Blind Spot - Katana Collins Page 0,93

It was kind of scary.”

I snorted. “Well, that happened fast considering she kissed me at the club.”

“A kiss good-bye,” he said, talking over me, then lowered his voice back to a whisper. “She told me so herself.”

There was no way that was a good-bye kiss. “And I bet you just couldn’t wait to swoop in here and be her shoulder to cry on.”

“I don’t have to swoop anywhere. I am her shoulder to cry on. Always have been. And always will be.” Harrison sighed. “But since you have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m going to guess Shelby never told you how we know each other?”

I shook my head. “There’s a lot Shelby never told me.” Despite the fact that I’d shared just about everything about myself.

“Yeah, she’s been through hell and back. She doesn’t like talking about it for obvious reasons.” Harrison pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shelby’s not just like a sister to me. She is my sister. My stepsister.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

TATE

Shock resonated through my body. “What? No. She always said you were more than friends. Family. She never talked about you as her stepbrother, or about her stepdad.”

Harrison snorted. “Yeah. She and my dad aren’t exactly close. The Thomson family isn’t really something she wants to claim or acknowledge much, other than me. And even that’s probably fucking hard for her. Telling people I’m her stepbrother raises questions about her mom and my dad. Is that shit you’d want to have to explain to nosey fucking people?”

I swallowed hard, feeling my face get hot. Harrison didn’t stop his rant, or hell, even pause it.

“So all that fucking ‘chemistry’ you claim to see between us is totally in your head, man. I love her, yeah. But as a sister. Her mom married my dad when we were in grade school. Dee Stevens was the closest thing to a mother I ever had. And the fact that that woman put up with my father…” His voice dropped off, and he shook his head. “I’m kind of convinced she stayed married to him as long as she did simply for my sake.”

“You’re Shelby’s stepbrother,” I repeated, dumbfounded. That meant his dad—Harrison’s dad—was her asshole stepfather. The one she told me about, who hadn’t believed she was raped.

He nodded. “Yep. My dad didn’t want Dee working. He wanted her home to take care of Shelby and me. She had the talent to go back to dancing at that point, but she chose to be a full-time mom instead. Meanwhile, my dad must have had a dozen affairs.

“The first one seemed to devastate her, but we were really close. I’m pretty certain she didn’t want to leave me alone with my father. But after that night—that awful night in high school, something in Shelby changed. She withdrew and stopped dancing. Her grades dropped. It wasn’t until Officer Devlin’s death that she finally told us what happened to her. She told me first, and I convinced her to tell my dad. I knew he wasn’t a great husband, but I never thought he’d be so cold as not to believe her. That was Dee’s last straw. She didn’t care that the pre-nup left her with nothing. No skills, no job, no savings. She didn’t care that she had to work her ass off as a waitress. She left, and the only reason she ever looked back was for me. Dee continued raising me as if I were her own son, even after the divorce.”

“But…my dad said that no Shelby Stevens ever lived in the North End—”

Harrison rolled his eyes. “No. But she wasn’t Shelby Stevens. Both she and Dee took the Thomson name—up until the divorce. It was a shit ton of work, but Dee wasn’t about to let Shelby stay a Thomson after that.”

I hissed a curse and buried my face in my hands. My parents had to have known that. They had to have found a marriage license or something. With all the resources at their fingertips? There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that they purposefully omitted that fact. “What have I done?” I whispered, running both hands through my hair. My insides felt numb.

“Tate—trust me when I tell you that Shelby doesn’t want your money. She never wants to have to rely on anyone for anything. It’s her number one goal in life to earn her own living. Be honest…did she actually lie to you? Or was it possibly just a misunderstanding?”

I gulped. I didn’t even know anymore.