“Just…” She looked from Liam to Mack. “Thank you. If you hadn’t gotten there when you did…” She shuddered again and pressed the hands they were holding to her stomach.
Mack jerked his hand away and she looked up at him startled.
He ran his hand through his hair. “I need to go.”
He stood up abruptly.
“Wha—” Calla said at the same time Liam said, “You’re not going fecking anywhere.”
Mack swallowed, looking from one to the other. He shook his head and looked down. “I almost got you killed. The bab—” His voice broke and he looked toward the window, jaw flexing with emotion.
“You saved me.” Calla reached for his hand again but again, he pulled it away.
“Stop it,” he bit out, eyes flashing at her. “I know what I am. I’m ugly and fucked up inside. Why do you think I got these tattoos?” He yanked up his shirt sleeve to expose one of the bug-eyed devils inked on his skin. “It’s what he made me. I’m damaged fucking goods and you deserve better than me. You deserve a man like him.” Mack’s eyes went to Liam.
“Mackenzie,” Calla cried. How could he think that of himself? He’d been used and abused so horribly, but didn’t he see? That was over now. “Don’t you see? I felt ugly and alone my whole life until you two. We belong together. We’re each other’s family. And now we’re about to add one more.”
Mack’s face went pained as he glanced at her hand on her stomach.
Don’t pull away. Please. Don’t pull away again, she begged silently.
“For Christ’s sake, there you are,” boomed a voice from the doorway. Calla’s head swung that direction just in time to see Liam’s father striding into the room.
Chapter Forty-One
LIAM
“I had to find out from the fecking paparazzi where me own son was. They’re flocked outside like buzzards over a kill.” Ciarán looked Liam up and down. “Well, you look a bit waterlogged but not too much worse for wear. Now let’s end this nonsense and come home with me on the private jet.”
Liam could only stare at him in disbelief. Did he not see the woman in the hospital bed whose hand he was holding?
He stood up straighter. Enough. “Da, this is me girl, Calla. And that there,” he pointed to the ultrasound picture that had been printed off, “may or not be me biological son or daughter. Either way, I’m going to love them as if they were.”
His father’s back stiffened. “You have to find out. You can do a test before its born. If I would have had that chance, it would have changed everything.” Emotion choked his father’s voice.
Liam could only blink in disbelief at the man he’d spent his whole life either worshiping or hating. “So you coulda kicked me and ma to the curb if you found out I was the stablemaster’s bastard before I was even born? Is that what you’re sayin’ straight to me face?”
Ciarán shook his head. “If you would have let me get two words in the other day, you would’ve heard me when I told you I did a DNA test. With some hairs from your comb you left behind. You’d only been gone a month at the time, but I realized it was time to know. To put this behind us once and for all.” Liam couldn’t be sure, but it looked like there might be a sheen to Ciarán’s eye. “You’re mine after all. You’re me son. But then I didn’t know where you were. Not until that woman got in touch with us. You have to believe me, lad, if I’d known all along, it would have been different.”
He shook his head. “But learning about the affair when you were still a boy and knowing there was a chance you weren’t mine—”
“So Ma was right,” Liam huffed out a short mirthless laugh. “I didn’t believe her at first when she told me the reason you’d never tested me DNA against yours was ‘cause you didn’t trust yourself not to throw me out like last week’s garbage if you found out I wasn’t yours.”
“But you are mine—”
“It shouldn’t have mattered!” Liam shouted, hands going to the sides of his head. “Jaysus, I’ve spent the last two years ever since ma told me the truth trying to prove to meself that I was your son. People only ever wanted me for what I could give them. If you disinherited me and I lost it all, where’d that leave me?”
“Son, I—”
“Don’t,” Liam bit out, running a hand roughly down the back of his neck and staring at the floor. There was silence for a second before Liam looked back up. “It wasn’t ever about the money to me.” He stared Da down. “All I ever wanted was you. I didn’t even realize it, either. Not ‘til the last few months.”
He looked at Calla and then Mack. “I didn’t know what it meant to love someone who loved you back. Not because of what you could do for them. But just for you. Just because you made each other happy.”
