Dad been in a relationship with Milly’s aunt? Not only that, he’d gotten her pregnant, and she’d wanted him to marry her? How had Milly never told me this? It was clearly something she’d known about for a long time. The tail end of their exchange kept replaying in my head as I finally entered the room.

  Your aunt probably told you all this, but when she discovered she was pregnant, she said the only way she’d keep the baby was if we wed. I told her I couldn’t marry her but that she and the baby would be cared for. I’d get a job, make sure the child wanted for nothing. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t accept that, and I understand now why she didn’t. It was a different time. Having a child out of wedlock was considered a shameful thing by many.

  And then Milly replying, That wasn’t quite how my aunt told it.

  What way had her aunt told it?

  “Thank you,” Milly said, distracting me from my thoughts as she took the medical kit. “He seems stable now, though. I don’t think we’ll need this.”

  I took the opportunity to study Dad, worry cinching around my chest. Like I said, I’d never known him to be sick and had certainly never witnessed him faint before. Mam came into the room then with her phone clutched in her hand.

  “The paramedics are on their way. Hopefully, they won’t be too long.” She knelt by Dad next to Milly before reaching out to squeeze her arm. “We were so lucky you were here,” Mam said to her, and Milly sent her a kind smile then focused on Dad again.

  “Padraig, have you had any unusual symptoms lately?”

  He appeared to think about it. “Well, a couple of headaches, and the other day my vision got a little bit blurry.”

  This seemed to give Milly pause. “What about talking? Have you found yourself having trouble pronouncing words or speaking clearly?”

  Dad shook his head. “No, none of that.”

  “Any numbness in your limbs or difficulty with balance?”

  “Aside from falling over today when I passed out, no.”

  “What about the other day?” Mam interjected gently. “You said your hand was tingling strangely.”

  “Yes, but I wouldn’t call that numbness exactly,” Dad replied.

  Milly pressed her lips together, the cogs in her brain turning, and I desperately wanted to know what she thought might be wrong with him. I didn’t want to ask in front of Dad if something was seriously wrong, though. “When the paramedics get here, I’m going to recommend they run your bloods and send you for an MRI,” Milly said.

  “Why?” Mam questioned. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I can’t give a diagnosis without running tests,” Milly replied apologetically, “But I do think you should treat this seriously and have your doctor explore all the possibilities to ensure it isn’t anything serious. There’s no need to worry right now. Fainting can be down to something as simple as exhaustion or even a B12 or iron deficiency.”

  “Well, one of those is easy to fix anyway,” Mam said, eyeing Dad pointedly. “If this is down to exhaustion, then you can finally retire and start relaxing a little bit more.”

  Her statement had me tensing because Dad retiring meant me taking over at work, and though Paloma as well as my siblings and friends had all expressed their confidence that I’d do a good job, a niggling sense of self-doubt remained. Still, if it meant keeping my dad from keeling over again, then I’d do it. I’d do anything to make sure he was okay.

  “I’m not exhausted. I was feeling fine this morning,” Dad argued, but Mam only pursed her lips together unhappily in response. Getting a man like my father to slow down was like getting a yappy dog to quit barking. Not easy. And even if he did retire, I could just imagine him creating lots of projects for himself. He wasn’t the kind of person who could merely sit still.

  Milly continued asking Dad about possible symptoms before the paramedics finally arrived. She stepped away, exchanging a few words with one of them before she approached me, placing her hand softly on my arm.

  “I can wind up the party if you want to go with your parents in the ambulance,” she offered, and I gazed down at her, memories of what transpired between us earlier flashing through my head. My mouth on her neck, how soft she was, her addicting scent. Everything about Milly drew me in.

  “Thank you, yes,” I replied, and we exchanged a meaningful look before I had to leave. Only one person was allowed in the ambulance, so Mam stayed with Dad while I drove with Nuala and Tristan. All the way to the hospital, I oscillated between worrying over Dad and picking apart what I’d overheard between him and Milly. I remembered the few times I’d run into her aunt back in the day, and she hadn’t liked me very much.

