by Heather Long
“Yes,” she told me simply. “The prenuptial was quite clear, the marriage a contract for your father and for me. If he asked for the divorce, I got to keep my assets, or I simply had to maintain the marriage until your eighteenth birthday. I think we were all tired of the farce, yourself included. So I had to give him incentive.”
My stomach curdled, and even the cold wind didn’t register against the heat racing through me. I’d met Frankie because Muriel wanted to get a divorce.
Fuck, the world was twisted.
“But he didn’t ask for a divorce.”
“She put him through his paces. Played hard to get. I told you, they blew very hot back in the day. Considering she lives in that shitty little apartment with her—”
“Muriel. Not one word about her. I mean it.”
“Archibald, you need to get over your crush on your little friend. She’s—”
“Lady,” Jake said in a clipped tone as I curled my fingers into fists. “He wasn’t kidding, watch your fucking mouth where she’s concerned.”
“Fine, I won’t warn you against her. But you have too much of your father in you.”
“Thanks for the insult.”
“Oh, grow up, Archibald. The world is an unpleasant place at times. Everything in this world is very practical. Business transactions. Investments. Allies. But the thing your father—even your grandfather—does is fixate, obsess over one person. That person for your grandfather was your grandmother. For your father, it was always Madeline. What does it matter if they’re back together now?”
“It doesn’t. It doesn’t even matter that their affair has gone on for years. You always knew when he had a fling. We always knew. So if you always knew, did you know he and Maddy were together roughly four and a half months after you were married?”
I’d done the math. I had the window of time we needed to eliminate.
“Probably, I had a bit of a difficult pregnancy and it required rest. He grew bored with that, and for about three weeks, he was very busy. Then one day, he returned home and recommitted himself to you and I. He was very devoted for the next few months…”
How he always behaved following the end of one of his flings.
“I assume she threw him back out… Maybe she punished him by giving him another taste before taking it away. She begged him not to marry me, and he told her he had no choice. Which he didn’t…your grandfather would have disowned him if he’d refused. Your grandmother expressed her own wishes and desires, but they wanted you to be born a Standish…”
“It’s a fucking piece of paper,” I reminded her. “Not some love story. They had the affair when?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes you do. You hate her. Because he wanted her when he had you, and even if he was just a meal ticket, you also loved him. So every single affair was another nail being beaten into you, and you retaliated over and over, but he never cared.”
I was so fucking tired of this.
“But you hate Frankie,” I pushed out. “Because she looks like her mother.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “Though I was grateful to her for a long time.”
“Why?”
After extinguishing the cigarette, she licked her lips, and for the barest moment, she seemed almost human. Then she gave a bitter little laugh. A scoff at herself. “Because you’d barely been at that school a week before she came home with you one day when your father and I had to leave for that trip.”
My stomach sank.
“He found Maddy because I found Frankie.” I almost didn’t want to wrap my mind around it. It was sick and a little…
“Yes. I’d intended to make other arrangements, but that was the most natural and I could even feign the most mild of shocks when we met her.”
And yet none of them revealed anything.
“The dates, Mrs. Standish?” Jake said, before handing me the rapidly cooling mug of coffee. I downed it.
“The first three weeks of July, he left just before the fourth and didn’t come back until the twenty-seventh or thereabouts. He told me he had been on a business trip, but he was not in the office nor was he out on business. He’d told his father some lie and had taken the time off. I was feeling too poorly to care then, and I was actually relieved I didn’t have to pretend around him.” She gave another shrug.
The dates lined up.
“What is this about, Archie?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“I thought you preferred that…”
“I prefer my friends call me that. You’re not my friend.”
“Very well. What is this about?”
“None of your business.” She didn’t know, and based on her reactions, she would have spit it out just to get the dig in. But I had one more test…
“I would think it is my business, since it’s my life you’re asking about.”
“Actually, Muriel, I’m asking about the components to a deal you negotiated that provided the tangible return of me. I was a means to an end and an investment. So let’s not pretend there’s some great emotion there. You may have loved Edward for all I know, but I don’t care about that anymore.”
“Fine. Then are we done? Do you know everything you need?” She rose then. “Because I will definitely have to adjust my plans to deal with this stress you’ve decided to throw at me.”
The scuff of Jake’s shoes sliding as he let out what had to be a swear word in a hissed breath filled the silence, I just shook my head.
“No, consider this information, not a question.” I paused for a moment and felt the weight of Jake’s gaze as he swung his head back toward me. We hadn’t discussed this part.
But I needed a genuine reaction.
“Frankie and I are getting married.”
Surprise flickered across her face. “Did you get her pregnant?”
“What?”
“Getting married at eighteen? Asking me these questions? Your father has informed you that you have to get married if you were so indiscreet you impregnated her.”
“There are more reasons to get married than the mercenary ones.”
“Fine, please tell me you’re not having some huge ceremony where I would have to attend with that…”
No, she had no idea.
None.
