Between Now and Heartbreak - Dylan Allen Page 0,93

cries around me and eye my father. I push down the flare of regret I feel when I see the pain contorting his face. He’s doubled over clutching his leg. He’s not trying to conceal his anger any longer. His expression is murderous.

“Haven’t you done enough? You owed me tonight,” he roars.

“You owe me my entire life. You ruined everything. This is all your fault.” I retort,

I don’t wait for his response, but turn back to rush to Carter. But when I get back to where he’d been, he’s gone from the room.

Duke has recovered and Georgia is holding a napkin over his nose. “Your lover man is going to jail.”

“How could you?” I want to break his nose again.

“What do you think happens when you hit the former governor’s son? I’ll ruin him.”

“You don’t have that kind of power.” I plant my feet.

“No, but I’ll have you, and that will be enough.”

He smiles, it’s a gory, bloody thing, but it reaches all the way to his eyes. Which are fixed on something over my shoulder with a feral light of anticipation.

He looks like a maniac.

I shrink back, instinctively, but not out of fear.

It’s revulsion I feel.

I’m finished with this.

I put my hand on my head and pull until the wig loosens and comes off entirely.

His jaw drops.

“What are you doing?”

“Making my choice. Breaking the fingers on the trigger. Getting the fuck away from you.”

Instead of responding, his eyes move to something over my shoulder. They widen, and his mouth falls open. The surprise there isn’t feigned.

I turn slowly, afraid to see what, after everything else that’s happened tonight, could make him look like that.

I see my father first.

He’s sitting slumped in a chair, his hair disheveled and his face as white as a ghost’s as he looks up at his prodigal son. I haven’t seen Phil since I was fifteen, but I would know the back of that blonde head anywhere.

It’s so like James’ and my father’s.

I walk toward them, and have the strangest sensation of wading through a graveyard.

Phil turns to face me and I am struck with a strange sense of déjà vu. He’d still been a young man when he left. But, he’s grown up and he looks so much like my father. But there is something in the shape of his jaw, the cleft of his chin that reminds me of…someone else.

“Clover?” he says and looks me over from head to toe with wonder in his eyes too, but not for the same reasons as me. “You’re a woman.”

My father surges to his feet and comes to stand between us. His composure is restored, yet I get the distinct feeling that he’s nervous.

I glance at him.

He’s blinking rapidly, his face ashen, and there’s a bead of sweat on his ruthlessly clean shaven upper lip.

No. He’s not nervous.

He’s afraid.

I glance back at Phil and he’s watching him, too. His expression is distinctly satisfied.

“What’s going on?” I demand of both of them.

“Let’s go to my office.” My father commands imperiously.

Phil scoffs in disgust.

“I see nothing has changed. I’m not here to see you. I’m here because my brother has been looking for me.”

“Your brother?” My father and I exclaim at the same time.

I move to stand in front of him. I grab his arm and try to say this as gently as I can.

“Phil, James is dead.” I say, horrified that he doesn’t know.

He closes his eyes in anguish but not in surprise.

“I’m not talking about him.”

I take a step away from him.

“What do you mean?”

“Carter Bosh. He’s my biological brother.”

I let go of his arm, stupefied.

Before I can utter a word, my father strides up to Phil, his expression scarily fierce, his voice lowered so that I have to crane to hear him. “That is a lie. That woman didn’t have any more children.”

“What woman?” I demand.

“My biological mother. Susan Kendicott,” Phil says calmly.

The world comes to a screeching halt. I grasp the chair closest to me, but otherwise don’t move.

“She was pregnant when she killed her husband. She hid it because she didn’t want the real father to find out and take that baby like he took me. She thought him better off dead than with you.”

I peer at Phil, seeing him now without the filter of lies, secrets, and deceit. That cleft in his chin, I ran my finger over one identical to it just this evening.

Oh my God… Carter.

My ears start to ring.

“That is an absurd lie.” My father shouts, but he backs