  At the time, it had baffled me because I’d never normally encountered people who disliked me so immediately without knowing anything about me. But I was more or less a carbon copy of my father, especially when I was a teenager. I’d seen pictures of him when he was young, and we could’ve been twins. If Milly’s aunt saw in me a replica of the man who’d gotten her pregnant and then refused to marry her, it made sense she wouldn’t want her niece anywhere near me. Was that what had happened? Had she told Milly everything that transpired between her and my father and warned her that I would be just the same?

  I started to look back on those days, seeing everything though an entirely new lens. Every interaction with Milly was different now that I had this information.

  Then my mind went to that day on the beach when I’d gotten down on one knee. I remembered Milly’s face, how she’d seemed so at odds with herself, more regretful than outright rejecting. And events before that day, how she was around me, the way she’d always watch me, then look guilty about it. If I caught her checking me out, she’d wear this expression like she was ashamed, and I’d put it down to embarrassment or shyness, but maybe that was only part of it.

  I’d thought the reason she’d wanted to remain friends after I’d asked her to be my girlfriend was because she’d needed to focus on her studies. Now I questioned if that was even the case. Had her aunt spun a tale about Dad that made her feel like she couldn’t be with me no matter how much she might want to? Milly had always shown subtle signs that she found me attractive, how her breath would catch when we touched, how her pupils dilated when she looked at me. It was why her always keeping me at arm’s length had never made a lot of sense.

  The morning after her Leaving Cert results night, when she’d slept over in my room and I’d dropped her home the next day, I distinctly remembered her aunt’s car being in the driveway. I also remembered the way she’d tensed up as soon as she saw it. Milly had thought I hadn’t noticed her reaction, but I had. And it made even more sense that she wouldn’t want her aunt to know she’d spent the night with me—even if all we did together was sleep—because her aunt had probably despised my father and likely saw me as just another version of him.

  “You seem tense,” Tristan commented as we sat in the waiting room at the hospital. Nuala had gone in search of a coffee machine, so it was just the two of us. “Worried about Dad?”

  I cast him a wry glance. “Aren’t you?”

  “Of course, I am, but you seem more than worried. You seem … I don’t know, confused or something.”

  I was confused. Confused and angry that Milly had never told me about my dad and her aunt. We used to talk for hours back then. Surely there was a moment when she could’ve brought it up. Then again, maybe she didn’t want to paint an unfavourable picture of my father. I’d always looked up to him, and back then, I’d basically hero worshipped him. He was everything I’d wanted to grow up and emulate.

  “Has dad ever spoken to you about his relationships before Mam?” I asked, and my brother frowned.

  “No, but he was in his mid-twenties when they met, so I’m sure he wasn’t a virgin.” Tristan’s attempt at humour fell flat before he studied me even closer. “What’s wrong? Do you know something I don’t? Please don’t tell me you found out he had a lovechild before he met Mam, and you confronted him about it, and that’s the reason why he fainted.”

  My brother’s joking accusation was a lot closer to home than he could ever realise. “I wasn’t there when he fainted. I was upstairs.” Dragging my tongue across Milly’s sweet skin.

  “Right. You haven’t denied the lovechild bit, though. Do we have a half-sibling out there we’ve never met?”

  “No,” I stated flatly.

  “Then what?”

  “If I tell you, this has to stay between us. Nuala will only go blabbing to Mam, and if she doesn’t know about it, then it could cause unnecessary trouble between our parents.”

  Tristan leaned forward. “Of course.”

  I quickly rehashed what I’d overheard between Milly and Dad while eavesdropping, and Tristan listened intently to it all.

  “Fuck,” he swore, sitting back in the plastic chair and running a hand down his jaw once I was finished. “That’s a bit intense. Could you imagine if one of us got a girl pregnant as teenagers?”

