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My forehead creased, and my heart picked up its beat. My mother stood up and started pacing between the table and the pool.
“Jeff wanted a Hartley grandchild. A grandchild from his son and daughter.”
“That’s sick.” I pushed away from the table and stood up, setting my hands on my hips. “Oh, my God—Simone? He wanted Chad to procreate with hissister, Simone?”
My mother gently touched me on the shoulder, guiding me back to my seat. That was when I noticed my knees had started shaking.
“No. Not Simone, because she’s ill. Jeff wanted Chad to impregnate his other daughter. You.”
“What?”
I closed my eyes and waited for the nightmare to pass. It had to be a nightmare because the only other reasonable explanation was that I’d misheard her. I opened my eyes.
“What did you just say?”
My mother stared at me in silence as I made sense of her words. Humid air collected on my skin. My heart stopped and my lungs collapsed.
“Oh, my God. I’m not your daughter?”
She passed me the glass of lemonade, but my hands were shaking too much to grip it. Was she saying I wasn’t a Wagner, and she wasn’t my mother?
“You’re still my daughter, but biologically, you share Jeff Hartley and Candice Watson’s DNA.”
I wasn’t her daughter, and Scar wasn’t my twin brother. I braced my elbows on my knees and lowered my head into my hands, gripping my hair. This wasn’t happening. Yet I knew the nightmare was just beginning. I looked up again.
“I’m a Hartley? How is that even possible? Did you adopt me?”
My mother took a moment to compose herself. “I ran into Candice Watson at my obstetrician’s appointment.”
“Jeff Hartley’s ex-wife?”
“They had already separated. We knew one another from different social circles, but I didn’t know she was expecting. One conversation led to the next, and I… I couldn’t say no.”
“Couldn’t say no to what?”
“She already had a daughter—Simone.”
“Tristan’s ex. The one that’s ill.”
“That’s right, and Jeff Hartley drove her to that state. But even before then, he’d told Candice of his plans. She wanted to protect her other babies. She was expecting a boy and a girl.”
“Twins? Just like you. But how did I end up in your belly?”
“I was expecting only one child, a boy. I had Scar, and Candice had Chad and you. I’m not your biological mother, and Scar is not your twin. Candice gave birth to you and Chad the same day I birthed Scar. We’d made the arrangement months earlier, after she told me about her husband’s dangerous affairs. She had asked for my help to protect her second daughter. You. We bought out our doctor, had our medical records switched, and we thought we were successful…until Jeff found out. I don’t know how he found out, but he did.”
“Oh, my God.”My gaze unfocused and I lowered my glasses, looking over their rims.
“Was anyone ever going to tell me the truth?”
She didn’t say anything.
“If Scar is not my twin, then Axel, Ace, and Cash aren’t my brothers?”
“Not biological ones, but they’re still your brothers, and we’re still a family. That will never change.”
I stared at her, my mouth opening and closing, then shook my head in a slow, back-and-forth sweep of denial. It made sense now that I didn’t look like my brothers and had taken a creative path, but… they stillfeltlike my brothers.
My mother touched my hand. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I never meant for any of this to come this far.”
