The King's Deception

“The truth has to be said, and you know it.”

The truth? Hardly. She’d omitted the most important part.

Gary is not your biological son.

Typical Pam. One set of rules for her, another for everyone else. Now they both had a bad problem.

Ian walked beside him on the sidewalk. The boy had said nothing. Interesting how instinct bred survival, even in adolescence. He’d become angry at Ian in the mews, but he also saw that Ian seemed to tacitly agree that he’d messed up with Gary. He told himself to not allow that to happen again. This boy needed compassion, not hostility.

What did Gary need?

To know his biological father?

What good could possibly come from that, after fifteen years of ignorance. Unfortunately, Pam had not concerned herself with any of that. What had she been thinking?

The answer was obvious.

She hadn’t thought.

Only acted.

Women were not his strong point. He neither knew nor understood how to deal with them. So he avoided them. So much simpler that way.

But at times it could be lonely.

Gary was the one thing no one could take from him.

Or could they?

He suddenly realized why he’d been so apprehensive since learning the truth. No longer was he irrevocably a parent. Being part of birthing a child stamped you forever. Short of a court divesting you of all rights, no matter how many mistakes were made — and he’d made a ton — you never stopped being a father.

But now that could be stripped away.

At least in part.

Gary could meet his biological father. The man could be a great guy. Shocked to discover he had a son. They would bond. Gary’s love would be divided. Where now all of the boy’s emotions belonged to him, he’d have to share them.

Or maybe lose them entirely?

And that possibility crushed him.

Fifteen

Kathleen scanned the information on the laptop. The stories Sir Thomas had told her about what had happened at the deathbeds of Henry VII and Henry VIII were intriguing, but the information on the screen added more.