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“Here.”
Her gaze snaps to me. “Here? As in—”
“In the house. We got in late last night. I had the staff show them straight to their rooms.”
She’s moving in stuttering start-and-stop slow motion. She keeps looking toward the windows, though I don’t have the faintest idea what she expects to find there. “I…what…how did you even…?”
“Just walked into the diner where Taylor worked,” I explain. “She was surprised.”
“I’ll say. And Dad?”
“Less surprised. I think he always knew I would find them. Eventually.”
She jumps to her feet suddenly as a flush spreads from her cheeks to her chest. “You promised me, Ilarion,” she says. “You promised me that you wouldn’t hurt him. He’s my father.”
“I remember. I’m aware.”
“And—”
“Celine!” I snap, raising my voice just loud enough to get through to her. “You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to touch your father.”
“Then why is he here?” she pleads. “You can’t tell me he wanted to move back and stay in your house.”
I rake a hand through my hair. “It’s not about me. You’re his daughter. Is it so hard to imagine he’d want to see you again?”
Sadness creeps into her eyes. “We…we didn’t leave things well,” she mumbles. “When he said he was going to disappear that night…I guess I didn’t believe him. I thought I could talk him out of it. I was groggy and—”
“What happened is what happened. But he’s back here, so whatever you wished you had said to him then, you can say now.”
The flush on her cheeks and chest slowly recedes. She takes a deep breath. “I can’t believe they’re here.”
“They’ll be sleeping now. We came in late, but you’ll see them at brunch.”
She nods absentmindedly as she slowly rotates in place. She looks like she doesn’t know what to do with her body. Her hands keep fluttering at her sides, grasping at nothing. “H-how are they? How do they look? And how did you manage to convince them to come back?Whydid you convince them to come back?”
“That’s a lot of questions.”
“Ilarion,” she says softly. Realization spreads across her face. “I didn’t even know you were looking for them.”
“I handed it over to a private detective. It wasn’t like the search was taking up any of my time.” The lie is pathetic and huge. The search absorbed every waking—and sometimes sleeping—moment of my existence. But she buys it, and that’s the important part.
“But why?”
“Because…” Celine doesn’t deserve to be lied to. But in this case, the truth would only hurt her way more. “You’ve missed them, haven’t you?”
“I lost my entire family in the span of one night,” she says quietly. “Of course I missed them.”
I nod. “Well, now, you don’t have to anymore.”
She stares at me for a split-second before walking into my arms. She holds me tight and I hug her back. “I can’t believe you found them.”
I’m uncomfortable, but I know better than to pull away as she tightens her grip on me. Eventually, though, it’s too much. I drop my arms from around her and break the embrace.
“Celine, there’s one more thing. You’re…”Fuck.I didn’t expect this to be the hardest part. “You’re an aunt.”
She blinks slowly. “Huh?”
“An aunt,” I say. “Taylor has a little boy.”