“Trust me. You would be the third last person I’d invite to my wedding.” With that, I turned and headed for the door. I pulled out my phone to text the driver to be back at the doors to get us.
“That’s it?” Muriel said as she followed us. The heat from inside slapped against my face as we crossed the living room to the elevator.
We were already inside when she caught up with us. Thankfully, the doors closed on her glare, and then we were descending. Jake said nothing until we got outside and slid into the car. We had roughly an hour to get to LaGuardia to check in for our flight.
“Man…” Jake began, but I shook my head.
“It’s fine Jake. It’s not a surprise.”
“I don’t care, Arch, that’s some fucked up shit. My dad’s an asshole, and I’ll never forgive him for choosing someone over my sisters and me. It’s not even just about Mom, though it is about her too. Thing is, I get how complicated that whole situation must have been…but I didn’t get it then, and I sure as shit shouldn’t have had to. And that shit back there…”
He made a disgusted sound and fell back in the seat.
“Jake, they aren’t my family.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“Sure it does,” I said as I pulled my phone out again and sent a message to Jeremy, asking him to put together a list of the best labs with the speediest turnaround times.
I needed the answer in hand when we got off that plane and drove back to the apartment. I couldn’t take seeing that shocked and horrified look on her face again. Or how she’d recited what Edward had said in such a stunned and broken tone.
Ambushing her like that?
That alone made me want to kill h
im, but that whole story he’d dropped on her? The DNA tests made sense, but I still had more questions than answers.
“We’re going to figure this out,” Jake said quietly.
“I already figured it out,” I informed him. “I figured it out that first day of ninth grade and every day since. I just want the answer for her.”
“Yeah and for you. You need to know…”
“She’s not my sister,” I told him as I glared at him. “She’s not my sister. Even if Edward contributed to her DNA, that wouldn’t make her my sister. The only thing that affects is if we decided to have kids together or not. I can always pass on that. She’s got you three. But let’s be explicitly clear here—she’s not and never will be my sister.”
I didn’t care.
I should have hit Edward a hell of a lot harder.
“For what it’s worth,” Jake said quietly. “You know we’re on your side.”
“It’s worth a lot. Just tell me you’re still on my side no matter what we prove.”
He exhaled, and then he let out a grunt. “Arch, what’s between you two, that’s for you two to decide. We all made a commitment. Nothing’s changed for me…well, except I always thought I’d be the one going to jail for violence. But man, you want to just keep one-upping me.”
The silence stretched for a moment, and then a soft huff of laughter escaped from me. “I’m always the best, don’t you know?”
“Yeah,” Jake said easily, then knocked my foot with his. “Nothing’s changed.”
At the airport, we got out and headed straight in. We didn’t have suitcases or anything else, and as we breezed through security as we neared the gate, I said “Huh.”
“What?”
“I never thought you’d be the sappy one. That’s always been Coop.”
He laughed. “What can I say, I’m very in touch with my feelings these days.”
Another laugh escaped me, not a big one but definitely there.
My phone buzzed, and I turned it over to see the message from Frankie.
Frankie: If you need me, I’m here.
I let out a breath. How the hell did she always know?
Me: Always need you. Getting ready to board. Be home in a few hours.
Frankie: How did it go?
Me: We’re gonna need plan B.
Frankie: Fuck.
Me: Soon as I get there.
The corners of my lips twitched. I could picture her face. When another couple of seconds went by, I typed another message.
Me: Too soon?
The middle finger emoji appeared, and I grinned for real.
Me: Love you, babe. See you soon.
Frankie: I love you too.
That helped.
That really helped.
Valentine’s Day
It was raining by the time I exited the elevator and crossed the marble floor of the cold lobby to the main doors. I barely even saw it as I shoved my way outside. I couldn’t stay in the building another second.
No.
Edward Standish was my father?
Everything inside of me rejected that statement. It was a damn lie. Bag slung over one shoulder, I folded my arms tight against my chest and tucked my chin down against the wind. Not even sure which way to go, I turned north and followed the sidewalk. There was a coffee shop at the end of the row, I could go there.
No matter what I tried to do, that thought and his words kept circling back around my brain like we were stuck on some merry-go-round and I couldn’t get off. I was going to throw up.
A hand on my elbow stopped me, and I jerked around half-swinging before I found Coop’s worried eyes staring down at me. “Hey…”
Chapter Two
Denial Isn’t Just a River…
Ian
Leaning against the door jamb to the bedroom, I stared at where Frankie slept. Coop was all arms and legs wrapped around her. Before Archie and Jake had left to go to New York, Archie had been sleeping on her other side. We weren’t letting either of them out of our sight. She’d wanted to go with him to New York, but that wasn’t a good idea.
His mother couldn’t be trusted any more than hers. His words, not mine. Still…she’d wanted to at least take him to the airport, but he’d planned to just call a car. Jake joined her in bullying him to let me drive them. Still, he’d insisted she stay here.
What. A. Fucking. Mess.
