Page 153 of Arran's Obsession

“I didn’t need to. The paperwork your mother arranged covered everything, and it wasn’t like your father was going to intervene this time around.”

This time.“He’s her father, too?”

“Aye. Ye really didn’t know anything.”

Holy shit. Another blank page filled. “Does Addie know? About any of it?”

“I told her that both her parents died. She doesn’t know she has a brother. I’m sorry for that. She’s a gentle soul, just like Audrey. She would’ve wanted to find ye, and I’d already done that on her behalf. I heard ye ran a brothel and it scared me. I left the game a long time ago. I’m married now. I don’t want my girls to go anywhere near that life.”

I sat back, my head spinning.

Memories swarmed me. Of the mother I’d never truly known, of the father who I’d done everything to avoid being like. Whose sins I’d tried to atone for. Would Audrey have judged me even though everything I’d done had been in her name?

Flora had, and I’d been found lacking.

Gen took my hand, her touch an anchor to my torment. “You’re mistaken. Arran provides a safe place for women to work. He set up the warehouse to help everyone his father abused. People just like Audrey. He isn’t what you think.”

Flora watched her. “I remember you as a little girl. You were the age Addie is now. You wouldn’t agree to marry someone like the man who killed your mother.”

There was a challenge in her voice. Gen flushed red.

“Arran’s wonderful. He’s all Audrey and nothing of his father. And the man you speak of is dead.”

Flora sucked in a breath. “Your father did it, then.” She slid a look at me. “Regardless, you’re still a brothel owner, aren’t ye?”

I bristled but tamped down my ire. It was time to set aside the control freak in me. I could be more than a single-minded person commanded by the forces of my past. I’d learned along the way to be a little more reasonable.

“I’ve never encouraged a woman to sell herself but I will always protect those who choose to do it. Most of them were forced at some point, and I have never judged them, only offered them the respect and safety they’re due. I am a child of that life, and I’m not ashamed of what I am, at least not my mother’s part.It’s up to you when Adelia finds out about her past, but I would like to meet her. One day. When you’re ready.”

Flora gazed at me for a long moment. “Then yes. Give me some time to work up to telling her.”

Gen thanked her for me, grabbing a pen and paper from the coffee table to write out our phone numbers.

Flora gave hers in return. “There’s more I can tell ye about your mother. Like your fiancée here, she loved ye. She’d come home from working at your da’s house full of stories about her son. She wanted ye to know who she was, and once tried to take ye aside to spill the secret, but your da…”

“Threatened her?” I kept my tone light for the sake of her child.

“No. He threatened you. That was the point she decided enough was enough and he had to be brought down. Then the video happened, and ye know the rest.”

Her life for mine. Audrey had given her life for mine. When I’d believed her messed up enough to overstep any line just to be close to me, it was an act to get me alone before her life ended. If only she’d taken the risk earlier. Then again, I understood why she couldn’t.

Flora checked a clock on the wall. “I’ll try to remember the things she told me. I think you’d like to know. But the girls’ tennis lesson is only thirty minutes at the park down the road.”

Gen took the hint. “We’ll go now so Addie doesn’t see us.”

I stood with her, needing the guidance. At the door, Flora apologised again for not telling Addie about me, this time, with more feeling. Maybe I’d convinced her I wasn’t like my father.

I drove us back to Deadwater with my numbness turning to something else.

“Are you okay?” Gen asked when we were outside the warehouse. “Your sister is going to love you when she meets you. And that stuff about Audrey, it was sad but also good, wasn’t it?”

“I think so. I’m just…” I made shotgun fingers at my head and pretended to shoot.

“Everything looks different now,” she guessed.

I kissed her. My fiancée—because she hadn’t protested it—melted onto me. Need streaked through my body, and I reached over to unclip her seat belt.

“Inside,” I muttered.

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