me both. We will find out, I promise you.”
Trace was at Everything when his phone rang.
“Yeah.”
“It’s Lucien. Can you meet me at Sapphire in about twenty minutes? I need your help.”
“I’m leaving now.”
When Trace arrived, he was surprised to see that Lucien had called Rafe and Kyle too. He reached them and pulled out a chair. “What’s up?”
“I’m sorry to call you in the middle of the day, but I need help. Darcy was pregnant when I left St. Agnes. I’ve thought about this every moment since I found out about the baby. She was pregnant. Can you imagine how terrified she had to have been to be alone and pregnant at sixteen? What could that bastard have said to make her believe that it was better for me that she face pregnancy alone?”
“And the baby?” Kyle asked.
“She was told she lost it, but her mother finally confessed that she lied. That she was paid to lie, probably by the same bastard who came to see Darcy that day.”
“What! What the fuck for?” Trace demanded.
“I don’t know, but I want to find my child.”
“Do you know if it’s a boy or girl?” Rafe asked.
“No, but he or she would be almost fourteen now, growing up as we had, believing that they were forgotten. They deserve to know the truth, deserve to know they have a mother who has mourned their loss every day for fourteen years and a father who would move heaven and earth for them. I want to give them what we all were denied: a family.”
“Fuck yeah. What do you need?” Trace said, which made Lucien smile.
“I can’t be everywhere at once, but I need to find out who was on duty the night Darcy delivered the baby. Clearly it wasn’t just her mother this man paid off. Josh is already looking into it, but he’s going to need help; so much time has passed that there’s going to be a lot of researching and legwork just to find everyone.”
“Whatever you need, you’ve got it,” Trace said, then asked, “And Darcy?”
Lucien’s smile filled his face. Trace chuckled. “I’m guessing by that look you are working it out.”
“Hell yeah.”
Later that day, Trace walked into Charles’s campaign headquarters. He’d waited for a day when Ember wasn’t working because he didn’t want to upset her and he couldn’t be sure how this conversation was going to go. Charles’s secretary greeted him and stood.
“Please follow me. Your uncle is expecting you.”
Charles was on the phone when they entered his office, but immediately ended the call.
“Trace, it’s nice to see you.” He stood and shook Trace’s hand. “Please have a seat.”
Trace didn’t return the greeting and instead got right to the point. “What’s your connection to Heidi?”
Trace noticed that, though the man paled slightly, he wasn’t surprised by the question.
“The boy, Seth . . . he isn’t your father’s. He’s mine.”
“Come again?” Trace had definitely not been expecting that.
Charles walked to a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Scotch and two glasses, before returning to his desk and pouring them each three fingers. He drank the entire glass before he poured another.
“Let me start from the beginning. When I met Vivian, she was like no one I had ever known. She came from nothing and yet held herself like a queen. Though my affection for her was genuine, it was my money and connections that she sought. I didn’t mind because she was fun to be around and she did like me in her way. When we got together, she didn’t hesitate to change her appearance, even going so far as to model her makeover on my sister . . .” He rubbed a hand over his head. “Hell, even her name Vivian was chosen because of how close it was to Victoria. Obviously there was a little hero worship there.
“For a time we were happy, but then Vivian really took to her new image and started focusing more on the social life her connection to me offered. I found myself alone often.”
“And that’s when you met Heidi,” Trace concluded.
“Yeah, she was young, fresh, and sexy as hell and she was interested in me, a man pushing forty.”
“And you didn’t think that was odd, a girl falling for a man old enough to be her father?”
“There was a part of me that wondered, but it was heady to be desired by someone like her. Anyway, our brief affair ended almost as soon as it started.”
“And then she drops the bomb that