Scrubbing a hand over my face, I shoved away from the door and crossed to the bed. The sun was up, theoretically, though the gray skies and continued chill after the freezing rain of the day before didn’t promise much brightness.
I flicked Coop’s ear first, and his eyes opened to snap up at me.
“How long?” I kept my voice low and soothing. If she’d only just gone back to sleep, then I’d leave her there.
Coop flicked his gaze past me toward his phone.
“It’s just seven-thirty.” It was a ninety-minute drive to get them to the airport, and their flight had been super early.
He pinched the bridge of his nose before rubbing his eyes, then glancing down at her. “She went back to sleep faster than I thought she would… What’s up?”
“Let’s get her up and go running.”
Horror crossed Coop’s face, and it took everything I had to bite back a laugh.
“She needs a distraction.”
“That’s not a distraction,” he argued. “That’s cruel and unusual punishment.”
She yawned and stretched. Coop froze, and his attention went straight to her. Not that mine didn’t. “Why are you two arguing?”
“Because Bubba the Brute wants us to get dressed and go running,” Coop complained, and I shot him a look he totally ignored.
Frankie wrinkled her adorable nose and then scowled like I’d suggested we get rid of her cats. Then she huffed. “Why?”
Now for a little finesse. Because she needed to move. She needed to keep moving and accomplishing until we heard back from Archie, or she would worry herself into a frenzy. I didn’t want a repeat of the day before, and I never wanted a Friday like that night again. “Because I need to take care of you,” I told her, and I kept it simple.
Even rumpled, half-asleep, with a track left by drool at the corner of her mouth, she was still the most beautiful girl in the world. She studied me from beneath those half-lowered lids and then let out the softest of little sighs. “Okay.”
Coop transferred that horrified gaze from me to Frankie. “What?”
With a little lift of her shoulders, she smiled at him, though the expression didn’t quite reach her eyes, and that wrenched me all over again. “It could be fun.”
“Like a hole in the head. We don’t run. They run, we stay here and have sex.” Coop nodded as if to himself. “Let’s do that instead.”
A laugh escaped her, weak as it was, but a real one. “Ian doesn’t share that way, and he wants to run. He needs it and he needs to look after me, so we’re going to run. You can stay here though.”
Something settled inside of me when she acknowledged that I needed to look after her and acquiesced to it. In all our conversations, that play wasn’t going to leave the bedroom or sex, but this right here? Her pain? This was not something I could ignore.
Even stopping Archie from charging back into that building and attacking his father had been damn hard. I’d done it for him as much as for her. So had Jake. Archie hadn’t been rational, and Frankie had been a wreck. Not that Jake and I didn’t share the same temptation, but right now, making sure they were all right overrode any other desires. We’d deal with them later.
His father.
Her mother.
The whole damn mess.
Coop shot me a mock glare. “Fine, I’ll watch. You two have sex.”
I chuckled. A month ago, I wasn’t sure what my reaction to that statement might have been, but right now, it was both funny and a little charming. While he was going to some effort to make her laugh, he also wasn’t kidding. He absolutely meant he’
d watch.
“You never know,” I told them both. “Maybe we’ll revisit the idea—after we run.”
Frankie pushed upward and dropped a quick kiss on Coop before she scrambled out of the bed. He stared at me dumbfounded for a second as she leaned up to kiss me, and I slid an arm around her to give her a hug. When she burrowed for a moment, I just soaked it up, then gave her ass a light swat to send her on her way.
“I’m just gonna pee and brush my teeth,” she muttered on a yawn, and I tracked her as she paused at the bathroom door. “Their flight get off okay?”
“Yep,” I promised. “Another couple of hours before they land. So we’ll be back well before then.”
The hint of tension around her eyes eased again, and she nodded before slipping inside. The second the door closed, I snapped a hand out and caught the pillow Coop flung at me.
“Are you for real right now? Or humoring her?”
“I don’t know,” I told him honestly before flinging the pillow back. “Get dressed, and we’ll figure out. Right now, she’s the priority.”
He studied me for a beat. “Don’t make yourself. If you aren’t comfortable, just don’t. Jake and I don’t care. I think it’s hot when he’s all over her, and it’s the same for him with me. So…if it makes you crazy, just tease her and I can always take a walk or you can.”
“You don’t even want to go for a run.”
With a snort, he flipped me off. “Fuck no. But I guess I have to now.” He pulled the covers up on the bed and headed over to grab some sweatpants. I was pretty sure those were Jake’s. But we’d all ended up in each other’s shit at this point.
“It’ll be good for you,” I said, and he flipped me off as he dug into the laundry basket for a clean sweatshirt.
Fifteen minutes later, and both of them were in sweats and sweatshirts. Frankie had on one of Archie’s, and I appreciated that. Her worry over this whole scenario resurfaced at every mention, and he’d barely been able to take his eyes off of her. When she wasn’t around though, he fucking seethed, and I had to hope Jake could make sure he didn’t explode while he was gone.
