Page 57 of Stolen Love

“That’s not fucking helpful,” I snarl at him before I turn to Ivy again. “We don’t know that it’s true. We don’t know that our dad is this Robert Hawthorne. Mom isn’t the best with reality. And she’s clearly had her head filled with who knows what by this West. We don’t even know if he’s our brother.”

“He’s your brother.” Ivy shakes her head. “That much you can’t explain away. And I can’t—”

“You can’t be out here all alone.” Rebel walks over and takes her arm with a warning glance for me.I’ve got her. Let’s get out of here.“It’s not safe with Alec on the loose. And we don’t know anything factually yet.”

“Okay.” She bows her head and lets my twin… uh, triplet… lead her to the car.

I fall in behind them. If all of it is true… if Ivy is my cousin… Nicole won’t even have to try to tear us apart. It’s already happened. And God, that hurts like a cannon ball to the chest.

We pile into the Range Rover. Jackson is driving, but this time I’m in the front while Rebel sits beside Ivy. He talks to her quietly while she stares out the window at the scenery.

I pretend that I don’t hear her crying. Even though every fiber in my body fights to jump across seats and haul her against my body, hold her, and tell her that everything is going to be all right. That I love her. That I will always love her. What we have isn’t perverted. We didn’t make a huge mistake. We simply didn’t know.

When we get back to the apartment, she walks ahead with Jackson. And barely looks up from her toes the entire ride up in the elevator.

Jackson leaves us for the control room the minute we alight. Rebel disappears inside like his ass is on fire.

“Ivy?” I say her name at the door to our home. The one we’ve been sharing for weeks now. Part of that time as husband and wife, even though it was fake as shit. But it was everything to me. “We should talk.”

“I can’t,” she says and hurries toward the bedroom we’ve shared for so many nights. Blissful evenings spent with her wrapped around me. Where we’ve fucked until the sun rose. Made love. Enough that she’s most likely carrying my baby.

I don’t go after her. This chasm that’s opened up between us seems too big for either of us to cross.

I stand there for a long minute and then I grab a bottle of tequila from the drink cart and head out to the balcony. I need a cigarette and more alcohol than any human should consume.

We can take out Alec. We can fight Nicole. But how the fuck do we fight DNA?

Rebel joins me halfway through my second shot and my first cigarette. He drops onto one of the wicker lounges. “You didn’t know.”

“I know that,” I grump.

“We don’t even know that it’s true.” He leans forward with his hands between his knees. “You said it yourself. Mom isn’t the most credible person.”

“I’d agree, but Ivy met our brother.” I draw in a jagged breath. Exhale a cloud of smoke. “She told us about him. If he exists, then…”

He steals my tequila and swallows a mouthful. “Chances are that this one time Mom is actually telling the truth about our dad.”

My world is imploding with every breath. “Truth that she’s avoided telling us for twenty-seven years. And if what she told us today is true, then it makes sense why she didn’t come clean earlier.”

“So we have to assume that Ivy is our cousin.” Rebel scrubs a hand over his mouth. “Fuck.”

We fall silent as I butt out my cigarette. The flame flickers while I try to light a second. I don’t really need it. Or even want it. But I need something to do with my hands. With my mind. With my time. Or I’m going to march in there and… I don’t know what I’ll do. That’s the part that I’m avoiding. Because I can’t imagine I’ll ever be able to turn off these feelings I have for Ivy. “What do I do?”

“DNA test.” Rebel’s knee bounces. “Hope it comes back a hard no and that all this is a bad dream.”

Pregnancy test. Hope that we’re not… “Fuck. This is so messed up.”

“We need to make sure Ivy is still on the same page about Nicole. If not we need to talk her into sticking with us and letting us protect her no matter the status of our relationship.”

She might even throw herself on Nicole’s mercy if there’s no point where we get to be together. She already agreed to Nicole’s terms when she bought us more time. It’s only a small leap to her surrendering herself. And that will mean she’ll end up married to Nathaniel Croft.

She’s supposed to be mine. And I can’t just stand by and let her marry another man, one who has spent years grooming her to be his perfectly meek wife.

If I can’t be the man who loves her, I will be the man who protects her. Until another comes along who can love her and protect her the way I thought I’d spend the rest of my days doing, I won’t leave her safety to chance.

That marriage isn’t going to happen any more now than it was before we found out the truth of our birth. That creep’s smug face comes to mind. The way he didn’t seem bothered about giving her time. The certainty he had that she would show up when she was told to.

“He fucking knew.” I climb to my feet and toss the cigarette in the sand trap. “Fucking hell, I’m going to kill him.”

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