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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 and walk over to stand behind him. “We were in love. And he married me,” I plead. “I know it sounds so wrong. I know we shouldn’t have been, but these things happen—”
He turns around again, his eyes narrow slits now. I flinch at the expression in them.
“You know what doesn’t happen? You don’t give your kid away and pass him off as someone else’s,” he rages.
“I didn’t give you away,” I cry. I look at Confidence for help, but she’s watching Hayes intently, her eyes reflecting the ache of sympathy inside of her.
Hayes stands up. “Wait. Remington Wilde is my older brother?” he asks in abject horror and shock. My stomach sinks and my panic rises. This could be a disaster. But I don’t dare ask Hayes for his discretion. Instead, I give him the truth.
“Your half-brother, but yes. You have the same father. Or you did,” I respond and my heart constricts at the thought of Lucas and how much I loved him. How much he loved me, how badly he wanted to raise Hayes and Remi together, even though, in the end, he chose me over the possibility of being with his oldest son.
“And Remi’s mother, grandmother, they all know this?”
“Well. They know Lucas left me. They know I was pregnant. This is why they hate us so much. But, they don’t know who you are. Everybody thinks you’re James and Anne’s child. I told them and everyone else that I lost the baby,” I say and feel like vomiting at the look on Hayes face.
“So, let me get this straight. I am a Wilde and a Rivers. You are my mother. I am the true heir because I am the true oldest of the oldest child. You are my mother,” he repeats.
I nod.
“I want you to call Amelia and make an official statement. Sign it, notarize it, and we’ll deliver it to Thomas’s attorneys. And then, I want you to leave and never come back,” he says quietly. Then he stands and walks out of the room. His back is ramrod straight just like his father’s had been. I watch helplessly as he walks up the stairs, his back straight, without a glance back in my direction.
I look at Confidence, unsure what to say. “He doesn’t mean it,” she says softly. Her eyes are full of pity. I didn’t expect that, not after how I had treated her and what I’ve done to Hayes.
“He does,” I say tearfully.
“You don’t know him well at all,” she says sadly and shakes her head. I’m offended and want I to be mad. But, I know she’s right. I just nod. This lie has precluded a real intimacy with my child because I was always afraid of slipping up. I love him. I have been a shoulder to lean on and supportive of all his endeavors. But I also pushed him into marriage with a woman who proved to be treacherous, and I tried to run a good one away.
“Give him some time and some space, but don’t you dare walk out and never come back,” she says.
I give her a watery smile.
“And th
at statement, please. Send it to Amelia today. The hearing is tomorrow. We’ll want to kill this question now. And deal with the question of fitness alone ...”
She stands there, uncertain a little, and I ask, “Did you have something to say?”
“Does Remington know?” she asks.
