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If I gave them pieces of Everly’s past, they would only ask for more.
They’d want the joints, the filler.
The timeline.
The legal process.
In this room, I’d be put on trial.
The only way to share this tale was to start at the beginning.
I pressed my foot against the wall and shifted my gaze across each of their faces. “From the very beginning, I knew something was off. Aside from you all asking if I’d gotten a paternity test, it went deeper than that. It was a feeling I just can’t explain, something that wasn’t sitting right, so I went and got the test done.” I took a breath, the exhale burning through my nose as I remembered when I’d read the results and how, even though I’d had my suspicions, the news had stabbed me in the darkest places. “As you know now, it proved I wasn’t her father. But I couldn’t let it rest. I needed the truth. Since I wasn’t able to find Rebecca, I hired Jefferson, our in-house PI, and he tracked her down. While Mom watched Eve, thinking I was on a work trip, I flew to where Rebecca was living, and she confessed and signed the paperwork I had drafted.”
Silence ticked.
The only thing I heard was their breathing, the sound of Jenner moving against the wall, Sydney’s hand as it traveled up and down my arm.
“I need to understand this,” my mother finally said. “I thought she gave you paperwork when she left Everly with you?”
“She did,” I replied. “Those papers were generated under the presumption that I was Everly’s biological father. They were legal documents that contained false information.” I stilled, breathing. “She knew I wasn’t the father.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” my dad said. “Why did she give you a child who wasn’t yours?”
“Everly’s father was a criminal. A son of a bitch who had quite the rap sheet. Rebecca knew he wouldn’t provide.” My hands fucking shook as Rebecca’s words echoed in my head, causing my arm to throb. “Aside from the father’s lack of interest in childrearing, Rebecca didn’t want to be a mother. What she had told me the night she gave Everly to me—the abortion attempt, the adoption arrangement—that was all true.”
“So, she devised a plan,” Dominick said.
I looked at my oldest brother and nodded. “Once she found out she was pregnant”—I lifted my uninjured arm, pressing my palm onto the top of my head—“I was the lucky guy who walked into the bar at just the right time.”
“You’re well dressed,” Jenner said. “You opened a tab with a black card. She asked a few questions, found out you’re a lawyer, where you live—she had her man.” He shook his head. “She probably got you so drunk that you wouldn’t remember if you’d put on a condom.”
That was the way he saw it.
Probably the way all of them did.
Not me.
I wasn’t the sucker who’d walked into the bar that night.
I was the man who’d eventually become Everly’s father.
I didn’t care that I’d gotten hustled.
I didn’t care that I’d gotten lied to.
She wasn’t a fucking burden.
She was the biggest blessing of my life.
I looked at Sydney, who hadn’t known any of this. Who had apologized endlessly for lying when there was something I was holding back from her.
Something I’d like to think I would have eventually told her, but I didn’t know if that was true.
And as I stared into her eyes, I said, “She wanted her daughter to have a better life. Better than hers. Better than growing up in foster homes, like she had, apparently. So, she gambled on me.” I looked at my family. “She chose the right man.”
“I told you not to trust that woman,” my father said. “The moment we rushed over to your house the night you got her, we asked you if you were positive the baby was yours.”
I came from a family of lawyers. I’d been trained at birth not to trust anyone.
But this wasn’t about trust.
This was about love.
This was about Everly.
“And I told you she was my daughter,” I shot back. “Because, despite how fucking stressed and overwhelmed I was, I wasn’t going to give her up.” I clenched my fingers together, the same way Everly’s tiny hand had gripped my finger that night. “She was mine.”
More silence spread across the room.
“I can’t fathom why you wouldn’t tell us,” my mother said.
“Why?” I took my time glancing at each of their faces. “Would you have loved her any differently?”
“You still should have told us,” my father said.
“What would it have changed?” I challenged. “The way you looked at her? The way you treated her? Nah. It wouldn’t have made a difference. That little girl is my daughter.” I looked at my parents. “She’s your granddaughter.” I glanced at my brothers. “She’s your niece. Period.”
Dominick’s expression told me he agreed.
