his pretty, Beacon Hill heiress on his arm. He married the right girl, from the right family, and she had good childbearing hips—as my father called them,” I recall.
“You moved to Italy?”
“Not then. Your father and I bought a farm out in Brenham. We were raising steer, and I was three months pregnant when he just … disappeared.”
“What does that mean?” Hayes asks in a sharp voice.
“He left early one morning to go into town and just never came back home. It took me a week to call the police because I was sure he’d come back with a story about how his car ran off a cliff and he’d had to camp in the woods and wait for rescue. But after a week, I realized I couldn’t hide anymore. I went to his family. They had no idea where he was and accused me of having something to do with it. They had money of their own; they were smart and they wanted revenge. So, I hid you. Right under their noses. James’s wife’s hips weren’t so childbearing and she was ill. My father had disinherited me, and Thomas was on the verge of being expelled from West Point. We were all such a disappointment to him. The only thing he saw value in was you.
“He refused to reinstate my inheritance. But he would give it to you. If I let James and his wife raise you as theirs. At the time, I thought it was a good idea. I was beside myself with grief and without two coins to rub together. And despite everything, I still believed in the Rivers name and I wanted my son—the true oldest child—to take his rightful place. And Thomas didn’t know. By the time he came home at the end of that term, I was in Italy. James and Ann had their brand-new baby boy in their arms and he was none the wiser. I don’t know how Thomas found out.” I shake my head dismally.
“Well, Amelia has a clue. They obtained a copy of Anne’s autopsy. It says that she’d never given birth. And so, their hope is to prove that I’m illegitimate. They have no idea of the truth,” Hayes says in a low, dark voice that gives me the chills. I want to rewind, and I want to kill my little brother. He’s always been such a selfish pain in the ass.
“I don’t know what is wrong with Thomas. He is so resentful of everything and I don’t understand it. He says he loves his family, but he’s forgotten just like our father did that family is the people who make it up. And the name is only as good as the people who bear it. I’m worried about him. That he would do this. But power is all he’s ever wanted. But he’s going to be sorry. This is going to open up another can of worms that none of us wants to revisit,” I say.
“What? What could be worse than playing musical parents with me?” Hayes asks.
“Nothing could be worse than that,” I say quietly. My heart is breaking that this is how he has to find out. But, it’s time.
“So ...”
“Your father. His name was Lucas Wilde,” I say and wait for the light to go on. His head draws back and his eyebrows shoot into his brow line. He shoots out of his seat and stalks over to the huge mantle over the fireplace in his living room.
Confidence’s hand slams over her mouth, and her eyes dart between Hayes and me like she doesn’t know where to look.
“Do you mean, the late Lucas Wilde?” Hayes asks without turning around to face me. He braces his hands on the mantle.
“Yes. Him,” I say.
“The father of Remington, Regan, Tyson? Him?” Hayes repeats.
“Yes,” I say.
“I thought he died when Remi was a kid,” Hayes says slowly.
“No, that’s when he divorced Remington’s mother and ran off and married me. He was declared dead years later,” I answer and find that my defensiveness is still there.
Hayes turns around then. His eyes are dark, red-rimmed and so angry that my heart convulses with the knowledge that it’s all directed at me.
“You ran off with a married man who had three children?” he asks me the question I ask myself every single day.
“Yes,” I answer, and when he turns back around, as if the sight of me is too much, I look at Confidence who is staring ahead blankly, unseeingly.
I get up