Revealed: His Secret Child Read Online Free

thirty-three.” His gaze swung to her. “Which means I was thirty when you were born.”
    Not here. Not now. Gillian tried to telegraph the silent message to him. Not in front of Ethan. “His birthday is the same day as yours,” she said quietly. Max jerked back as though she’d hit him.
    â€œDo you wanna see my twain?”
    â€œYeah,” he said, to all outward appearances calm and back in control, “I’d like that.”
    Max stood and father and son left the table, Ethan trotting ahead, Max tossing aside his leather jacket and modifyinghis stride to follow. Gillian couldn’t bear to follow but knew she had to. She had to be there in case Max said anything to upset or confuse Ethan.
    As calmly and as quietly as he’d sat at the table, she could tell he was livid. But that anger was for her. She didn’t think he’d let Ethan see it—after all, he was better than any man she’d ever met at controlling his emotions.
    With dragging footsteps, she followed. She stood in the doorway and watched as, for twenty minutes, Max lay on his side, propped up on one elbow on her family room floor, his long legs stretched out and his shirtsleeves rolled up, playing trains with his son. The sight was as surreal as if James Bond had waltzed in and done the same thing. With an obedience that had to be alien to him, he pushed engines and carriages around a blue plastic track, taking garbled advice from the expert on the trains’ names and what they carried and the appropriate noises to make. The two of them spun stories and orchestrated derailments.
    It broke her heart.
    She thought she’d done the right thing.
    She was so sure she’d done the right thing. For everyone. For Max because he didn’t want a family, for Ethan because he deserved better than a father who didn’t want him and for her because she hadn’t wanted to trap, or be trapped with, a man who didn’t love her, who didn’t open up emotionally, who would always put his career ahead of anything else in his life. Who would ultimately, in the ways that counted, reject her and their son.
    She’d thought she could provide all that Ethan needed.
    But now? A chasm had opened and uncertainty flooded in.
    For the first time since they’d come into the room, Max looked at her. The light, the softness, the pleasure that had been in his eyes, dimmed and hardened. In one swiftmovement he stood. “Are you all right here, son, if I go and talk to Mommy? ”
    â€œSon”? Gillian went cold. It was just an expression. He wasn’t the first man to call Ethan “son.” It didn’t mean anything. Despite the fact that he was the first man for whom it was truly more than just an expression.
    Ethan didn’t look up from the train he was pushing toward a tunnel as he said, “Uh-huh.” She hadn’t had any daddy questions from him yet. She’d known they’d come one day but she’d hoped that day was a long way off.
    A tendril of fear snaked through her. What if there was more to Max’s reaction than anger over the secret she’d kept? What if he wanted to claim Ethan? Max, because of his nature and his profession, chose words carefully. And if he’d called Ethan “son”…
    He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.
    Two long strides had Max at her side, his fingers gripping her elbow as he spun her and led her back to the kitchen. Three years and he still used the same cologne. Eternity. The one that made her think of him whenever she’d smelled it. The scent reassured her. He was a creature of habit. He didn’t change his ways for anyone. He wouldn’t want a son. There would be no room in his life.
    Her legs unsteady, and needing some kind of barrier in front of her, she sat at the table. She traced a scar in the old wood with her fingernail as he paced her too-small kitchen, tension and anger radiating off him in