It's All Relative (68 page)

Mason took small steps towards him, palms beseeching. “Not by blood, Kai.” Kai backed up until he hit the door; he was still shaking his head. “I know this is hard to accept. I only recently found out myself. But it’s true, Kai. Genetically, I
am
your father.”

Pressed flat against the door, like it was the only thing holding him up, Kai whispered, “No…there’s been some mistake…”

Mason smiled as he put a hand on Kai’s shoulder; he flinched away from him. “I thought so too, at first. But Nathan had you tested when you were younger.” Mason shook his head, a sad smile on his lips. “I’m sorry, Kai, but you’re not his, and to the best of my knowledge, that leaves only me.”

Kai opened his mouth to protest, and then shut it. He shifted his gaze to stare at the floor. “When I was younger…” His eyes lifted back up to Mason and moisture was in them. “Is that why they got divorced? He found out the truth?”

Mason paused, then nodded. “Yes, he couldn’t forgive her for what she…what
we
, did. But know that she loved you regardless, Kai. And if it makes it any easier for you…you were conceived with a great depth of love, on both sides.” His other hand came up to rest on Kai’s shoulders and Kai closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the door.

Sympathy flooded Mason as he felt the young man shaking. For the first time ever, Mason wanted to embrace his son, show him the warmth he’d felt building for a while now, warmth that he now recognized as a similar but different version of what he’d felt for Leilani. Mason wasn’t sure when, but somewhere along the way, he had grown to love the man before him.

His voice came out thick with emotion, as he spoke his heart to his long lost child. “I didn’t want to tell you this, Kai. Honestly, at first, I didn’t want to be bothered with it.” Kai’s eyes flew open as he stared at Mason. Mason squeezed his shoulders. “I’ve spent the bulk of my life alone. I know nothing about kids.” He smiled warmly at Kai, feeling his own tears stinging him. His rational brain thought that was a curious reaction. His emotional mind was too busy connecting with his son to care. “But meeting you, working with you…I’ve grown to respect and admire you, and I would be proud to call you son.” His voice broke after he squeezed that out.

Kai blinked, a tear almost escaping his eye as he did. “But you hate me,” he whispered.

Now Mason blinked. Taking a step back from Kai, he dropped his hands from his shoulders and ran them through his hair again. “Oh, no, I never hated you, Kai.” He shrugged. “You were just…thrust upon me, and I didn’t know what to do with the situation.” Looking down at the floor, he sighed. “I had a hard time dealing with what I knew I needed to do.” He peeked back up at Kai’s pale face, “But I never hated you. Ever. And I’m sorry if you felt that way.” Smiling he added, “You’re an incredible asset here. I hope you’ll stay.”

Kai seemed to ignore that remark as his head drifted back to hit the door again. “I don’t believe this…” His hands came up to run through his hair, then his head snapped down. “Did you see the test results?”

Mason blinked, then shook his head. “No…but, I don’t really need to.”

Kai narrowed his matching eyes. “Why?”

Mason smiled wryly. He pointed at their shared feature. “Let’s just say I see a lot of similarities.”

Kai’s brow pushed to a deep point. “Because of our eye color?” He shook his head. “That’s not good enough.” Stammering a bit, he looked around the room, almost like he was seeing through it. “I need proof. I need to see a test.”

Mason smiled and slowly shook his head. “Always the scientist…yet another way we’re alike.”

Kai cast him an odd glance and Mason shrugged. “We have the machines here. I could test us now, Kai, if that would ease your mind.”

Kai started nodding as he moved away from the door. “Nothing right now is going to ease my mind.” He yanked open the door. “But it will end the doubt.” Without meeting Mason’s eyes, he stormed through the door.

Mason paused before following him. “Yes…yes it will, son. But are you ready for that?”

(Cut scene #7. This is at the end of chapter 23. Mason has just finished his heart to heart with Kai, and asks him about staying.)

