Home For The Holidays - Jordan Silver Page 0,76

on the street where you belong. You doubt me? Run upstairs and ask my brother who’d win this fight. If you think for a second that because he’s the son of this house that my dad would take his side, think again. I’m the baby, baby, and this baby always wins. If you weren’t raised by farm animals, you’d know how families work. Now, my nieces are here. Are you going to behave like you have some sense, or are you going to stay in your room all day?”

“It’s Xmas!”

“Your point? You make one more wrong move, and you’re out. Try…me.” Yup, I’m channeling Michele again. She huffed, and I raised my hand in a threatening manner, making her take a step back. “Thought so!” I left her to decide how she wanted her day to go and walked out of the room and right into trouble. Well shit!

TOM

Now is my chance. I doubt I’ll get another one like this since she seems to be a master at evading me. I saw Sam and Tessa having some kind of discussion in the living room and decided to grab the chance. Jared was in the great room with mom and dad and the girls, my girls.

I’d started suspecting for some time now that they were indeed mine. But until last night, when dad showed me a picture that I thought was of one of the girls that turned out to be my sister at their age, the last of my doubts went away.

I knew when I saw her yesterday that I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. All the old feelings came rushing back. The love, passion, everything I felt the first time I laid eyes on her. It was like coming out of a fog or awakening from a coma after many years. I wanted to go after her when she left, but it was not the right time. There was still Tessa to deal with.

Yes, Tessa, I wonder why she’d chosen to mess with my life. I’ve spent the last two years with her, and yet it’s as if I never knew her at all. Sure we’d become more like roommates than lovers, but I never once suspected that she was anything other than honest with me. Until things stopped adding up, and I started to see cracks in her façade.

It had taken me too long to realize I know, but better late than never, at least that’s my hope. I found my balls for the first time in way too long to recall and approached her in the doorway of the great room where she was standing watching the girls as they tore into the mountain of gifts my family had bought them. I feel like a complete bastard because I hadn’t got them anything, but hopefully, if she gives me another chance, I can make it up to her and them.

“Deidre!”

“What do you want?” She didn’t even turn around to look at me. It’s as if she was expecting me to come to her.

“Just to talk.”

“It’s too late for that.” She stepped away from the door so that the others wouldn’t hear us.

“I know, please hear me out. I won’t ask you to take me back, but I want… I want to get to know the girls.” The look she gave me was nothing like the way she used to look at me before. There was hate, anger, and disappointment in the look she gave me. “Outside.” She gritted the word through her teeth and headed for the door.

We were going to stay on the porch, but then a group of men started heading up the walkway, and we headed around back. ‘Talk!” She folded her arms and refused to look at me, and I could all but see the steam coming out her ears. “I know my apology is way late. I know I fucked up royally, but please hear me out.”

“I’m listening; make it quick.”

“She showed me these pictures of you in bed with some guy.”

“What, what are you talking about? What pictures?” She seemed to have lost some of that starch from her back at my words and looked at me with confusion. It was just as I thought; she didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and scrolled through the file. I kept there, scrolling through the images until I came to the ones I was looking for. I showed her the pictures in