Cameron’s green eyes popped in my head, and I felt my knees falter, an overwhelming sensation filling up my chest. I wish he was here, my head seemed to chant. Not holding my hand, but ready, close enough to hold it if I needed it to be held. As if trying to appease the hollowness, I patted my chest, finding something under my shirt.
Cameron’s ring. It was still there, hanging from the chain he’d fastened around my neck this morning.
“I hid all of this to protect you,” my father said, bringing me back.
I swallowed hard. Thinking of the last man who’d told me something similar. But it… It somehow felt different. It had a different effect. A part of me seemed hesitant to believe Dad. “I don’t need you to protect me. I’m not a child. I could have taken the truth.”
My father sighed, and it was a curt, quick sound that managed to carry so much. “That’s exactly what your mother told me.” He shook his head. “You look a lot like her today.”
“I do?”
He gave me a nod. “I never wanted it to happen this way,” my father continued, looking down at the desk. “All this time, it’s always been my one regret. What kept me from your mother and you.” He shook his head. “Looks like I seem to repeat my mistakes. Do you resent me, Adalyn? Does she resent me as well?”
I opened my mouth, but something stopped me from speaking. She? “Mom? Why would she resent you for this?”
My father’s brows met in question. He wasn’t talking about Mom.
“Who are you referring to?” I asked. And because there was something at the back of my head, something that started to buzz, I added, “Who should resent you, Dad?”
Andrew Underwood seemed so openly confused for a second that when he answered, it was nothing but a rasp. “Josephine.”
My heart stopped for an instant. Josephine? But it couldn’t—
“What has Josie to do with selling the club?”
He paled.
My knees faltered then. I leaned my hand on the chair, gaping at him. Taking in his expression. He looked like a ghost. And that reminded me of what my mother had said. The letters.
Your father has secrets.
Then more started toppling in, flooding me with memories. Facts that hadn’t been pieced together.
You’ll leave tomorrow. On an assignment…It’s something I’ve actually been thinking about for a while.
There’s some kind of a guardian looking over Green Oak.
Robbie doesn’t like to talk about it, but he was—and maybe still is—in a lot of debt.
“You’re Green Oak’s angel investor.” My throat worked but the lump remained lodged there, making it hard for me to speak. I clutched Cameron’s ring. Then, something else Josie had said that day barreled right into me. Something that couldn’t mean what I thought it did. But it had to. “What are you trying to tell me? Why did you bring up Josie? I need to hear it. Out loud.”
He stared at me, and then he said, “Josephine is your half sister.” And the confirmation felt like a bucket of water had been thrown in my face. “She’s my daughter,” he added, and there wasn’t a trace of guilt in his voice or his face. There wasn’t shame. Or remorse. Longing. There was nothing.
Nothing at all.
“I thought you’d realized,” he said. “I thought that was why you were here and what had prompted that dramatic entrance. You said you knew everything.”
I… didn’t think I could breathe. I had a sister. A half sister. Dad had another daughter. “You thought I knew about Josie? But—You…” My gaze roamed around his face. It was impassive. “You’re not surprised or angry. You’re fine. I…” My head was whirling, shooting thoughts left and right. Piecing things together and tearing others apart. I gasped for air. “Were you hoping I’d find out about Josie?” But it couldn’t be, could it? “Was that why you shipped me off there?”
“Yes and no,” he admitted quickly. Far too quick for me to process. “I sent you there because Green Oak seemed like an experience you could benefit from. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t assume you’d put it together.” He shrugged. “I guess I was wrong.”
His words reverberated in my head as I stared into my father’s eyes. They were Josie’s light blue eyes. Only they lacked everything hers had. A powerful emotion rippled through me at the realization, at how obvious it had been, at how he’d just put me down for not piecing it together.
He always did that. Put me down. Hid things.
“You guess you were wrong?” I repeated, something rioting in my chest. Something that had nothing to do with how I’d just been heaving for a breath. “You sent me out there knowing I might find out about a half sister you’ve been hiding from me, knowing I’d interact with her, possibly befriend her, and you shrug it off like that?”
“Once more, I thought that was why you were here,” he said. And God, there was so much noise in my ears. My head. I couldn’t think. I missed Cameron’s hands, anchoring me to the world. “I’ve been expecting this for a while now.”
I briefly closed my eyes, gave myself a few seconds to sieve through the surge of ugly and overpowering emotions climbing up and down. “I was here because I heard rumors of you selling the Flames. To David. Because I know about him using you. Using me. Because I thought I was somehow responsible for him forcing your hand.”
He sighed. “It’s late. Let’s go home and continue this some other time. There’s no stopping the sale of the club anyway, but I’m sure you’ll have questions about that. I’ll ask my driver to drop you off at your apartment.”
The rush of blood in my rib cage, my head, at his words had been so loud that for a second I’d thought I hadn’t heard him right. It was impossible, after all, that someone broke this kind of life-changing news to his own daughter and then followed it up with that. My head lifted, and what had been a scattered mind focused.
“No,” I all but spat, taking in the blank expression on his face. “You’re not dismissing me like this. I’ve given up a lot to be here right now.” I’d let the girls down. Left a heartbroken Cameron behind.
He checked his watch again. “It’s late, Adalyn,” he said slowly. “And you’re clearly rattled and in no shape to have a discussion. I’m doing this for your own good. Just like everything else.”
“You mean hiding I have a sibling or asking David to marry me in exchange for a job, as if I was nothing but cattle being traded?”
His jaw clenched. “That’s an exaggeration.”
A clarity that hadn’t been there all these years crystallized. “What else then? Maybe it was the way you overlooked my efforts to impress you. To earn your approval and respect. Was that for my own good?”
“I never overlooked you, Adalyn.”
“Then why?” I asked him, my voice terrifyingly calm. “Why would you offer your daughter to a horrible man? Why would you let him play us both by not telling me when you should have? I had to find out from his own lips during the anniversary of the club. How is any of that protecting me? How is sending me off, banishing me, doing that? You never checked on me, not once.” I brought my hand to the middle of my chest. “You’re my father.”
