I jumped at the brushing of Amanda’s fingertips over my spine. At her voice behind me. At the confusion in it. This nightmare was taking a surreal turn. I didn’t like it.
Robby stepped past me, like I wasn’t there. I didn’t like that either. Not at all.
“Mandy.” He smoothed a hand up her arm and placed a kiss on her cheek.
Was this happening? How completely fucked up had my life become? Was this really happening?
I folded my arms over my chest in such a way to emphasize my biceps, and leaned my back against the door, closing it.
Yes, I’d resorted to peacocking my muscles.
“What are you doing here, Robby?” Uncertainty knitted Amanda’s eyebrows. She flicked a glance at me and then looked back at Robby.
Robby. What kind of grown man has a name like Robby?
“Your father called.” Robby did his best to put himself between me and Amanda. It gratified me to see she’d folded her own arms over her breasts. It irritated the hell out of me that those breasts were covered by nothing but a bathrobe. “He said Dr. Waters was testing for another match and he knew I’d want to be here for you again.”
Four words drilled through my head. Your. Father. Called. And again.
Charles Sinclair had called Robby Aames. Charles Sinclair had told him about something intensely personal to me and Amanda. Charles Sinclair had suggested Amanda would need Robby’s support, because apparently I wasn’t good enough.
And Robby Aames had been there for her more than once.
Another word scraped at my consciousness. One my brain had relegated to the product of a nightmare I obviously wasn’t having.
Boyfriend.
I ground my teeth. Yeah, the guy in front of me, he looked exactly like the kind of guy Charles would approve of for Amanda. Neat hair combed into slick perfection, a student or graduate from the university where Charles himself was a professor. The perfect guy to date Charles Sinclair’s daughter.
The woman who’d told me she wasn’t seeing—
“Dad shouldn’t have done that,” Amanda responded with a sigh. “And you didn’t need to come.” She gave him a sad smile. “But thank you.”
A lump lodged in my throat, thick and impossible to swallow. She’d smiled at him. Just who the hell was Robby Aames to her? Boyfriend? How could he be? After she and I had . . .
Pushing myself from the door, I crossed to her side. “Amanda?”
There was no animosity in my tone, I couldn’t let there be. I was balancing on the edge of a precipice. Any crack in what tenuous control I had over my emotional state would see me go to a place I didn’t want to go.
But I was close. So fucking close it scared me.
Amanda shook her head, frowning again. “I’m sorry, Bren.” She smiled that sad smile at Robby. “This is Robert Aames. Robby. He used to be my father’s teacher’s assistant. Now he’s a family friend.”
Family friend. Very different description to the one Robby had given himself. So who was telling the truth? The very fact the question itched at me left me unsettled. The fact I had no clue of the actual answer only made it worse.
“Robby.” Amanda touched my arm. “This is Brendon. Tanner’s father.”
“The bodybuilder?” The look Robby gave me made me want to punch him. “That explains the lack of a shirt, I guess.”
“Robby,” Amanda dragged out his name in a warning.
I wanted to give him a warning. But it wouldn’t have been just his name.
“Sorry,” he offered her a contrite smile and tried to snag her fingers, but she didn’t let him. That was one thing, I guess. “I just wasn’t expecting . . .” Clearing his throat, he turned to me and held out his hand. “Hi Brendon, welcome to San Diego.”
I closed my hand around his, holding his stare. His grip turned to a vice and, in classic Alpha-dog behavior, he closed his other hand over the back of mine and tried to turn our locked hands so his was on top.
Tried and failed. At least I’d won at something today. “G’day, Bobby,” I said.
Contemptuous conceit flashed in his eyes and his smile widened. “Robby.”
I gave him a look of hollow contrition. “Robby.”
Smoothing his hand over Amanda’s back in a way that shouted Fuck off, she’s mine, he met my eyes again. “Can I assume you’re the test Charles told me about?”
“Brendon flew in this morning,” Amanda said, stepping away from him. She looked uncomfortable, but was that because she didn’t want him touching her, or because she didn’t want him touching her while I was there?
Fuck. What should I do?
Robby affected a sympathetic expression. I saw straight through it. “You must be tired. And then to get here and discover . . . well, everything.”
“It’s been a shock,” I answered calmly. Inside was a different matter.
Robby grunted a response as he nodded and scratched a spot under his right eye. I’m pretty certain he did it only so I could see the Rolex on his wrist. Or maybe my agitated state was messing with me?
“I take it you haven’t received the results yet?” he went on. “I was the first to be tested, after Mandy and her family, of course. I’m almost a match, close enough Dr. Waters will use my stem cells if a complete match cannot be found by the end of the week.”
I didn’t flinch. Even as the room turned into a roaring void, I didn’t flinch. But I felt sick. Physically sick. Like someone had pierced my stomach with a sharp stick and was churning it about. I wasn’t a match. But this . . . this . . . dick was almost one? I couldn’t save my son, and this guy, with his Rolex, slicked hair and SDSU T-shirt may very well be able to?
Pulse thumping in my ears, my eyes, I turned to Amanda.
I could see she was flustered. Stressed. She was pinching at her thumbnail again. A frown creased her forehead. “As soon as Parker canceled out me, Chase, and Mom and Dad as suitable donors, the search for a match began. Friends offered to be tested the moment they found out what Tanner had.”
“And Bobby was one of those friends? Is almost a match?”
“Robby.” Robby corrected. I didn’t look at him. But I could hear the smugness in his voice, hidden in the considerate patience of his interjection.
Amanda nodded, gnawing on her bottom lip. If she had any idea of how I was feeling, she didn’t show it. “Almost. The problem with almost is Tanner’s body can reject the transplant, and that can cause GVHD – graft-versus-host disease. A bone marrow transplant with non-matching stem cells, no matter how close to a match, is very very risky, and only a last resort.”
The room crushed down on me. My skin itched all over. “I thought the last resort was calling the father.”
Pain etched Amanda’s face. Her eyes welled with tears. “Bren,” she whispered, “please don’t.”
At her side, Robby loomed large. “Hey hey hey, Mandy girl,” he crooned, smoothing his hand up and down her back again. “It’s okay, I’m here now. I’m here.”
Fuck, I wanted to smash his face in. I wanted to break his perfect nose, crack his chiseled jaw.
“You weren’t the last resort, Bren,” Amanda stepped toward me, pressing her palms to my chest. My gut knotted at the contact. My stupid male body reacted. My brain, however, rebelled. Rebelled against what my stupid, gullible heart wanted.