Free Legally His Omnibus by Penny Jordan

as he demanded, ‘When was he born?’
    Kate tightened her arms around Oliver, who had already fallen back to sleep, in the way that small children could in just a few seconds, and she told him the date.
    After the smallest of pauses, Sean grated, ‘So he was conceived two weeks after we separated, then?’
    The air in the kitchen felt so heavy and sour with the weight of their combined emotions that Kate felt as though it might choke her.
    ‘He was two weeks overdue.’ She answered Sean’s unspoken accusation despairingly. Shaking her head, she added huskily, ‘They wanted to induce me but I asked them to wait. I...I wanted him to be born naturally.’
    Kate closed her eyes and turned away, not wanting to be reminded that she had held out until the last possible minute, clinging desperately and stubbornly to her hope that there would be a miracle and that somehow Sean would be there with her to witness the birth of their child.
    But he hadn’t been, and in the end there had been no one other than the hospital staff to share her awed and exhausted delight at the birth of her son.
    She came out of her reverie to hear the back door closing. Sean had left. But he had already left her life and Oliver’s a long time ago, she reminded herself.
    Somehow that reminder wasn’t as comforting as it should have been. Her pain was too sharp and strong to be so easily soothed.
    She could, of course, have challenged Sean to let her prove that Oliver was his son by demanding a DNA test. Kate dropped her cheek onto Oliver’s soft springy curls. But proving that Sean was Oliver’s father would mean nothing if Sean refused to be that father. No way was she going to expose Oliver to that kind of pain—not even to prove to Sean that she had not, as he had accused, shared her body with another man as he had shared his with another woman!
    The pain hadn’t changed at all. It was still as strong as it had always been. Where was her pride? Why wasn’t it rescuing her from her own vulnerability by reminding her of what Sean had done? How dared he make accusations regarding her when he had told her openly that he had taken another woman to bed?
    Oliver was still asleep in her arms, which meant that she did not have to hold back any longer the slow, painful tears burning the back of her eyes. It hadn’t just been her that Sean had betrayed, he had betrayed Oliver as well!
    * * *
    Sean grimaced as he accidentally nicked his skin, and put down his razor. ‘It’s your own damned fault,’ he muttered to his reflection as he stanched the small wound. But it wasn’t the cut he was talking about, and it wasn’t his own face he could see in the mirror—it was Oliver’s.
    Cursing, he tried to banish his thoughts—but it was too late.
    He had seen in Kate’s eyes just how she felt about his refusal to accept that Oliver was his child. But no matter how much she had managed to persuade herself that Oliver was his, Sean knew that he could not be.
    And he knew for a very good reason.
    He closed his eyes and swallowed against the sick taste of his own self-loathing and humiliation.
    That reason was that it was medically impossible for him to father a child.
    He hadn’t known that when he had married Kate, of course. If he had done then he would never have married her, knowing how important having children was to her.
    He thought back to the medical appointment which had been responsible for the destruction of his marriage and his life.
    ‘There is one thing I do have to mention,’ the doctor had begun. ‘One of the tests we ran was a sperm count. I’m afraid I have to tell you that it’s highly unlikely you will be able to father a child.’
    Even now he still had bad dreams about those words and that meeting with his doctor at which the announcement had been made.
    He hadn’t been able to take it in at first. How could it not be possible for him to father a child? He was a fit, healthy man in the prime of life. He had protested that the