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He gave me a stern look. “This is not Romeo and Juliet. We do not die at the end.”
“Maybe not,” I allowed. “But our families will keep us apart.”
The fingers gripping my shoulders pressed harder, and a secret part of me hoped there would be bruises so I could have a piece of him just a little bit longer.
I was not new to deep emotion or being overstimulated, overwhelmed, and lonely. But this welling sadness? The foreboding of goodbye to someone who, in such a short time, managed to kidnap me, body and soul… I wondered if I would ever get out from under it or if it would just be something else I would learn to live beneath.
“DNA is just a report card of the past,” Arsen said, his perfect voice alighting my nerve endings and making something inside me sing. “I’m not interested in your past, Matthew. Your future is what I’m after. Your future is what I will have.”
And there we stood—in the midst of arguing police officers, Elite bringing Coach up to speed, and Niles bleeding all over his heinous yellow tie—while my heart bled out inside my chest. While I slowly, quietly drowned in my own blood.
Across the room, I could feel Senator Andrews’s stare, and as much as I wanted to believe the things Arsen said, I’d used up my allotment of stupid for the rest of my life.
Tugging free of Arsen’s hands, I turned toward his father to answer his earlier question. To get this over with. “I was not a product of an affair. He’s known about me since birth.” I spoke quietly, resigned to the truth.
The chaos around us quieted, proving that even a soft voice could be strong.
“My mother is his wife.”
“You don’t have his last name,” Senator Andrews stated.
“Because he took it back,” I divulged.
Fingers slid into mine, and I glanced at my sister as she offered silent support. Ben stepped up to my other side, pressing our shoulders together. This was my family. These were the people not even my DNA could chase away.
“I wasn’t the son he wanted. I was difficult, different, too much work. I was angry, threw tantrums that later turned into aggressive outbursts. I didn’t learn fast enough, couldn’t be controlled, and punishment only made me worse.” So much worse. “The medication they tried to dull me with turned me into a zombie, and that was an embarrassment too. By the time I was six, he’d had enough and said I was dead weight to him and my mother and having a problem child like me would only keep him from the White House.”
I usually liked silence. But not right now. The heavy attention that came with it was near suffocating. My ears burned so much I had to resist the urge to reach up and see if they were bleeding. A metallic flavor coated my tongue, and my skin itched like it was too tight for my body.
Keep going.
“They sent me to New York to live with my mother’s ex-stepmother. Pretty sure she was the only one who would take me, and my parents liked it because they weren’t related to her and wouldn’t have to see me. My father changed my last name to hers and then erased me from the family tree.”
“That man is so crooked if he swallowed a nail, he’d spit out a corkscrew,” Ben muttered. “Worst human to ever human in the history of humans.”
“Gram is really great, though,” Jess added.
I nodded. Gram was great. She took in a kid she wasn’t even related to, a kid with a shit ton of issues, but she never once acted like I was a burden. Her chicken recipes were terrible, though, but I ate them anyway. It was a small price to pay for everything she did for me.
I glanced at Elite because I couldn’t bring myself to look at the one I really wanted to see. The one whose reaction to all of this had the ability to break me. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was embarrassed. Didn’t want anyone to know.”
Ryan shifted, about to speak up, but he was harshly interrupted by an abrupt, loud burst of sound akin to the popping of a balloon.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Niles stepped forward with a bloodied tissue clasped between two fingers as he banged his palms together. Blood smeared from beneath his swollen and already bruised nose and across his cheek. His eyes glittered with what I assumed was a mixture of anger and pain. Splatters of blood marred his yellow tie, and the collar of his once pristine dress shirt.
“Brava,” he said, still clapping. “That was quite a performance. I’d be moved if I didn’t know your father is equally good at drumming up empathy and fooling people.”
“Bro, the next time I punch you, you won’t get back up,” Kruger intoned.
Niles ignored him. “It’s a tremendously convenient story.”
“It’s not a story,” I snapped, irritation spiking. That had been damn hard to say. Telling an entire room that I am unworthy and unwanted. Revealing my biggest insecurity and secret pain. This was the reason I kept quiet about myself because this was the reaction I almost always got.
Disbelief. Skepticism. Outright scorn.
The only reason I’d bared my truth just now was to prove to Arsen that whatever was between us was impossible to keep. That I could never date anyone whose father was a carbon copy of mine.
