He still didn’t follow. ‘That sounds as if she was angry with you.’

‘Of course she was.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘She was supposed to be the perfect one,’ Gemma said wearily. ‘And she was. My mother loved her to distraction and I was sidelined. But she was jealous even of that. She was jealous of me from the moment she was born-as if I could ever compete with her. It was crazy, but like a cuckoo in another bird’s nest she’d push aside any sibling that competed for her attention. And when our mother got sick she leaned on me. That drove Fiona crazy-that Gemma, the plain one, should now have what she wanted. Health. And our mother’s dependence. So she fixed me right up. She saddled me with a baby and then…and then when I managed to cope and still have a life-of sorts-she gave me another. And she died doing it.’

Dear heaven…

Nate sat back in his chair. He let what she’d said drift slowly though his mind, trying to assimilate it. He raised his hand and ran his fingers through his thatch of burnt-red curls, fighting for some sanity. Fighting for some reason.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said at last. ‘I can’t think.’

‘There’s not much to think about.’

‘Well, that’s a crazy statement,’ he snapped, shock giving way to anger. ‘Not much to think about! When you come in here and present me with the fact that I’m a father…’

‘If you slept with Fiona you must have known fatherhood was a possibility.’

‘Of course I didn’t.’

‘You’re a doctor,’ she snapped back, as angry as he was. ‘You know very well that no contraceptive is perfect. Unless it’s abstinence. And you and Fiona didn’t practise abstinence.’