Page 194 of Dream Mates
Spencer nodded. “I saw that. I have questions.”
“Yeah, I have theories. Also, Thora, my birth mother, had an identical twin.” My eyes squeezed shut.She knew.The betrayal cut me like a hot knife.
He kissed the top of my head and sat us down on a bench. I reached up and put my hand gently on the bruise on his face.
“Adrianahityou?” Anger welled up inside me. That fucking bitch.
“I’ll be fine. She didn’t hit me hard.” He covered my hand with his.
“You can’t actually be her.” Adriana strode over to me, expression panicked. “Rosalind promised me that she’d take you away and that you’d never, ever look for him or come back. That she’d take pains to make sure that you’d never be found.”
Fuck. I hadn’t seen that coming.
“Yougaveme to Rosalind? Do you know what she did to me?” I started to sob. It was one thing to convince the professor not to return Thora’s call, it was another togiveme away.
“You talked to Rosalind?” The professor stood there, Hope in his arms, looking stricken.
“Well, yes. Thora had the audacity to list you as the father on her birth record. They literally dropped the baby off, so I took her to the baby shelter, and they took her to the Silvers. One day, Rosalind called and said that their mother couldn't take care of the baby, but if I gave her money, she’d make the baby disappear and we’d never have to deal with her again. No support payments. No visit schedule. Rosalind even had an alternate identity created for her so it would be as if she never existed.” Adriana shrugged.
“Well, that’s where the Cassidy record came from,” Spencer said softly.
Who was Cassidy?Aside from my middle name.
“YouWHAT?You never thought toask me?You hadmy childinour homeand never thought to ask me what I wanted to do with her? You watched as I searched for Grace, knowing that you gave her away. You even went with me to meet girls we thought were her. How dare you?” Nate’s voice broke, apricot scent a combination of anger and sadness.
“They’re fucking variants–a family of unstable hidden sigmas. Not to mention Thora’s twin and brother werecriminals.Why would we want that in our home?” Adriana said in total seriousness.
“Adriana, you’re head alpha, not monarch,” Pippa said, voice thick with condemnation.
“You weren’t keen on Thora,” Adriana pushed.
“You didn’tknowThora,” the professor retorted.
“Did you call in the tip?” I prodded, trying to make sense of everything.
She must not have known that Thora’s record was locked–or what would happen because of it.
“Creed, let’s get the littles in my car,” Harry directed, taking Hope from Nate. “They don’t need to hear this.”
Pippa growled at Adriana. “Did you put our mate and children in danger by calling in a tip on Grace? Last night we decided that we weren’t going to do anything until we’d contacted a family lawyer, gotten proof, and figured out what Grace wanted.”
“I don’t want anything from you, I promise,” I said honestly.
“I had no idea they’d take the children or Nate,” Adriana backtracked.
“Mom did what now?” Mercy stood there, frowning, not following the others.
“I protected this family, like always.” She got in Spencer’s face. “And I won’t let you ruin everything I’ve built. You need to stop. I had nothing to do with it.”
“With what?” the professor pushed. “Adriana, what did you do now?”
“Adriana, get in your car, now, before you say something even more idiotic than you have already,” Pippa growled.
“Mercy, you’re with me,” Adriana ordered.
“No, she’s not,” the professor snapped back. “You… you gave my baby away. You subjected my children to something terrifying after we agreed to take no immediate action. I had it under control. I was going to have lunch with her and talk it out when I went to that conference at Rock Tech over the summer.”
Oh. He had a plan? I would have agreed to that.
