Stella was gone. From what Amber had told me, she had apparently been fired not long after I had left and then suffered a stroke shortly after. I had always wondered why she had never contacted me after what had happened, but had been too scared she believed Nancy’s lies to reach out on my own.
The new housekeeper had weekends off. No doubt the new woman was loyal to Nancy. Though I hated the thought of firing someone, for everyone’s sake, I knew it was better if I found someone else.
Sucking in a deep breath, I pulled the door open and stepped back without looking up at Dom. “Come in,” I muttered.
He stepped through the door. “I spoke to Savanna.”
I nodded as I closed the door before turning toward the family room. “I know; she called me.”
“I figured she would.”
I shrugged as I walked over to one of the two long sofas that faced each other beside the fireplace. “She’s loyal to me.”
Even through everything that had followed Kim’s overdose, she had been right there beside me, holding my hand when I was scared out of my mind. Savanna had shown me what it meant to love your child unconditionally. No matter the mistakes a child could make, a mother’s love was unwavering.
Sitting, I crossed my legs and looked up at him, hoping I appeared bored rather than show him the turmoil that was turning my head and heart upside down. I felt slightly sick at what I had to do. Regardless, my mother had got me wondering.
Nancy was notorious about lying. I knew that better than anyone. Could she have lied seven years ago when she had handed over that check?
Bile threatened to choke me at just the thought, but I quickly swallowed it down. I had to be strong. I had more than just myself to consider now.
I waved my hand at the sofa across from the one I was sitting on. “Have a seat, Dom. We might as well get this over with.”
His lips tightened as he stared down at me for a long moment before raking his hands through his hair. “You’ve changed so much. I don’t even recognize you now, Triss.”
I lowered my lashes, oddly hurt by that, yet refusing to let him see. “I had to change. Life has a tendency of stepping all over weak people, and I refuse to be weak ever again.” Especially where this man was concerned.
When I had needed him the most, he had turned his back on me, letting the world kick me where it hurt the most.
“Savanna told me to ask you about the check my mother gave you,” he said after another few moments of just standing there, looking down at me.
“Sit down.”
“Answer the question.”
I shot to my feet, anger rolling off me in waves. “If you want answers, then sit the fuck down. I’m not going to tell you anything with you standing over me, judging me.”
“I’m not judging you, Triss. Just trying to figure everything out.” With a harsh sigh, he took the seat I had offered him.
At the mention of that damn check, my heart had started pounding so hard my chest actually ached. Or maybe it was because he had the audacity to ask about the one thing that had officially broken me. After everything that had happened—losing my father and the only life I had ever known—to have Nancy hand over that check rather than Dom come to me himself when I had needed him the most had been the last straw.
“The check?” he reminded me when I just stood there, glaring down at him like he was the devil himself.
Maybe he was.
No, he was the devil’s spawn, which was just as bad.
Especially when the real devil was Nancy Balor Prescott.
“Ten months after my father kicked me out, your mother showed up.” I dropped back down onto the other sofa and wrapped my arms around myself, feeling chilled to my soul. “She handed over a check for an obscene amount of money and had all the paperwork I needed so that my mother and Derrick could adopt Lily.”
“How much money?”
I watched him closely, looking for any sign that he was lying. Dom had never lied to me before, but that had been another lifetime ago. I didn’t know this man. “You mean, you really don’t know?”
“I wouldn’t be asking you if I did, Triss.” He rubbed his hands over his jeans then frowned. “Lily is adopted? But she looks just like your mother.”
“You don’t know anything, do you?” I whispered, feeling the tears burn the backs of my eyes.
I jerked to my feet and started for the bathroom, feeling the bile choke me now. Oh God, he didn’t know. He didn’t know and now I had to tell him.
Strong arms caught me before I could reach the door. Dom turned me to face him. With one strong hand, he tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze, but I was blinded by the tears that were flooding out of my eyes.
“Tell me. Right. Now,” he gritted out.
“Yes, Lily is adopted.” My mouth, along with the rest of my body, felt numb, as if my body wasn’t my own. The memory of how much pain I had gone through the day Nancy had shown up melded with the pain I was feeling right then. “My mother adopted her when you decided you didn’t want us.”
But he hadn’t even known.
Would he have wanted me? Would he have wanted our daughter?
“Triss?” His voice shook, as did his hands, or maybe that was just me. Maybe I was shaking so hard that we were both trembling. “What are you saying?”
“Lily is ours,” I sobbed. “She was ours. But you didn’t want her, and I couldn’t take care of her on my own. My mom and stepdad adopted her.”
Suddenly, the trembling stopped as he went completely still against me.
“No.”
“Yes.” I was crying so hard everything inside of me hurt. It felt as if I was going to break apart and everything would spill out of my chest through the hole his mother had punctured inside me so many years ago. I had thought it had healed, but I was wrong. It had merely scabbed over, and now the scab had been ripped off. “I tried to call you so many times, but you never answered. You wouldn’t pick up. Months and months went by, but you wouldn’t talk to me. So, I came back, but you were away. No one would tell me where you were. Nancy was here, and so I had no choice but to tell her. She said you were away with some girl, and I believed her.”