  “Mam would’ve murdered us.”

  “Yeah, and if the girl demanded marriage, Dad probably would’ve been the one marching us down the aisle. Hey, it wasn’t that different for you. You were a little older, sure, but when Paloma turned up on our doorstep pregnant, Dad was the one who lectured you about your responsibilities. It’s half the reason you married her in the first place. Maybe Dad had all this unresolved guilt that he put onto you.”

  “That wasn’t it. I wanted to marry Paloma.”

  “So, why was she the one who proposed?”

  I gritted my jaw. “That was because—”

  “Because the person you actually wanted to be with was living in another country, and you were too chicken to go after her.”

  “If you’re talking about Milly, she didn’t want me. She left.”

  “But how do you know she didn’t want you? You spent so much time pining after her and following her around like a lovesick puppy, but you never actually told her how you felt,” Tristan challenged.

  His tone got my blood up, and I stood. “I did tell her.”

  My brother rolled his eyes. “Of course, you did.”

  “I fucking did,” I shouted, causing several other people in the waiting room to startle, but I was too pissed to calm down. “I told her I was in love with her. I even got down on one knee and asked her to marry me, but she said no. She said no. Okay? Are you happy now?”

  Tristan stared at me, stunned, before another voice joined the conversation.

  “You asked who to marry you?”

  Turning, I found Nuala standing there, a holder with three coffees in her hands and her eyebrows risen all the way up into her forehead.

  A low, guttural swear passed my lips before I sank back down into my seat. This day had started out well but had swiftly gone downhill.

  When I didn’t answer Nuala, she glanced at Tristan. “Who is he talking about?”

  Tristan arched an eyebrow. “Who do you think?”

  Nuala thought on it for a beat, then turned to me. “Milly? You asked Milly to marry you? When was this?”

  Bloody hell. I did not want to be talking about any of this, but I’d dug my own hole. “Before she went to London to live with her aunt.”

  “Oh, my goodness.” Nuala looked stunned as she lowered into a seat before absently passing around the coffees. “She never told me that.”

  “Maybe she was trying to help me save face. I laid it all on the line for her, and she rejected me.”

  Nuala frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense. Milly was besotted with you back then. She might never have told me because she was always so shy, but I could tell. The way she looked at you whenever you walked into a room. It was like everyone else ceased to exist. Then again, she was also very determined to go to college and become a doctor. Perhaps she felt like she had to choose between you and her future career.”

  “It wasn’t that. I told her I’d move to London with her and support her while she studied.”

  “Hey,” Tristan interjected. “What if it was because of Dad and her aunt?”

  Clearly, he’d come to the same conclusion as I had. And clearly, I was an idiot for thinking he could keep a secret. Tristan had always been a terrible blabber mouth, and that hadn’t changed with age. I shot him a glower.

  “Fuck, sorry. I wasn’t supposed to mention that.”

  “Someone better start explaining,” Nuala demanded, and that was how I found myself going over the entire story again, this time for my sister. It was only as I came to the end that my mother appeared behind me before taking a seat next to Nuala.

  “Well, it sounds like you’ve all found out about your father and Nell Patridge, then. As if today couldn’t get any worse.”

  All three of us stared at her, gobsmacked.

  “You knew?” Nuala challenged.

  “Of course, I knew. Your father and I have been together for over forty years. We tell each other everything.”

  “And you didn’t think to tell us that our dad almost had a baby with another woman when he was a teenager?” Tristan interjected. “Okay, no, that would be a very weird thing to tell your children. Makes sense that you didn’t.”

  “Your father was only a boy when it all happened,” Mam said. “I didn’t judge him for it, and at the time, he was willing to help Nell with the baby. She refused because he wouldn’t marry her, which, in a way, I can understand. I wouldn’t have wanted to give birth as a single mother during those times either.”

