Brent recognised that look, too. It was amazing just how much came back to him. He’d thought it almost all forgotten. A twitch built at the base of his neck. He banked it down.
Fiona’s glance made him wonder if she’d sensed that tension building. Her hand turned and her fingers closed around his wrist, and he thought she murmured, ‘I know now where I’ve seen that before…’ before she leaned into his side.
Then she gave a polite, plastic smile and said in a normal tone, ‘Won’t you introduce me, Brent?’
‘Fiona Donner, meet Charles MacKay.’ He didn’t explain Fiona to Charles. He didn’t explain his father’s identity to Fiona.
Fiona’s nostrils flared and the sparkle in her eyes flattened out until they were pure blue, expressionless chips. Her gaze turned to his and came back to his father and a thick silence fell.
Into that silence, Charles’s companion spoke.
‘You’ve won an award. Congratulations.’ The man stepped forward and leaned in to examine the award, either oblivious at this point to the tensions in the air, or convinced he could actually do something about them. ‘Oh, I see that’s the landscaping industry award. I read about that in the club notices a few weeks ago. What do you think, Charlie?’ He turned to address the question to the second man.
And what did ‘Charlie’ think? Was he surprised by Brent’s success? Pleased by it? Discomfited by it?
Why care? His opinion means less than nothing. It’s meant less than nothing for a long time now.
‘The family resemblance is strong.’ Fiona’s words were low, the unspoken words written all over her.
This was the man who had given his son away. Somehow she understood so much. That knowledge hit Brent while a raft of emotions washed through him.
Old rejection. A need to understand.
His father’s rejection, Charles’s inability to love the child he’d helped create?
Brent pushed it all away before it could go any further. It was all past news. There was no point revisiting, though he couldn’t be sorry this meeting had happened. At least he could say it was done now, and let go of the feeling he’d carried around of waiting to stumble across this man.
Yeah? So why didn’t Brent feel any better or more resolved?
Because Charles was acting just the same, and some deep down part of Brent had maybe hoped, just the tiniest bit…
‘Yes, we should be going, Fiona. I think we’re done here.’ As he spoke the words, Brent became truly aware of the curl of Fiona’s fingers around muscles that had set like concrete. His free hand came up to close over Fiona’s, to register the tension in her fingers.
She gave a sturdy tug, as though to shepherd him away from there, and her entire body pressed into his side.
The level of protectiveness he sensed in her in that moment stunned Brent and touched him in ways he couldn’t define.
‘Wow.’ The jolly man’s mobile face worked.
No doubt in another moment he would voice his conclusion that Brent and Charles were ‘father and son’.
How would Brent’s father explain that? He’d done such a good job of ignoring the fact that Brent had ever existed.
How had Charles MacKay dealt with that? An inconvenient accident that had taken his son so soon after the death of the older man’s wife? If so, Brent was rather inconveniently ‘resurrected’.
‘If you’ll excuse us.’ The blandest of bland phrases. Brent decided it was somehow fitting.
He steeled his muscles to keep under his command. There would be no twitching of his head to the side, no drumming of fingers or anything else. Not in front of this man. No exposure. Brent started to turn away.
‘Surely you’d have realised the major industry event in my calendar year was at this venue tonight.’ His father’s words stopped him. The displeasure and self-centredness in them was clear. ‘You should stay out of the limelight altogether. I can’t have—’
‘I do what suits me. I’ve been in charge of myself for a long time now.’ Anger made its way through Brent’s reserve. That, too, he squashed down. It really wasn’t worth it, was it?
Charles couldn’t be proud of his success. The older man couldn’t see past the shame he felt in Brent’s existence.
You let Charles’s shame impact on you, on how you live, how you present yourself.
Had Brent done that? Would he have looked at his autism differently if Charles had done so?
Well, Charles hadn’t done, and that hadn’t changed. Brent spoke with that thought fresh in his mind. ‘If that doesn’t appeal to you, you’re welcome to stay clear of anywhere you think I might show up.’
As for Charles’s business activities, Brent had little clue and planned to keep it that way. If they crossed paths again, so what? Brent wasn’t about to actively keep away from anything for the sake of avoiding this man. What could Charles do, after all? Reject his son?
Been there, lived that, got the new and better, loving, close-knit family with Linc and Alex to prove it.
With that thought calmness came back to him. He did have Linc and Alex and they were what he wanted. Not the cold stranger in front of him.
‘Good evening. Don’t feel it’s necessary to speak the next time we meet—’
‘You must be highly medicated to succeed at hiding your flaw, even temporarily, for something like this evening.’ His father’s words held ignorance, accusation, harshness and confusion. ‘I didn’t know autis—’
‘Obviously you don’t know much.’ Brent spoke over the top of the older man. ‘Goodbye.’
He whisked Fiona away then. And he noted with some almost detached part of himself that his body responded perfectly to each of his commands.
Grip Fiona’s hand. Lead her around the two men. Nod politely at the goggle-eyed companion in passing.
Stride away, relying on the length of those beautiful legs of Fiona’s to allow her to keep up with his pace until they got outside and he sucked in a deep breath of cleansing air.
‘There’s a taxi. We’re going. We’re getting right away from here and from that—’ Fiona’s words were shocked, shaken. She flagged the cab forward with a hand that visibly trembled.
Brent turned his gaze to her and something deep and protective came to life in him. His voice was soft as he spoke, deep and gentle…‘Don’t worry. Everything’s fine—’
‘No. It’s not.’ She shook her head, a decisive shake that said she wasn’t about to be convinced.
And what else had she registered? Charles’s final word? That Brent had autism?
Moments later they were ensconced in the back seat and her shoulder was pressed to his, their bodies tucked as close as she could get them as she gave her address to the driver without sparing him as much as a glance.
All her attention was for Brent. In part that made him uncomfortable, and yet…
‘I should explain.’ Brent cleared his throat. ‘He’s not…I don’t…’
‘What? He isn’t important? You don’t care that he rejected you because you’re autistic?’ The words burst out of her and then she chewed her lip. ‘I’m sorry. I heard him, but I’d already wondered.’
It shouldn’t surprise him that she’d come halfway to figuring