M
ason shook his son’s hand as he stood to leave. That had gone smoother than he’d ever hoped it would. Kai constantly surprised him, and his willingness to let a complete stranger into his life, into his heart, warmed Mason in a way that he’d never expected. A rush of pride swept through Mason as he smiled at the attractive man in front of him. While Kai’s looks were clearly Leilani’s, Mason thought he saw a bit of himself mixed in there too, and not just in the lookalike eyes. There was something in the jaw, the eyebrows, the slant of his nose, some small trace of his lineage that couldn’t quite be hidden.

And the boy was smart, talented. Mason liked to think that he’d played a part in that department, if not in the physical one. Kai could make big strides in their relatively small community, and Mason had every intention of helping him, if he could.

But all of those things weren’t really what gave Mason the swell of fatherly pride. No, Mason was proud of Kai because he was a good man. Maybe that part had more to do with his upbringing, Mason wasn’t sure. The studies of nature versus nurture were open to far too much interpretation. But regardless of how he had come to be such a fine example of the male species, he was, and Mason’s ego swelled a little over that fact.

“Will you be staying with us then, Kai?” he asked, his head tilted inquisitively. He wanted to hold his breath as he hoped that Kai would choose to stay, choose to build on the relationship they’d started today. It never failed to surprise him just how much he wanted a lasting connection with his son.

Kai slipped his hands in his back pockets once their handshake ended. Sighing, he looked down before slowly looking back up at Mason. “Yes. I’m going to stay here in Denver.”

He glanced back down the hallway, where the woman who was obviously more than just a cousin to Kai had disappeared. Mason had been a little shocked to see they’d moved into a physical relationship, but genetically it didn’t matter, since Kai wasn’t blood related. Even then, first cousins rarely had children with problems. It was only after generations of inbreeding that serious problems started cropping up. No, it was more of a social stigma than a biological one. Mason’s own surprise had been born from that stigma, but he had quickly dismissed it. Who was he to say what couple in love should or should not be together?

Kai’s eyes returned to him, a small smile on his lips. “Denver is my home.” He tilted his head at Mason, in almost the same way Mason had at him. “And I’d be honored to keep working for you.”

Mason smiled as he clapped him on the shoulder. “Good. You would have been…impossible to replace.”

Kai smiled widely, his face much more relaxed than when Mason had first walked in here. Mason had been so sure, once Kai had left him days ago, that he’d fled back home, back to the parents who’d lied to him. He’d been very surprised when he’d talked to Leilani and discovered that not only had Kai not gone home, but he hadn’t even called her yet. Mason had inadvertently terrified the woman, since she hadn’t been able to contact Kai in days.

Promising her that he would find Kai and immediately contact her, he’d exhausted all of his resources to find his son. He’d gone to Kai’s apartment early on, but the tenants there had only shrugged and admitted that they hadn’t seen him in a while. Upon Leilani’s advice, Mason had grudgingly called Kai’s grandmother this morning. Leilani had voiced her dislike of the woman, and Mason had been expecting a cold shoulder from the person who knew the whole sordid story about them, but she had been surprisingly helpful. Concerned even, and had directed Mason to Kai’s cousin, Jessie.

Mason hadn’t really been expecting to find him here. While he’d met Jessie once before, he hadn’t realized how close she and Kai were, more so than probably anyone knew. Mason supposed he owed Jessie thanks for that. If it weren’t for her, Kai might have indeed fled back home. His love for the woman had kept him in the city. It made Mason smile that at least one good thing had come out of his poorly delivered revelation, since Kai could now love his pseudo-cousin with a clear conscience.

Kai looked down, smiling at the compliment, and then he shrugged. “I hope you don’t mind, but I need a little more time off.” His lips twisted as he looked up at Mason. “I need to see my parents.”

Mason sighed and nodded. “Yes, I suppose you do.” He squeezed Kai’s shoulder before letting go. “Go easy on your mother, boy. She had her reasons for keeping you in the dark.” Mason was a little surprised he’d said that, but regardless of what had happened between him and Leilani, she had only been trying to protect Kai by sheltering him from the truth.

