Sinful Ever After - Vivian Wood Page 0,18

As I go, I try to make a list of things I have to do around the house.

Scrape the old paint off the house and add a new coat.

The wraparound porch is in bad shape, so that needs fixing.

The roof of the employee quarters could use some serious patching, and from the looks of it the main house could too.

Clear the brush out of the yard. I think when I started, Mrs. Morgan mentioned a garden, but where it was exactly eludes me just now. The yard is honestly a fucking wreck.

And that’s just the outside of the main house. Who knows what I’ll find when I start poking around on the inside.

So far, I have been raking the gravel that leads up to the house back into some semblance of a path, but that task is pretty much done. There is just so much work to be done, it’s kind of dizzying.

Under all of that, I’m supposed to be gleaning any kind of information that I can about the Morgans. Right now I don’t know whether I could be one of them or not. I know even less than I would want from them if I find out I’m actually a Morgan.

First things first. I need to ask Mrs. Morgan what she would prefer I start with. Then I need to find out a little more about her nephews. I know from public record that she had two nephews — Thomas and Robert — but there was almost nothing else to go on. I also remember what my mother said.

Your biological father is Thomas Morgan.

Stomping up the front porch, I stumble a little bit when my foot catches on a loose stair. My coffee sloshes over the side of my thermos, missing scalding my hand by the barest margin. I feel my temper flare up.

“God damn it,” I mutter, glaring back at the stairs. “Maybe I should fix you first.”

“Not a bad idea.”

I turn my head and see a man my age looking on from one corner of the porch, a hint of amusement on his aristocratic features. His skin is a few shades darker than mine, giving him a vaguely trans-European air. He’s tall and almost a broad as I am, with hair long dark hair pulled into an elegant bun. He sports a beard, looking like a very refined caveman in his blue button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the expensive dark slacks, a pair of dark oxfords on his feet. His outfit screams wealth. I know it all too well from my years at Bentham prep and Yale.

This guy is dressed like he has money, something I actively work to avoid. He looks like some kind of ad for an Ivy League college mixed with an ad for expensive cologne.

Staring him down earns him a steely look from me.

“Sorry, who are you?” I rumble.

One corner of his mouth kicks up. He pushes off the porch railing, extending his hand. “Carter Morgan. Margaret is my great aunt.”

My eyebrows lift. I shake his hand, taking his measure. Inch for inch, we are almost exactly the same height. I squint, pulling my hand back. “So you’re…”

Settling back onto the porch railing again, he cuts me off. “Thomas was my father.”

My heart starts thumping in my chest. If what my mother told me was true, I’m talking to my half-brother. It seems like I’m looking into a fucking mirror and I’m seeing myself, if I had turned out very differently. It makes me feel like I’m in some sort of alternate universe… and distinctly out of place.

All my questions about how true my mother’s deathbed confession was vanish. Before my eyes is the living, breathing proof that my mom was being completely honest.

I am silent for a little too long, looking at him agog.

He squints at me. I swallow, feeling as though I’m being judged. I should know, I’ve done it often enough to other people. He looks me over, his dark eyes calculating.

“You’re the new gardener or something?”

“You can call me Aiden.” I give him a humorless smile. “Your grandmother hired me on for the summer as a handyman.”

His lips lift for a moment, as if he finds that humorous somehow. “A jack of all trades, then.”

Normally I would show my distaste for his whole richer than thou persona he’s got going on, but just now I stifle my rebellious side. “Yep.”

We stare each other down for a solid ten seconds, until Olivia comes out of the front