  Nuala made an exasperated choking sound as she looked at Tristan, then at Mam. “This is all so weird.”

  “Did you know that Milly was her niece?” I asked Mam.

  She shook her head. “No, actually. I didn’t put it together since they have different last names. Your father just told me.”

  “Speaking of Dad, how is he?” Nuala questioned. “Do they know why he collapsed?”

  “They still aren’t sure but they’re running some tests. It could be a while before they can make any conclusions.”

  “Is he all right?” I asked.

  “He’s feeling much better,” Mam said, placing a hand on my arm and giving a reassuring squeeze. “He’s going to be okay. You all should be able to go in and see him in a while. They’re just finishing up the MRI.”

  “What a relief. I don’t know what I’d do if—” Nuala trailed off, a hitch in her voice.

  Mam let go of my arm to pull my sister into a hug, and we all fell into thoughtful silence for a few minutes, just thinking about Dad and what life would be like without him. I didn’t want to imagine it even though it was inevitable that he wouldn’t live forever. Still, I wasn’t ready for him to go anywhere yet, not for a long time.

  A little later, an orderly appeared and ushered us in to see him. The next few days were full of stress. Dad finally gave in to Mam’s demand and set a date for his retirement. A date that just so happened to be two months away, which meant I was going to have to get over my fears and step up. There was no other option.

  Then, after a number of test and scan results came through, it turned out that Dad had a tumour on his brain that needed to be operated on. It was thankfully benign, but because it was causing symptoms and there was a chance it would grow, the decision was made to remove it. It was a major surgery, and because of his age, the recovery time would be substantial, which basically cancelled out the two months to retirement plan and meant I had to take over right away. Tristan was my right-hand man, though, and it was a relief to have him by my side. I definitely couldn’t handle it all alone.

  There was so much to do that I hadn’t even had the opportunity to touch base with Milly and discuss what had happened between us at Gigi’s party. I did, however, make a point to speak with Paloma and reiterate to her firmly that what she’d proposed was deeply inappropriate. She’d been on a flying visit and left the morning after the party, but I’d managed to catch her before she’d left. She’d had the grace to look chagrined and admitted it was inappropriate. She’d also promised it wouldn’t happen again, which was a relief. I wasn’t attracted to her in that way anymore. Yes, she was a beautiful woman, but after the divorce, the part of me that desired her had died. Or perhaps drifted away was a better way to describe it. Basically, I thought of her as a co-parent and a friend and nothing more.

  Amid all this, I barely had a second to mull over the revelation about Milly’s aunt and whether I was even going to bring it up. The past was the past, and there wasn’t much to be achieved by talking about it. Still, I was curious to know if her aunt was the reason she wouldn’t be with me back then. For so many years, I’d convinced myself my love for her was unrequited, but what if it wasn’t? The idea that Milly had wanted me like I’d wanted her back then made my head spin. It untangled so many things about us that had never made sense, and I just wanted to go to her, lay it all out and tell her I wasn’t angry. That I understood her reasoning even though I wished she’d been honest with me from the start.

  To add to my stress, the school holidays had started, and Deirdre had flown to London to spend the summer with her dad. Gigi was missing her already, and though she had other friends to spend time with, I knew she’d prefer to be with Deirdre.

  I was in my office dealing with endless requests and meetings, the ones that couldn’t be delegated out to Tristan or my assistant, Whitney. A knock sounded on the door before Whitney dipped her head in. “Sorry to disturb you, Mr Balfe, but there’s a Milly here to see you.”

  I blinked in surprise. Milly was still staying at the hotel, but she hadn’t come to my office until now. “Of course. Send her in.”

  When she appeared, my breath caught. She was so fucking beautiful, and I’d missed seeing her these past days. Milly wore her hair down, her body wrapped in a pale green summer dress that hugged her figure in ways that had me wanting to pull her onto my lap and do sinful things to her while my assistant sat outside, none the wiser.