“Away?” His face turned gray. “I must have been with Ash.”
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me.” Snot was starting to flow as freely as my tears. Still, he held on to me so tightly I couldn’t move my arms. “I asked her—begged her—to tell you.”
He shook his head, complete desolation filling his eyes. “No, Triss, I swear to you she didn’t tell me anything. If I had known, I would have come to you. I would have …” He broke off, and I wondered what he would have done. But he didn’t finish.
“A few months later, she came to see me. Nancy said that you didn’t want anything to do with me. She advised me to forget all about you.”
“Fuck,” he groaned.
“By that time, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep her if I didn’t have you to help me, so I told her … I told her if you really didn’t want us, then you had to sign the adoption papers so Mom and Derrick could take her.” There was a sob stuck in my chest, making it burn, making the pain in my chest so much more intense. “A week after I had Lily, she showed up with the papers signed and the check. Hush money, she said. Your name was signed at the bottom, Dom. I had no reason not to believe her. It was your signature.”
His skin had gone from gray to ghostly pale now. Even through my tears, I could see the utter horror on his face. “Lily is ours,” he wheezed out. “We have a daughter.”
Even as my heart leapt at those words, I had to shake my head. “No, we don’t.” I closed my eyes. “We gave her away.”
“I fucking didn’t,” he croaked out while releasing me.
I stumbled back a few steps before I could right myself. He was too upset to even notice.
“I didn’t give my child away.”
“I didn’t know that.” I didn’t know why I was pleading for him to unders
tand, but that was exactly what I was doing. “Legally, she isn’t either of ours, Dom. She’s my mother’s. The paperwork was finalized years ago. All she has ever known is Derrick as her father. We … We never told her.”
He turned away from me, cursing under his breath as he combed his fingers through his hair and tugged at the ends. Then, as if another thought hit him, he turned on me, his eyes even wilder than they had been a moment before. “Daisy? Is she yours, too?”
“No, of course not,” I assured him. “Daisy surprised us all. Mom thought she was going through early onset menopause, but really, she was pregnant.”
He seemed almost relieved by that, as if he couldn’t handle the thought of me having another child. I watched him swallow hard, then curse under his breath again. “My mother has a lot to answer for.”
“Yes,” I whispered brokenly.
“How could she do something like this?” It was like he was talking to himself, so I kept my mouth shut. “Her own grandchild, and she just gave her away without any remorse? Fuck, she’s a heartless bitch.”
I had already known that, but once again, I kept my mouth shut.
Dom was quiet for a long while after that, pacing back and forth in front of the fire and scrubbing his hands over his face from time to time. I stayed where I was, just standing there, aching so badly I wondered if someone could actually die from a broken heart. I already knew that answer. No. I knew that all too well, because I hadn’t died the last time my heart had been so badly broken.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity later, he turned to face me. His face was blank when he spoke. “What are we going to do?”
“What do you mean?”
“About Lily.” His jaw tensed as he said her name. “How do I get her back?”
“You can’t. The adoption went through with no issues. Your signature was on the paperwork. It was even notarized.”
“Unacceptable. There has to be a way.” He clenched his hands into fists. “I’ll get a lawyer. I’ll contest the adoption—”
“And destroy Lily in the process?” I demanded, growing angry at how he suddenly had all these great ideas to get his daughter back, but apparently, he didn’t give a shit about how it would make her feel in the long run.
Didn’t he realize that I had felt the same way over the years? There had been times I wished things were different, that I could have raised Lily as my daughter instead of my sister. It was why I had moved out of my mother’s house. Because seeing that little baby and knowing she would never call me “mommy” had begun to destroy what was left of my sanity back then. The only thing that had helped was knowing Lily was better off with Savanna and Derrick. She deserved a stable home with two parents to love her.
Dom gave me a confused frown, and I shook my head at his idiocy.
“She’s only ever known my mother and stepfather as her parents, Dom. She thinks I’m her sister. It would confuse her at this point, and with everything else—the move, my mother’s illness, Derrick’s death—it will only hurt her to say anything about you and me at this point.”
“But she’s ours,” he breathed in a voice full of the same pain that I was feeling.
“No, Dom, she’s not ours. She’s my mother’s.”
TEN
Dom
THERE WAS A HURRICANE GOING on inside my mind. Everything I had ever thought about my mother was being blown away. I loved her, had trusted her, and always thought she loved me.
There was no way that was true; I could see that clearly now.
She had given my little girl away, with no remorse. I hadn’t known about anything that had happened. Might not have ever known, if Robert hadn’t brought Triss back into my life.
On top of that, she had made Triss think that I didn’t want her. That I didn’t want my own child. My mother had set me up to make me look like I was just as unfeeling as she was.
I didn’t know how to fix what she had broken all those years ago. I didn’t know how to get my daughter back without hurting her more. She was lost to me.
Just as Triss was.
