Page 71 of Sebastian.

“It’s true that he hasn’t gone after the Van den Bosch fortune, but he went after me. And he’s still doing so to this day.”

She’s clearly upset, the corners of her mouth pulling down and her lower lip quivering, but no tears appear in Lilian’s eyes. “Say what you want, but I’m sure my son is innocent.”

Things are reaching a fever pitch, my temper brewing and Lilian looking ready to flee. This isn’t how I wanted things to go, so I close my eyes and force myself to breathe deeply through my nose, exhaling slowly until the thrumming of my blood in my ears lessens and anger fades. It might have taken some convincing, but she’s giving me everything I’m asking for so far. I can be kind to an old woman…I’m not a fucking monster.

There are other things I want to know from this woman that don’t pertain at all to what’s going on between Karl and I. She tore my parent’s marriage apart from the inside…but in my world, affairs are almost expected for men of my father’s standing. He never stopped loving my mother—his grief after her death proved that—but sleeping with Lilian produced Karl and that single decision is still threatening to destroy the family all these years later. But these questions don’t piss me off like the ones pertaining to Karl and the court case, they just make me sad. Sad and extremely curious. Unfortunately, today my curiosity is getting the better of me.

“I know I shouldn’t ask you that, but did you and my dad…you know…” I cough, feeling flustered and unable to finish the sentence.

Luckily, Lilian seems to know exactly what I’m asking. “Continue the affair?”

“Yes, something like that.”

She shakes her head, gray curls bouncing. “No, your dad was very clear that we would never see each other again after the settlement had been signed.” A far away look comes into her eyes. “It was nothing but a night gone wrong. I was just young and stupid.”

It helps…a little bit, at least. “Thank you for telling me that, Lilian, I truly appreciate the honesty.”

Lilian sets her teacup down and clasps her hands in front of her, that faraway look dissolving into the misty presence of tears. “What is going to happen to my son, Sebastian? Is he really going to jail?”

Internally, I cringe. I don’t know what I expected to find here, but I didn’t anticipate a loving, devoted mother, and that was my mistake. Seeing how much Lilian obviously cares for Karl makes a little seed of guilt bloom in my stomach, but not enough to make me regret how I’m handling things.

“Yes, but it will only be five years, and more than likely he will serve half of it at home under house arrest.”

“Five years might not seem much to you, but at my age…” Lilian trails off.

Here’s that guilty feeling again, but I push it away once more. “Listen, Lilian. I need you to persuade him not to go to court and to accept the deal we had made with the prosecutor. It’s what will be best for everyone.”

Lilian frowns in confusion. “What deal was that, exactly?”

Now I’m the one taken off guard at her question. “He didn’t tell you?”

Lilian shakes her head again, and there isn’t a hint of subterfuge about her. She truly doesn’t know. Hell…I didn’t want to be the one to break this news to her, but here we are. “Your son wants to take over the company, Ms. Townsend. My family’s company. And when I told him that only a Van den Bosch could take over that role, he told me he could do a blood test and prove that he, indeed, is one too. That’s how I found out that he knew about his lineage. It was…a shock, to say the least.”

Her gasp is soft, and sad. “Oh, no. He promised me to never ever tell you about it and to honor the deal I made with Johannes…”

“Well, it sounds like he broke his promise.”

She opens her mouth to speak, but before any words come out, there is a knock at the door. It’s brief, and I hear the maid scurrying in the other room to try and answer it, but the door creaks open before she can make it there.

“Mom?” a deep voice calls from the front of the house.

Lilian’s head jerks towards the kitchen entryway, her hands once more fluttering around her throat anxiously. We both know who has arrived, and his timing is abysmal.

Karl enters the kitchen at a relaxed saunter, but when he sees me, his entire demeanor changes. Shock is the first thing he feels, staggering back a step and blinking a few times as if to make sure that it’s really me. Then, when he’s sure, he turns red with anger.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he demands, standing by the doorframe, before giving a few more steps towards us. “Did you come here to threaten my mom?”

Thankfully, Lilian has composed herself and makes her way over to her son, standing on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Relax, dear. We were just talking. Sebastian knows, Karl. And he knows because you broke your promise.”

Karl’s face goes blank, the redness from his earlier rage bleeding away and leaving him pale. He looks like a deer in the headlights, frozen. “Mom…can you give Sebastian and I a moment alone?”

She hums in consideration, but after looking the two of us over and deciding that there is no violence about to occur in her kitchen, Lilian nods, wiping her hands on a tea towel. “I suppose. The both of you behave, you understand?”

Lilian leaves, and Karl looks chastised, almost like a little kid, and I have to suppress a laugh. It serves him right, the asshole.

Once we’re alone, though, the energy shifts, and everything now feels almost painfully awkward. Time stretches, and I can’t help but watch the way Karl shifts from foot to foot, totally adrift in this situation. It seems like I’m going to have to be the one to bear the weight of all of this and control the flow of the conversation once more. “I can’t believe that you pretended, for twenty-two damn years, that you didn’t know we were brothers.”

Karl just shrugs in return, making a genuine effort at looking nonplussed. “I promised Mom I’d never raise any suspicion,” Karl says, pausing for a beat as he mulls over his next set of words. “And to be honest, I didn’t know if you knew it or not. You have always treated me as a friend, but never as a brother. I never got invited to attend any of your family events, so I assumed you didn’t know.” His tone is tinged with a bitterness over everything, which annoys me.

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