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“But how could it be true? I don’t know much beyond what I’ve read online, but as I understand it, Ace was Payne’s first child with his late wife. A loving marriage, by all accounts.”
“It was. My father loved Tessa. But there was—” Marlowe broke off, her dark brown stare direct an
d challenging.
Nikolas knew the subject was concerning, but he didn’t know what had Marlowe’s eyes narrowing like that.
It was only as those brown orbs widened once more that something seemed to dawn on her. “You don’t know about the email?”
“What email?” Nikolas and Nova asked the question in unison.
Marlowe glanced between both of them before her earlier anger seemed to fade. “Why don’t I start from the beginning?”
* * *
More than once over the past few months, Nova had felt a bit like Alice down the rabbit hole. Traveling through strange lands on the run from Ferdy and knowing that her body was changing daily with her pregnancy had added a degree of the surreal to her life that had never been there before.
But now? In this exact moment? She had to be some weird combination of Alice down a rabbit hole, through a looking glass and then traveling into orbit. She’d found an outcome so unexpected that there could be no other explanation.
She listened quietly as Marlowe outlined the email that had come in to all of the Colton Oil executives back in January. A tell-all email from a masked sender that spoke of Ace Colton’s birth. An email that had come to them all before Payne’s shooting.
And the fact that, at only a few hours old, Ace had supposedly been switched with another baby in Mustang Valley General’s maternity ward.
“Did you believe it?” Nova asked the question first, but she could see Nikolas was curious to do the same.
Marlowe shook her head. “No one wanted to believe it. It just seemed so odd and far-fetched and out of the blue. If my brother had been switched, why did it take so long for it to come out?”
Her question hung there, absolutely valid, yet still unanswered. It was Nikolas who finally spoke up. “But was he switched?”
Marlowe looked to Bowie for support, before nodding in the affirmative. “Yes. That was what the DNA test was for. It’s a requirement that the CEO position at Colton Oil is held by a Colton by blood and Ace was CEO. We needed to know Ace’s paternity or risk violation of the company’s governance documents.”
Marlowe finally stood and moved to Bowie’s side. “Ace isn’t a biological Colton. He’s not Payne’s son. Based on what they can do with DNA, they’ve ruled him out as a biological sibling of Ainsley or Grayson, too.”
“Which means he’s not Tessa’s son, either.”
“No.” Marlowe shook her head. “That horrid email was correct.”
Whatever Nova had expected to hear coming here, the idea that her father wasn’t who he thought he was, or who she thought he was, was the last straw. She glanced around, suddenly desperate to get out.
Out of the condo.
Out of the company of these amazingly kind people.
And possibly out of Mustang Valley altogether.
She’d come here trying to find her family, only it turned out they weren’t really her family. The fragile hope that had been building since the moment they walked in vanished.
And in its place was an emptiness that was somehow colder and even more bereft than what she had carried before.
She wasn’t Nova Ellis. Paul Ellis had never been her biological father.
But apparently she wasn’t Nova Colton, either.
Who was she? What name would she give her child? Where would they go?
Nova struggled out of the deep cushions of the couch. Nikolas leaped forward immediately, his hand outstretched to help her to her feet. Nova took the help—there was nothing she could do but take it—and then dropped his hand as soon as she was steady.
“Marlowe. Bowie. You both have been too kind. I’m going to go now. I think that would be best.”
