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“Hey, it’s cool. If you’re busy I can come back later.”
His older brother frowned at him then pointed to his office. “Now.”
Once inside his office, Rafe shut the door and told Oliver to sit down.
“I’m good,” Ollie replied, confusion causing his brow to furrow. “What’s going on?”
Rafe sat down behind his desk but continued staring at Oliver in that peevish manner he had when things were not going the way he wanted. “Do you know a woman named Ella Mulligan?”
The name brought an instant smile to his face. “Yeah, of course. She’s a Viking re-enactor like me. I used to see her around all the time when I was on the festival circuit. Not so much these days, but yeah, she’s a mate.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
Ollie didn’t even need to think about it. He saw Ella the same time every year. “July last year, at the Abbey Medieval Festival.” But then a bad feeling gripped his chest and he felt a powerful need to breathe deeply and calm his pulse. “Why the questions, Raffy. What’s going on?”
“Did you ever have sex with Miss Mulligan?”
“What the—”
“Answer the question, Oliver.” Rafe was in full lawyer mode now. No room for error, no time for jokes.
“Yes. Once. But it was years ago. She’d just been through a bad break-up and we’d both had too much mead. One thing led to another….”
Rafe watched Ollie like a hawk and he knew what his brother was looking for. Ollie wasn’t the only one who knew how to read people, and Rafe was looking for a lie. “Did you use protection?”
“Okay, now you’re just being offensive. Of course I used protection. I’ve never beenthatdrunk.”
“Okay.” Rafe rubbed at his forehead like he did when he had a headache. “Good.”
Oliver rested his hands on the edge of his brother’s desk and leaned forwards. “Rafe, what’s going on? Why all the questions? Is Ella okay?”
“Sit down, Ollie. Please.”
His brother’s hollow tone had Ollie sinking into a chair without argument. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, but Miss Ella Mulligan was killed—”
“What? No!”
“I’m so sorry, Ollie. It was a car crash. Two weeks ago. A drunk ran a red light and ploughed into her car on her way home from work. She was killed instantly.”
Oliver stared unseeingly at the wall behind his brother’s head. A woman was dead. A kind woman, a fun woman. His friend.
“Ollie, there’s more.”
Jumping to his feet, he made a beeline for the door. “No. No more. I’ve heard enough.” But before he could escape the suffocating confines of the office, his brother said something that stopped him cold.
“She had a daughter, Ollie. A daughter her parents claim is yours.”
Slowly, Oliver turned around and faced Rafe. “You wanna say that again?”
“The people in my conference room are Ella’s parents. They’ve been trying to find you since she died, to convince you to take your daughter, to accept your responsibility and raise the child.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead again. “Ella’s father is unwell. Her mother has been doing her best to look after her husband and the child full-time but she’s not coping.”
Ollie shook his head. “This is a joke, right? Some sick joke of Charlie’s? You’re lying, right?”
“I would never lie to you, Oliver. Not about something like this, and you know that.”
“No.” He shook his head, denial thick in his veins. “They must have me confused with someone else. I saw Ella six months ago. As far as I knew, she didn’t have any kids. None she ever told me about, anyway. Certainly none she claimed were mine. If we had a daughter together, why didn’t she tell me?” He rubbed at the dull ache in his chest, muttered, “We used protection.”
