Page 163 of Naked Truth

“Grieving in Europe,” I amend.

“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.” She sips her coffee. “And, in what might seem like a change of topic, but isn’t, I had Savage take me to your office.”

“You’re welcome to use my office anytime, but we should set you up with your own as well.”

“I’d love to be here and have an office here, but I didn’t go there to work. That hourglass we found on the bookshelf—do you remember it?”

“Yes, sure. You said those were sold in the gift shops in your hotels.”

“I was wrong about that. I called my mother’s old assistant—yes, she did work for the business for a while, a short while, but she did. Anyway, it turns out that those hourglasses were designed and ordered by my mother. They were high-end gifts she gave out to important clients.”

“My father was a vendor, not a paying client. Why would she give it to my father?”

“Well, according to my mother’s ex-assistant, they were all close. They went to dinners and took trips and my mom and Jax’s mom were close. Aside from that, the idea that my mom gave it to your dad really never crossed my mind. The idea that my father gave it to your dad didn’t cross my mind, either. That’s not his thing.” She swallows hard and amends her statement. “Wasn’this thing. He didn’t do gifts. Of course, Savage being Savage, heard this tidbit and asked if they were swingers, which also never crossed my mind.”

“Of course, he did. Only Savage could take an hourglass, with an uncertain history, and turn it into a swingers situation.”

“Exactly, though, it’s a pretty horrible thought, right?”

“Ah yeah. I might be a grown adult, but thinking about our parents, not only swinging but doing it together, is drinking territory.”

She laughs. “Right. I said that to him. Thank you, Savage, for the visuals my mind conjured that I did not need.”

“Aside from swinging, do you think your father gave it to my mother? He’d have access to the hourglasses, and my mother might have left it behind. Though I have to say, my father got rid of everything that reminded him of her.”

“I know I said my father didn’t give gifts, which is true, and important, to what I’m going to say next. Despite that statement, I believe my father did, in fact, give that hourglass to your father under the guise of a gift that wasn’t really a gift. It was his way of mocking your father, with a ‘fuck you, I’m fucking your wife and you can’t stop me,’ message inside. And I mean that quite literally. I found out each hourglass has a spot for a secret note at the bottom.”

“There was a note,” I say flatly, not even sure I want to know what the hell it says.

“Yes. In my father’s handwriting.” She pulls out her phone and shows it to me.

“They’ll never know, but we do,” I say, reading the message out loud. “That bastard.”

“He was, and he used that hourglass that my mother created to deliver that message. It was really an insult to her, as well. Jax, Hunter—”

“Say it,” I press. “Say it because I can’t get myself to say it.”

“Hunter was my father’s son. I have no doubt.”

And there it is. The truth that punches me in the gut. I flashback to that day that her father was in Hunter’s office, and Iknow what my dreams have been trying to tell me. They looked alike. And even knowing this was coming, knowing deep down, from the moment she told me about the DNA test, that it was true, it’s hell to accept. But I have no choice. “Yes,” I say tightly, “I believe he was.”

“That’s weird for us, right?”

“We’re not related, baby. And that’s the least of our worries. Here’s the bottom line: someone wants us to know what we don’t know, as proven by that note left with the DNA test last night. And someone thinks we know what we don’t know.”

“My brother and Randall.”

“Exactly. As long as those unknowns exist, trouble is right around the corner.”

“We have to find out the truth and deal with it. I get that we’re trying, but we’re getting nowhere. My mother won’t call me back. It’s worrying me. I need to see Chance.”

“And say what?”

“He knows what happened to Hunter. I’ll make him tell me.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then somehow your trap needs to be a way to force him into telling us. And before I forget. When we were leaving your office, Brody and Jill were having a powwow in a private office. He was saying that he had to do something about me. Believe it or not, she told him to wait; there was still hope you were using me.”

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