Kai nodded, and Mason was again proud of the man before him. In a surprising flood of warmth, he reached out to give him a swift hug. Kai stiffened a bit at the gesture, then loosely hugged him back. Embarrassed by his own display, Mason pulled back and cleared his throat. “Well, take all the time you need to, Kai.” Thinking a moment, he added, “Getting tickets can be expensive on short notice. I’ll make arrangements.”

Kai cleared his own throat, obviously touched. “You don’t have to…thank you.” Mason smiled and turned to open the door. Just as he was walking through it, he heard Kai say, “I’ll call you when I get there.” Mason twisted to look back at him and Kai shrugged. “You know, just so you won’t worry about me.”

Mason’s throat closed up and he could only smile and nod. Quickly leaving before the emotion choked him, Mason darted to his car. How strange. He’d definitely never anticipated the range of emotion he felt around his child, and he suddenly understood Leilani’s need to shelter him, protect him. Briefly closing his eyes, he wished his son a safe journey.

A silent car ride later, Mason pulled up to his true home, the one place on earth he felt the most at peace—the research center. Just as he shut the car off, his cell phone started ringing. Wondering if Kai had more to say to him, he grabbed the phone and glanced at the screen. When he saw who it was, he contemplated just letting it ring.

As the shrill ring filled the suddenly cramped cabin, Mason watched two of his employees greet each other at the front door. Louis and Missy. A strange pair, but effective at their jobs. That made up for a lot of their eccentricities. The work was what really mattered to all of them here, but those two would never have the future Kai could have in this field. He had the brains, the work ethic, and the social graces required to go places, even farther than Mason had, if he were honest with himself.

Glancing down at the ringing phone in his hand, a flash of pride for the son he had every intention of nurturing for the rest of his life gave him the strength to connect the call. Pressing the talk button, Mason held the phone to his ear. “Good morning, Leilani.”

The voice on the other end wasted no time. “Did you find him? Is he all right?”

Mason paused. He should tell Leilani about the situation with the girl, the cousin. He was pretty sure she didn’t know about it. Shaking his head, he only told her, “Yes. He’s fine. He was staying with his…cousin.” Mason smiled. That secret was not for him to share. Kai could explain it, if and when he chose to.

She exhaled loudly in his ear, the sound taking Mason back to similar soft noises that had echoed in his head. It never failed to amaze Mason how easily the woman could wrap herself around him, squeezing his heart to painful points at times. Her voice was strained with worry when it came out again. “Oh, thank God. I was so worried…”

Mason had to imagine Leilani hadn’t slept at all since he’d called her in the wee hours of her morning. Surprisingly, he felt guilty about needlessly stressing her. Regardless of their twisted past, Kai was her son too, and from what she’d confessed to him before, Kai was all she had in the world. The thought of not knowing where he was or how he was…now that Mason was able to understand what it meant to have a child in the world, he didn’t want to think about that level of torment. Sighing, he massaged the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry to have worried you, Leilani. He really is okay. Just processing.” Processing in the arms of a beautiful woman, but still definitely processing.

A tired exhale met his ear. “He knows…I can’t believe he knows. I got so used to him thinking what I wanted him to think.”

Mason’s lips twitched into a wry smile. “Yes, you do prefer to control what people think, don’t you?” Knowing that sounded very bitter, he quickly added, “He’s an adult now, Leilani. He will find his way through this and come out a stronger man for it.”

Again that surprising swell of fatherly pride filled him, and Mason was sure, for the first time in all of this, that the truth coming out was for the betterment of all involved. Perhaps Nate was correct after all? Perhaps the truth did matter. Sometimes an infected wound had to be cut deep before the true healing could begin.

“Does he hate me?” Leilani whispered, her fearful voice sending a small spark of compassion through Mason.