Page 74 of Callum
Edna touched her arm. “Amanda, dear, please put your phone away. Fiona’s come a long way to have a meal with us.”
Amanda looked up, but not at her mother. She directed a furious glare at Fiona. “Well, she is the golden child, so I guess we should put in some effort, shouldn’t we?”
Everyone tensed, the smiles slipping from their faces.
“Why do you need to do that?” Fiona asked firmly.
“Do what?”
“Put in snide remarks about me whenever you get the chance. We’re having a nice meal, and I’ve been nothing but kind to you.”
Amanda snorted. “Kind? Like secretly seeing Freddie on our wedding night and not telling me?”
Stunned silence thickened the air.
“Who told you that?” Fiona asked.
“Hedid. He said he was going to get ice when you stopped him in the hall. Tried to kiss him.”
Callum’s muscles tensed. “That’s a lie.”
Her angry eyes slid to him. “Is it? Or are you just dating a woman who can’t keep her hands to herself?”
“Me?” Fiona gasped. “I’mthe one who can’t keep my hands to myself? Are you freaking kidding me?”
Amanda swung a nervous glance at their parents but kept her mouth closed. Clearly, the circumstances of Freddie dating Amanda had never made it back to her parents, and the woman didn’t want them to know.
“I do not want him, Amanda, and you need to stop insinuating I do.”
Amanda’s jaw clicked, and she opened her mouth, but before she could get a word out, Mark cleared his throat. “Amanda, stop it. Your mother has prepared a fabulous meal. I think we should enjoy it.”
A beat passed before Fiona wet her lips and turned to her parents. “I actually have a question I’d like to ask you both.”
“Anything, dear,” her mother said, clearly relieved at any change in subject.
When Fiona paused, Callum put a supportive hand on her thigh.
She lowered her fork to the table. “Some strange things have been happening. Because of that, Callum did some digging…and he’s found that there aren’t any hospital records of my birth.”
He heard it straight away. The shift in breathing from Mark. The speeding up of Edna’s pulse, accompanied by the paling of both their faces. He shot a glance at Amanda to see her lips twitching up, almost in a smirk. Stacey just looked confused.
“Why is that?” Fiona asked, when the silence stretched.
Edna and Mark looked at each other, almost like they were silently asking each other what to say.
Fiona touched her father’s hand. “Please. I need to know.”
“You’re not theirs.”
Everyone’s gaze swung toward Amanda. Edna gasped.
“Amanda,don’t,” Mark said firmly.
“What?” she asked with indignation. “She obviously knows something.” Amanda looked back to Fiona. “Your mother was a drug addict friend of Mom’s, who left you at our front door and died a week later.”
* * *
Tick,tick, tick.
