No Matter What (95 page)

“So, you just thought you’d ruin the ones that follow?”

“No ... Jesus, do you think this is easy?”

She swung round and stared at him.
 
“No, I don’t think it’s easy, Kenny, but I have so much to lose here.
 
Can you understand that?
 
Ethan is Michael’s child.
 
I’m almost 100% certain of that.”

“Almost?”

She looked into his eyes, right into them.
 
“Absolutely certain.”

Kenny shook his head.
 
“I don’t believe you.”

She looked away, walking back over to her sleeping son’s cot, looking in and reaching out to gently stroke his arm that was thrown up beside his head.

“Look at him, Kenny.”

Kenny looked into the cot and he couldn’t help smiling at Ethan.
 
He was the most beautiful baby, but if he could see anyone in him at all it was
India
.
 
He had traces of his movie-star mom in him for sure.

“He’s the innocent one in all of this,”
India
said quietly, stroking his dark hair as he slept peacefully, his tiny chest rising and falling.
 
“He doesn’t deserve any of this.”

“Doesn’t he deserve to know who his real father is?”

She looked at him again.
 
With every second of this conversation she was starting to feel more and more defeated.

“He’s seven months old, Kenny.
 
He’s just seven months old.”

“And one day he’ll be twenty and you’ll have lived with this hanging over you for all those years.
 
Don’t you want to know yourself,
India
?
 
Isn’t there a part of you that wants to know who his father
really
is?”

She couldn’t answer that.
 
Because she
did
want to know, of course she did. She knew herself that she couldn’t live with this for the rest of her life.
 
She just hadn’t wanted to face up to it until she’d had to.

“This hurts so much, Kenny.
 
Do you understand how this could hurt others too?
 
Michael loves Ethan.
 
He was there when he was born, he’s been there for the nappy changes and the night feeds and the times when it’s all been too much for me ... he’s his father in every sense of the word and I don’t want that to change.”

Kenny just looked at her.
 
“You have to understand how I feel too,
India
.”

“Kenny ...”

But he just turned and left the room, leaving
India
with a bad feeling and the fear that reality was going to hit home big time, sooner than she’d wanted it to.

And how she dealt with that was going to be entirely up to her.

***

Layla wondered if she’d let enough time pass.
 
If she came out with it now would she look like a complete bitch?
 
Maybe there were people who’d still think that but she was beginning not to care anymore.

She was sick of looking at pictures of
India
and Michael; the perfect Hollywood couple with their perfect
Hollywood
baby on their perfect days out in
Los Angeles
.
 
It was all starting to make Layla feel more than a little nauseous.
 
Ever since news of Ethan Walsh’s arrival had been made public she felt as if she’d had it shoved in her face almost every day afterwards.
 
She’d hated every second of having to hear about his perfect birth, of hearing Michael say it was the most incredible thing he’d ever experienced, holding his beautiful wife as she’d pushed their son into the world. She was tired of it.

She’d hated seeing the first pictures of him in magazines with his gorgeous mom and his handsome dad.
 
She’d hated reading about how his arrival had changed them all so much and how he’d helped to take away the pain of losing their first child. She was sick of looking at pictures of him as
India
took him with her to work, or of her and Michael playing regular mommy and daddy down at the supermarket.

She couldn’t even remember when these feelings had really hit home, but she figured she’d given them enough time to get used to playing happy families.
 
India Walsh needed to get back to reality.

She pulled her sunglasses back down over her eyes and accepted a drink from a passing waiter.
 
It was a beautiful, warm
Los Angeles
day and Layla had been looking forward to this for a long time.
 
People would be surprised today.
 
Others would be slightly shocked.
 
One or two might even be more than a little bit nervous.
 
But she was going to have fun.
 
She was going to make sure of that.
 
She was going to have a hell of a lot of fun.

***

India
walked into their bedroom, walked right up to her unsuspecting husband and kissed him hard, pushing herself up against him.
 
Michael just looked at her.
 
He wasn’t going to start complaining, but he
was
a little surprised.

“You haven’t left Ethan on his own, have you?”

“Yeah, he’s playing Grand Theft Auto in the nursery and I’ve put ‘Reservoir Dogs’ on the DVD player just incase he gets bored.
 
You really know how to kill a mood you do.
 
Emma’s here so she’s looking after him.”

Michael slid his arm around her waist and pulled her closer again, smiling. “So, what’s brought this on then?”

She played with the collar of his shirt, untying his tie then unfastening his belt.

“It’s all this activity, Michael, and having a houseful of people.
 
It’s a major turn on.”

“Ok ... well, if this is what having a houseful of people does we may have to do this more often.”

It wasn’t the real reason, of course.
 
The conversation she’d just had with Kenny had shaken her; it’d scared her, made her realise how much she actually did love her husband.
 
And it had made her realise how terrified she was of losing him.
 
So she wanted to be close to him.
 
She needed to be close to him and just not think about anything else, and she knew sex wasn’t going to solve anything, but it would take her mind off it all for a while.

