Page 92 of The Prodigal

“The truth is…” I toss a little sand, hesitating.

“Like the villain, Remington! Don’t pretend to be someone you aren’t.” Her harsh demand snaps me to attention.

She’s right. I don’t deserve the title of hero—not when I’ve carried the secrets of a villain.

“I didn’t check in to Midnight Gardens because I hate the dorms,” I explain, emotionless. “I picked the motel because I knew you worked there.”

She sucks in a gasp. “How?”

I swallow, remembering the look on my grandfather’s face as I held a needle to his throat. He wasn’t expecting the grandson he sold to break into his home and wait in his closet with a syringe full of enough morphine to stop his heart.

His life hadn’t changed.

He was still in politics—still evil.

No one had made him pay for the years he made my mother cry.

He simply moved on, thinking he had done enough to atone by buying my mother a meeting with Albrecht a year ago.

My mother is a forgiving woman.

But I didn’t inherit that same quality.

My grandfather owed me, and I didn’t leave until he gave me what I needed.

Leverage.

There’s no way my grandfather could be sure Albrecht would keep his secret unless he had something of equal importance on Albrecht.

“Your birth father kept up with you,” I explain, not fully answering her question. “He knew you were in college and that you worked at the motel.”

For a moment, all she can do is just stare.

“I needed leverage on Albrecht,” I explain. “Something I could bargain with. Something—or someone—he’d do anything to keep quiet.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not. You’re Congressman Albrecht’s daughter.”

“No.” She’s still shaking her head. “My mother would have used him to get money.”

My chest hurts. “I’m sure he paid her off.”

“No, she would have tried again.”

“Perhaps,” I agree, “but that’s not the worst of it.”

She blows out a shaky breath and chuckles darkly. “Of course not. My life couldn’t be that simple.”

“I didn’t…I didn’t know what all you had been through,” I explain, hoping it’ll mean something, “until it was too late.”

Her arms tremble as she stares at me. “Too late for what?”

“To hate you.”

A sob rips through her throat, and it absolutely destroys me but I have to continue. “I planned to befriend you,” I admit, dragging in a painful breath to get the last bit out. “Then I planned to sleep with you and blackmail Congressman Albrecht by threatening to leak the footage.”

“You were going to make a sex tape of us?” Her bottom lip quivers as disappointment clouds her brilliant blue eyes.

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