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He nodded and forced a smile as she left, but when he turned to face the house, it vanished in a blink. He was definitely going to need that luck—and a drink.
CHAPTER 22
It was after three a.m. when Asher paid the cab driver and keyed his code into the lock box for the garage door. Merit had been in no shape to drive, not to mention, he’d had enough of his entire family for one night. The cab driver had been blessedly silent the entire ride, and he’d tipped the guy an extra ten.
As the door cranked up, Asher surveyed Honor’s house across the street. Save for the porch light, the rest of her place was dark. Nothing like when she’d been up baking the other nights, or his house, where he’d noticed when the cab pulled up that she’d left the recessed lights in his kitchen on for his return.
Disappointment darkened his mood more as he turned away, though he knew it was for the best. He’d be horrible company after finding out the fundamental beliefs drummed into him all his life were lies. Turned out Diamonds did divorce. They lied. They cheated. And his dad had a kid that no one fucking knew about for thirty-one gol-damn years.
Betrayal came roaring back as he yanked open the door leading to the kitchen and then slammed it shut behind him. Directly on the heels of the loud boom he heard a surprised exclamation and saw a flash of movement from his shadowed living room.
He stopped short when he recognized the figure sitting up on his couch, red hair spilling about her shoulders. The dim light from the kitchen barely lit her features.
“Honor? What are you doing here?” Confusion creased his brow even as his heart thumped hard with the sheer pleasure of seeing her. Anger drained away fast, leaving him feeling raw and oddly exposed in a way he’d never experienced before.
She hastily brushed her hair back from her face as she stood, then gestured toward his coffee table with a jerky motion. “I baked a cake. I was worried, and I couldn’t sleep, and I bake when I’m worked up, so I made it and brought it over. I thought I’d wait for you to make sure you were okay, and I fell asleep.”
He stared across the room at the dark shape in the middle of the table. “You baked me a cake.”
“Yes.” She smoothed her palms over her hips, then crossed one arm over the other on her stomach. “How did everything go? Are you doing okay?”
“No.” There was a lump in his throat that made it hard to say more. Where the hell had that come from?
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Still staring at the cake, Asher shook his head. He needed a mental break from the past couple hours.
“Okay.” She started to move away from the couch toward the front door. “Then I won’t bother you. I’ll—”
“No.”
He raised his gaze to hers, emotion swelling in his chest, burning his eyes. Abruptly, he turned to grab two forks from the silverware drawer, then joined her in the living room and silently handed her one.
She took it and backed up to sit on the edge of the couch. He dropped his ass to the floor and leaned back against the seat cushion while digging in and scooping up a forkful of what looked like double layer chocolate. He shoved it in his mouth as Honor reached to do the same.
Decadent flavor exploded on his tongue—rich dark chocolate soaked in moist caramel with creamy chocolate frosting. It was the best fucking cake he’d ever had.
On the second bite, he raised one knee to rest his forearm between forkfuls. He stared unseeing across the unlit room while the frosting melted in his mouth, making his taste buds sing. His shoulder rested against her knee, his arm against the side of her leg. The physical contact helped ground him, slowing the thoughts whirling in his head.
Four bites in, he opened his mouth but instead of shoveling cake inside, words spilled out. “I have another brother. Or half-brother.” That sounded weird out loud in his own voice. “His name is Grayson Cole. He’s thirty-one. Lives in Boulder.”
The information was coming out in bite size sentences. Bite, chew, swallow.
Choke. Not on the cake, but the words.
“He’s three months older than Loyal, so technically, he’s the oldest of us all.” He ate another bite. “News flash—literally—my parents divorced a couple years after they got married. Just not officially legally. They were separated for six months and were going to divorce, but the night they signed the papers, my dad went out and got drunk and had himself a one night stand who ended up getting pregnant.” His lip curled in disdain. “He said the next day, he realized he still loved my mom, and begged her to take him back, so they never filed the final papers.”
On speaker phone from Texas, Loyal had argued it wasn’t cheating since they’d been separated for so long and the papers signed. Merit agreed. Big shocker there.
He, Shelby, Celia and Robert were on the opposite side. Until the divorce was one hundred percent legal, the marriage vows were sacred. They’d all argued the semantics while Dad and Mom and the campaign staff were yelling at each other in the other room.
“Did he know?” Honor asked quietly, hesitantly. “Did either of them know about...”
He shook his head. “No. That news report was as much a shock to him as everyone else. The woman—Vivian—never told him.” He spat the name out, his hand fisted on his upraised knee. “He said he never saw her again after that night. He didn’t even remember her name until his press team read the details from the news.”
“Wow. So, why now? I mean, I assume it’s because of the politics, but your dad’s been through two governors races, so why not then?”
“We’ve all asked that question tonight. Just don’t have an answer yet.”