Fuck, I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I had to make this all up to her somehow. If my mother hadn’t set her up to take the fall for Kim’s overdose, we could have been married by now. We could have had Lily and maybe even a few other children running around or on their way. We could have been happy, could have been loving each other every night, and enjoying the life we should have had together.
All of the “could haves” were killing me.
Instead, I had trusted my mother, had turned my back on the woman who had been my everything, and tossed her to the wolves while my mother had most likely sat back and watched with pleasure. I hadn’t let myself see how much she hated Triss back then, but now I could see it as clear as day. She was a greedy, soulless woman, and Triss had been the only thing standing in her way of Robert Prescott’s vast fortune.
She had nearly destroyed the woman I loved.
I rang the doorbell and thrust my hands into my coat pockets. It was cold out, but it wasn’t the reason I felt frozen tonight. While my mind was a swirl of memories and conflicting emotions, my body was almost numb by everything I had learned today.
Moments later, the door to the house I had just arrived at opened.
Once upon a time, Sawyer Brannon had been my best friend, then everything had happened with Ash, and I couldn’t even stomach him for years. Then Ash had forgiven him and they had gotten back together. Now, my closest friend was marrying my former best friend, and we had come to a truce for her sake, if nothing else. I didn’t know if I could forgive him as easily as Ash had, but after what I had learned about the past, I didn’t have room to judge him.
I had hurt Triss just as badly as he had hurt Ash. Maybe more.
Sawyer lifted his brows in surprise when he saw me standing on his doorstep. “Ash know you were dropping by?”
I shook my head. “No, man, but I need to talk to her. Is now a bad time?”
He stepped back, letting me inside the new house they had bought over the summer. His old one was the one he had bought while married to Amber, but once he had asked Ash to marry him, they had decided to get a place that was just for them, with plenty of extra room for his son Jamie and any other babies that might come along.
“Come on in. She was taking a call from her editor. She will be glad you dropped by.”
I followed him through the house to the kitchen where Sawyer offered me a cup of coffee. When I shook my head, he pulled out two beers from the huge fridge. I needed something a hell of a lot strong than beer, but it would do for now. I was driving. When I got home, however, I knew I would be spending the rest of the night with a bottle of scotch as my only companion.
“You look like hell, buddy.”
I lowered the beer but didn’t place it on the counter. “Then I look how I feel,” I assured him.
“Damn, man. I’m sorry. I remember how close you were with your stepdad. This must be hard for you.”
“I miss him, but that’s not why I feel like this,” I found myself confessing. “I just had the proof of how much of an evil bitch my mother really is shoved down my throat.”
“Shit, I wondered if you would ever open your eyes to how she really is.” Sawyer took a drink from his own beer before shaking his head. “I tried to tell you a few times, especially where your stepsister was concerned, but you refused to see it. Brice told me just to leave it alone.”
I gritted my teeth, regretting that I wouldn’t listen back then. “Yeah, well, I see it all too clearly now.”
“Honey, did you call Jamie?” Ash’s voice called out from down the hall. I could hear her footsteps on the hardwood floor as she headed for the kitchen. “You were supposed to make sure he is coming home tomorrow.”
The kitchen door swung open and beautiful, little Ash walked in, dressed in a pair of baggy sweatpants and a shirt that hung off one shoulder. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, showing off t
he scar that went across her throat.
Two years ago, she never would have shown that scar off the way she was right now. Now that she was getting her happy ever after with Sawyer, though, she had become more confident about the reminder of what had happened to her seven years ago.
Even as a doctor, it had scared the hell out of me when I had traveled with Brice to Turkey when everything had happened. To see the girl I had always considered as much a sister as Kim was, a girl I had watched grow up and loved, fighting for her life … It had been worse than when Kim had overdosed, times ten.
All Ash had ever wanted to be was a journalist, and not just one who reported on fashion or local news. She had wanted to be a foreign correspondent, one who went into the war-torn countries that most were too scared to even think about traveling to. She wanted to show what really went on when war, or famine, or a million other tragic things happened to people no one ever thought about until they were plastered on a person’s television at night as they watched the evening news.
She had worked her ass off to get to where she had in her career at such a young age. She had been good at what she did, ambitious, and unafraid to do what needed to be done to get the story. That was why she had been given that last assignment that had nearly cost her, her life.
When I had gotten to the hospital in Turkey, I hadn’t known what to expect. Seeing Ash lying in a bed with her throat sewn shut, attached to life support as she fought for her life, I had been struck mute with how easily her life could have been cut short. Just a little deeper and her voice box would have been severed. She had been lucky that someone with her had been a medic because, if she had had to wait even a second longer out in the field, she would have died then and there.
It wasn’t until Ash had come around and was finally able to talk that she had unburdened herself on me. I had been the shoulder she cried on as she had finally let it all out so she could start the healing process to her heart and soul, not just her body.
I still had nightmares about what she had told me. How she had been traveling with a group of missionaries and a few lone mercenaries into one of the smaller countries just across the border of Turkey. Their small caravan had been besieged during their second night of her assignment, which was to cover the story of the local militia’s latest destruction to the country. They were taking children from their beds at night to join their cause, then killing their parents and burning their houses afterward.