Alarm streaked through him as her comment triggered a flurry of fears. ‘I most certainly do.’
She winced at his persistence. ‘Zack was born perfectly healthy.’
His mind zapped to the other side of the equation. ‘But you weren’t so healthy, Tess?’
She sighed. ‘He was just a big baby. I wanted a natural birth but he seemed to get stuck in the birth canal and I didn’t want him to be pulled out by instruments so I elected to have a Caesarean operation instead.’
Sounded like one hell of a birth process to Nick.
‘Anyhow, Zack came out of it fine, but I ended up with an infection from the operation and had to be given antibiotics…’
‘Making you too sick to breast-feed.’
‘For a while I was too sick to do anything for Zack.’
Hence the private nurse, specialising in baby-care. All the more understandable now, yet Tess could surely have done with personal support throughout these painful difficulties. ‘I should have been there. You should not have gone through this on your own.’
‘I wasn’t on my own.’
‘No doubt the medical staff at your private hospital was adequate but…’
‘Dad sat with me.’
‘No…’ The word burst from an instant welling of violent protest. Before Nick could even begin to monitor what he was saying or why, his mind spewed out a furious bank of resentment. ‘You put your father in my place? You let my child be born a bastard like me and had Brian Steele witness it all?’
He could not contain the outrage, his hands flying out in emphatic fury. ‘My God, Tess! However you judge the way I’ve lived my life, to shame me like that, to choose the man who showed me his door because I wasn’t his flesh-and-blood son, to choose him to sit by you when it was my son being born…my son…’
‘He’s my father,’ she countered fiercely. ‘And the only person I’ve ever been able to count on to give me support when I needed it.’
‘You didn’t ask me, dammit! You didn’t tell me! You didn’t give me the chance to be there for you! To be there for both of you!’
Their raised voices broke Zack’s concentration on the contents of his bottle. He abandoned the teat to yell his displeasure in the bad vibrations swirling around him.
Tess lifted him to her shoulder again to rub his back soothingly, her eyes snapping an urgent plea at Nick. ‘Can we leave this until I put him down to sleep again?’
Nick’s entire body clenched as he forced it to contain the offence he felt. His mind seethed with the rejection she had slapped on him, never mind the rejection she’d suffered at his hands. It took every ounce of control he had to give her a grim-faced nod and turn away from the sight of her owning his child as though he didn’t count for anything in their lives.
He was going to count all right!
He was going to count as Tess’s partner in raising their son and he was going to count as Zack’s father and that was going to start happening tonight!
CHAPTER SEVEN
TESS could not calm her fluttering heart. She felt as though she was in a cage with a wild animal prowling around—a dangerous animal holding fire until it was time to attack without causing collateral damage. As long as Zack was in her arms she was safe, but once he was put back in the bassinette for the night, Nick was set to erupt again, giving vent to the violent feelings he’d obviously been suppressing since he’d broken the glass at the hotel.
This passionately raging Nick bore no resemblance to the ultra-smooth sophisticated man she’d known—the charming user who cynically knew the value of everything, was amused by how those values worked, and let very little really touch him.
There was nothing at all civilised about the depth of caring that had just exploded from him. He certainly found no fun in this situation. It was clawing at him every which way, and the inescapable fact that she was Brian Steele’s daughter was far from irrelevant.
The past was not in the past. Not tonight. Birth…marriage…they were cycles of life, spiralling back into previous events that invariably influenced the future, touching off connections that never went away even though they might be shunned. It was impossible to close those connections out and pretend they didn’t exist, didn’t carry any weight. Nick’s past had just come screaming alive, and while Tess knew where it was coming from, it didn’t make it any easier to face.
Zack snoozed off before completely emptying the bottle of milk, burping contentedly against her shoulder as she carried him over to the change table to wrap him up snugly again. She was acutely conscious of Nick standing by, watching her every move, his gaze trained exclusively on his son until Zack was laid in the bassinette, looking at peace with his small innocent world. No emotional scars for him yet. Tess hoped he would never have any bad baggage to carry.
Her skin literally prickled with nervous tension as she led Nick out of the nursery quarters and across the wide central corridor of the upper floor to her own private apartment. ‘There are electronic monitors so that both I and the nurse can hear if Zack is disturbed, no matter where we are,’ she explained as she closed the door, trying to maintain a matter-of-fact air.
‘I’m sure you’ve been meticulous in setting up a safe environment.’
The clipped reply put an even tighter band around her chest. Nick’s resentment at having been left out of everything was coming through loud and clear. She watched him taking in her personal living area, moving to open the door to her bedroom suite, casing that space, as well.
‘We’d better start looking for a family home, Tess. This won’t do for both of us with Zack, any more than my apartment at Woolloomooloo will,’ he said, his green eyes shooting unassailable determination at her.
Tess felt her knees go weak. Apparently Nick was now intent on bulldozing her into marriage, mentally overriding objections from her before she’d even made them. He’d spoken fiercely of his rights, but he was just as blind to the concerns underlining her decisions as she’d been to his.
‘Dad didn’t know you were my baby’s father, Nick,’ she blurted out. ‘I didn’t tell him. I still haven’t. He was by my side at the hospital because I wanted someone to watch over me in case…in case anything went wrong.’
Nick’s chest visibly expanded. Tess didn’t know if he was taking in much needed air or containing a volatile response. A frantic urge to set the record completely straight sent words tumbling out of her mouth, wanting to reach him before terrible mistakes were made.