Slipping out of her dress and kicking it aside, she closed her eyes and threw her head back slightly as Michael started kissing her neck.
 
She knew she’d been lucky to get away with this for as long as she had, but time had run out now.
 
Kenny must have had this on his mind throughout the whole time she’d been pregnant and he hadn’t said a thing, he hadn’t even hinted, and why he’d waited so long before saying anything was still something she could only guess at, but he’d done it now.
 
He’d brought it out into the open and this was a reality she now had to face, but it scared her.
 
So much, because if Ethan
was
Kenny’s, what happened then?
 
Would she lose Michael?
 
Would she lose her little family that she loved so much?
 
Because having Ethan
had
focused her mind.
 
He
had
made her forget all those stupid ideas about Kenny, just like she’d hoped he would.
 
If only she’d felt that way before that night in Vegas.
 
One moment of weakness could have wrecked everything and if she thought about it too much it almost gave her a physical pain.

So she concentrated on what was happening now, letting Michael push her up against the wall, his body warm and hard against hers, his mouth soft and gentle as it kissed her breasts, moving up her neck until it met hers, and she kept her eyes closed, gripping onto his hand as they made love, not wanting it to end.
 
Because when it did reality would return.
 
A reality she couldn’t be sure of anymore.
 
That all depended on what Kenny planned to do next.

***

Reece cradled his baby grandson in his arms as he walked around the beautifully decorated grounds of his daughter’s home.
 
Emma had dressed him - on India’s instructions - in a tiny Guns ‘n’ Roses t-shirt, baby jeans and trainers, his head protected from the sun by a stars ‘n’ stripes bandana.
 
It wasn’t the way Reece would have dressed him but he was certainly his daughter’s child, there was no mistaking that, and if she wanted him rock ‘n’ roll then that’s what he was going to be.

But there was no denying how cute he was.
 
It seemed as if every few second’s people were stopping him to look at Ethan and comment on how gorgeous he was, and this was one baby boy who was getting used to life in the public eye very quickly.
 
He already had his smile sorted, and a laugh that was undeniably infectious. He was one hell of a kid and both Reece and Martha adored him, so much so that they’d taken to begging to baby-sit.
 
They loved having him.
 
Reece had his beautiful wife, his gorgeous daughter and now a grandson he’d thought he’d never have.
 
He had his perfect family.
 
Or did he?

He looked around the stunning grounds again, amazed at the work that had gone on in just a few short days.
 
Michael and
India
had really gone to a lot of trouble to make this a special day for their friends.
 
The weather had been kind too.
 
The sun was shining, it was warm and bright and everything seemed just right.
 
So why did he suddenly feel a little uneasy?

Martha ran over with a tube of sunscreen, squeezing some out and rubbing it gently into Ethan’s skin.
 
He pulled a face but didn’t whinge, it was attention, after all, and this kid seemed to thrive on that.

“There we are,” she smiled.
 
“All done.
 
Now, you come to grandma ... I still can’t get used to saying that.”

Reece smiled.
 
“You’re the most gorgeous grandma I’ve ever met, that’s for certain.”

“Oh, you and your Irish charm,” she laughed, standing on tip-toes to kiss her husband quickly.
 
“Come on.
 
Let’s go grab a drink, and
India
says there’s some juice for this one in the kitchen incase he gets thirsty.”

They walked towards the house, passing one of the bars that had been set up outside on the various patio areas around the gardens.
 
Kenny Ross was sitting at it, nursing a beer and looking less than happy, but he smiled as he caught sight of Ethan, who was playing with Martha’s hair and gurgling away as she talked to him.

“You ok?” Reece asked him.

Kenny nodded.
 
“I’m fine.”
 
He looked at Ethan again.
 
“Can I ... can I hold him?”

Reece looked at Martha, who just shrugged.

“I didn’t think you were one for babies, Kenny,” Reece replied, watching as Martha handed Ethan over and Kenny took him in his arms, looking down at him.

“Well, this isn’t just any baby, is it?”

Reece started to get that uneasy feeling again as he watched Kenny with his grandson.
 
The way he looked at him, the way he was studying his face, it didn’t feel right somehow.

Kenny looked up and smiled at Reece.
 
“He’s
India
’s baby, isn’t he?”
 
He looked down at Ethan’s smiling face again.
 
“Hey, you’re one cool little guy, aren’t you?
 
And you can tell your mom’s dressed you, because she’s dressed you just how we’d always said we’d want our kid to be dressed.”

Reece felt his stomach turn over at that last remark.
 
The way Kenny had said it had felt loaded with meaning.
 
He reached out and took Ethan back, holding him against his shoulder as his little eyes began to close, his tiny hand gripping his granddad’s jacket collar.
 

Reece looked directly at Kenny.
 
“Was there something to be gained from that last statement?”

Kenny sat back down at the bar and took a swig of his beer.
 
“Maybe you should ask your daughter.”

“I’m asking
you
.”

Kenny looked at him.
 
He’d had enough.
 
“We slept together.
 
Me and
India
. We slept together, around the time she was trying to get pregnant.
 
The dates add up, Reece.”