Page 71 of Pure Seduction (Chamberlin Brothers 1)

Noah wrapped his arms around me and rested his chin on top of my head, and the steady beat of his heart was like a balm to my soul.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I should’ve tried harder, should’ve found you after my mom—”

“Shh… This is on Harry, not you. Just let me hold you. Let me feel you in my arms, where you’ve always belonged.”

I tightened my arms around his waist and nestled into his embrace. Then, after what felt like an eternity, he shifted back and tipped my face up. The emotions in his eyes seemed to be warring with each other.

Anger, hope, pain, and desire. They were all there, and I wondered what it was he was looking for in mine.

“Does Jake know?”

I licked over my lower lip and nodded. “Yes. He worked it out on the weekend, at the baseball game.”

“So, the whole time I was in there he knew and was—”

“Checking you out? Yes. Did he grill you badly?”

Noah scoffed. “No. But I’m pretty sure he knew I was out of my depth.”

“He’s a smart kid.”

“Gets that from his mom, is my guess.”

My lips curved, and I suddenly felt…shy. “Or maybe his dad.”

Noah shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t feel particularly smart right now.”

He looked over my shoulder to the front door, then back to me.

“It didn’t even occur to me when you told me about him yesterday that…that—”

“He was yours? Why would it?”

“Because I know you. That bullshit one-night-stand crap Willa and Ryan spouted should’ve tipped me off.”

That made sense. Then something else occurred to me. “What did tip you off?”

“Ryan. He said that it was all just a rumor and told me to look closer, and then…”

“Then you did.”

Noah nodded. “And you’re sure no one else in my family knows?”

“Not as far as I know. Harry said I couldn’t tell anyone, and I can’t imagine your mom ignoring her own grandchild, can you?”

“No. I can’t. But I also can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that they’ve been around you and Jake all these years and never noticed.”

I’d often wondered that myself, but I’d always come back to the theory that if you weren’t looking for something, why would you see it? And with Noah out of the picture, it was easy to forget the little things unless you had them memorized. Unless they were what kept you alive and dreaming.

“I don’t know. But Ryan probably suspected something because he was there the day I came to see Harry.”

Noah’s back went ramrod straight, and that anger from earlier returned until it was all that was in his eyes.

“Ryan was there?”

“Well, not there. But he saw me when I went to visit Har—”

“I’ve got to go.”

Stunned by his abrupt change in mood, I frowned. “Okay. Will you—”

“I’ll be back.” He paused and then seemed to temper himself when he realized I’d moved away from him. “Is that okay? If I come back? I’d like to talk to Jake about, well, all of this. Try to explain my side of things…”

“I think that’d be good.”

“Okay. I need to go and talk to my family. Find out who knew what and when, and why I’m the last to fucking know.”

I could understand that, and I didn’t envy Ryan in that moment.

“I’m not sure how long I’ll be. But I’ll call when I’m on my way. You and I are taking the rest of the day—hell, maybe the rest of the week off, paid. It’s the least Harry and that place can do for us. We have a lot to catch up on.”

35

Noah

“CALL A FAMILY meeting,” I barked at Ryan through the phone as I pulled out of Laurel’s drive and gunned my car up the road.

“Noah?”

“Yeah. Get everyone together—now.”

“It’s barely seven. Bree will be getting ready for school.”

“I don’t give a shit if she’s about to go to the fucking moon. Have someone drive her home from that prison she’s been sent to. It’s one town over. That’s fifteen minutes max.”

“Okay, okay. I can do that. You want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Yeah. I looked fucking closer.”

I ended the call before Ryan could respond then threw my phone down on the seat beside me.

I was livid. Absolutely fucking livid. How could Harry have done this? To me. To Laurel. To Jake? How could he have denied his own grandchild a place in his life? In my life? How could he have denied him a place in our family?

I’d known my father was a bastard, but this was a whole other level of fucked up.

I tightened my fingers around the steering wheel until I thought I would break it, thinking about the pain and heartache in Laurel’s eyes.

I’d tried to keep it together back there, but now the anger washed over me in waves. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the nightmare of a situation Harry had put Laurel in. Not to mention the devastating decision she’d had to make as a young woman barely out of high school dealing with a terminally ill parent. How dare he let her carry the shame of his disgusting scheme for all these years?

---