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Rose hadn’t asked her about Richard again. To her relief. And astonishment. Isabella surmised she hadn’t because she feared Isabella knew nothing about his real identity, and didn’t want to cause him trouble since he was hiding it. Following the same rationalization, Rose probably wouldn’t bring up her suspicion again in everyone’s presence.
As Jeffrey and their kids, Janie and Robbie—named after Rose’s mother and brother, Janet and Robert, as Isabella only now realized—rushed to greet them, Rose stood behind, staring at Richard. Richard, after shaking hands with Jeffrey at Isabella’s brief introduction, stared back.
After her mother and sister took the kids and went to the food court, only the four of them remained. Jeffrey’s animated conversation petered out when he realized it was a monologue and finally noticed the turmoil in his wife’s eyes as she stared at the stranger.
Before he could react, Rose threw herself at Richard, clung to him with all her strength.
Isabella’s lungs almost burst. Richard looked as if he’d turned to stone the moment Rose touched him.
Then Rose’s incoherent whimpers started to make sense. “Don’t tell me you’re not Rex...don’t you dare.”
Richard squeezed his eyes shut, bared his teeth as if straining under an unbearable weight.
Rose suddenly pulled back, features shaking out of control, eyes reddened and pouring tears as she grabbed his arms in trembling hands. “You’re my brother. Say it.”
Richard breathed in sharply, emptied his massive chest on a ragged exhalation and nodded. “I’m your brother.”
A sob tore out of Rose’s depths and she flung herself at Richard again. Among the cacophony filling her ears, Isabella heard Jeffrey exclaiming a string of hells and damns.
As Rose wept uncontrollably, mashing her face into her brother’s chest, this time Richard contained her in his great embrace, stroked her gleaming head soothingly, his hands trembling. Isabella remembered to breathe only when she felt the world dimming.
Richard had decided to stop hiding, to let his sister have him back.
A week ago she’d asked him why he’d never done that. He’d said so he wouldn’t taint Rose’s life with his darkness. When she’d said that same fear should apply to her and her family, he’d assured her he’d installed every precaution, would never impact them negatively in any way. When she’d countered he should do the same with Rose and come clean to her and his response had been a silent glance, she’d figured it was only a matter of time before he did.
Suddenly it hit her. This was all his doing. He was the one who’d chosen the mall and decided when to stop shopping and walk around. He must have known Rose and her family were coming, had wanted to set this up to see where it would lead. But it seemed Rose had still surprised him with her unrestrained reaction.
Richard now stepped back from the sister who clutched him as if afraid he’d disappear again if she let him go. What Isabella saw in his eyes almost knocked her off her feet.
Such...tenderness.
She’d seen nothing like that in his eyes before. Not even toward Mauri. With him there was indulgence, interest, and when no one noticed, stark, fierce emotions that left her breathless. He’d certainly never looked at her—before his current careful neutrality—with anything approaching this...sheer beauty. She hadn’t thought him capable of it.
But she’d never inspired such depth and quality of emotion in him.
His voice was a gruff rasp as his gaze moved from Rose to Jeffrey and back. “We have much to talk about. How about we do it over lunch? Isabella wanted to have sushi today.”
Nodding feverishly, looking up at him as if at everything she’d ever wished for had come true, Rose clung to his arm, let him steer her away. Isabella and Jeffrey followed the newly reunited siblings in a trance.
Richard spent the first hour telling the Andersons everything. The next two were consumed with Rose’s nonstop questions and his attempts to answer each before she hit him with the next.
He left out strategic areas. Such as how many monsters he’d eliminated. And how he’d gotten the info to bring Burton down, making it sound as if Isabella had cooperated knowingly, as if there’d been nothing beyond this goal between them. Rose must have been too dazed to remember her earlier observation that Mauri looked like their dead brother to come up with the right conclusion. But Isabella felt it was only a matter of time before she did. Or before Richard told her.
Jeffrey finally shook his head. “So you removed every obstacle from our path in our known history! I thought we were plain lucky, but Rose always said she had her own guardian angel, and me by association. Turns out she was right.”
Richard huffed. “More like a guardian devil.”
Rose’s eyes filled again as she squeezed his hands. “You’
ve always been an angel to me, from the first moment I can remember, till that day you went away. But I always felt you watching over me, and that’s why I never believed in my heart that you were dead. It’s only because you never came forward that I had to tell myself that you were. But I lived feeling I’d one day see you again. That’s why I knew you the moment I saw you. Because I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I’m glad you did.” Richard’s smile was tight with emotion. “And I’m sorry I made you wait that long.”
She lunged across the table, knocking things over to plant a tear-smeared kiss on his cheek before subsiding. “Never be sorry. I’ll be forever grateful you’re alive, that you found me back then and that you’re here now. I can’t ever ask for more than that.”
“Can I ask you to forgive me for ever doubting you?” Jeffrey hugged his wife to his side lovingly before returning his gaze to Richard. “Rose always talked about her biological family, but mostly about you. Though she had more years with your mother and brother, she remembered you most of all. She always said you were the best at everything, couldn’t believe you could die. She painted this Superman image of you, and what do you know? She was right. I have a bona fide double-oh-seven for a brother-in-law.”
“I bet Rex would put him to shame...uh...” Rose stopped and smiled goofily at Richard, squeezing his hand again as if to make sure he was really sitting across from her. “I don’t know if I can get used to calling you Richard.”
