I leave her behind me as I take off running in the direction Megan disappeared. I shove open the back door, looking both ways down the sidewalk, but she’s gone without a trace. Nowhere to be found.
Behind me, I hear Missy’s approach. “Don’t be stupid, Kate. This is an easy fucking choice. You think you’re so much better than me, but you’re not. Everyone thinks they have integrity until they’re faced with a selfish choice. Give me your part and you get to keep Holden. It’s that simple. And there will be other shows for you later. Everyone saves face this way.”
With my phone still in my hand, I call Holden back as Missy stares at me. He answers on the first ring, not even greeting me when he says, “You need to get back to the hospital.”
“You need to get here to the theater,” I say, rubbing my fingers against my temple. “It’s important?—”
The words get stuck in the back of my throat and I cough.
Beside me, Missy clears her throat and her threat rings in my ears.
Her triumphant smirk lifts higher at my silence. She thinks she’s won.
“Katherine, anything happening at the theater can wait?—”
“I don’t think it can,” I say. “Megan was here, Holden. And she wasn’t here alone. She has a little boy who looks an awful lot like you.”
Missy’s inhale is almost as sharp as her searing gaze.
But that smirk—that damn triumphant, smug smirk—is gone.
And I can’t help my own that curves my mouth as I stare at her while talking to Holden.
“She has a son?” Holden asks.
“She does. He’s the spitting image of you. And eight years old, which pretty much makes him yours?—”
“Not necessarily,” Holden interjects quickly.
“Holden, come on?—”
“He might not be my son, Katherine.” I resist the urge to roll my eyes. The little boy I just saw is without a doubt Holden’s genetics.
“You didn’t see him Holden. That little boy is yours. He is clearly half you and half Megan. But if you’re worried about me, about us…” my words fade and I press my eyes shut, turning away from Missy. She’s the last person I want to see me this way. “You don’t have to worry about that. Because I love you. And we’ll make this work.”
“You don’t understand!” Holden barks so loud that I pull the phone from my ear. “He… he may not be my son. Because he… he might be my brother.”
CHAPTER 2
Holden
Five years ago...
If I had to eat one more fucking casserole, I might puke right in my mother’s casket.
“Thank you so much,” my dad’s voice boomed beside me. Even when he should sound grateful, he can’t keep the authoritative quality out of his voice. “Pulled pork, Holden’s favorite. Wasn’t this so nice of the Lawrence’s, Holden?”
I cleared my throat, and with a tug on my tie, forced my gaze up to Mrs. Lawrence and her daughter, Megan.
My ex-girlfriend.
The girl my family fucking ruined… and who ruined me in return. The rims of her eyes were swollen and red, her lashes, black and spikey, like she’d been crying. Like it was her goddamn mother lying dead on a satin pillow in a pine box, not mine.
The wake had ended an hour ago and now we were expected to host a fucking party at our house.
Leave it to my father, the senator, to turn my mother’s wake into the event of the season.
A small smile touched my lips because the irony was that Mom wouldn’t want it any other way. In some ways, they really had been the perfect couple.