Page 58 of The Wisteria Tree Cottage

Heath was silent for the longest time but eventually he spoke. ‘Star is mine—’

‘You piece of shit.’

Heath held his hand up. ‘Star is my daughter, in every way that matters… except biologically.’

CHAPTERTHIRTY-SEVEN

Bear stared at him in shock.

‘Star isn’t yours?’

‘She is mine. I might not have provided the sperm but that doesn’t mean she isn’t my daughter.’

‘So you two… never…’

‘Me and Meadow have never slept together. We’re friends. It’s never been more than that between us. She came to me terrified. She’d found out she was pregnant, the arsehole who had donated the sperm had told her to get rid of it and herwonderfulparents had kicked her out. She was seventeen, no job, no home. What was I supposed to do? I offered to marry her, raise the baby as my own, and she said yes. And there has not been one single day since then that I regretted that decision. I have an amazing daughter I am utterly in love with and I raised her with my best friend, life doesn’t get much better than that.’

Bear sat down on the sofa.

‘Promise me, this won’t impact on your relationship with Star. She is still your niece. That hasn’t changed,’ Heath said, urgently.

‘Of course it won’t. From the second I held her a few minutes after she was born I fell in love with her too.’

They were both quiet. The magnitude of this secret was huge.

‘I take it she doesn’t know either?’

Heath shook his head. ‘We swore we’d never tell anyone. Maybe we’ll tell her when she’s older. I don’t know. I’m surprised Meadow told you.’

Bear sighed. ‘She… doesn’t know she told me. She thinks I’m someone else?’

Heath’s eyes widened. ‘What?’

‘I didn’t know. I met this woman online, we’ve been chatting for a few days but Connected Hearts don’t allow photos and our profiles are under different names. She’s Twilight Rose and I’m AstralSurfer. She told me she was Iris Starfish so when I started chatting to Twilight, I had no idea it was her.’

‘Oh yes, that name was taken. Good job really, I said it sounded like a porn star name.’

‘Anyway, you must have woken her up when you went to check on her because she started messaging me and she’s still very drunk. She told me she had a crappy night and how men are only interested in sex and then the whole sorry story came tumbling out. It was only when she started talking about it that I realised that I was actually talking to Meadow.’

‘Crap. She will be horrified that she’s told you.’

Bear shoved his hand through his hair.

‘Did she ever tell you the reason she ended up sleeping with that shitbag?’ Bear asked.

‘There was a boy she had a crush on who slept with some girl she hated.’

‘I’m the boy and, no, I didn’t. He lied to her, told her I’d slept with Milly Atherton. I never even dated the girl, let alone slept with her.’

‘Jesus.’

Bear quickly gave a rundown of their kiss and why she had pushed him away when he’d asked her out.

‘So you liked her too?’ Heath asked.

‘Loved. Still do.’

Heath stared at him. ‘Bear, I had no idea. You must have hated me for marrying her.’

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