Drake’s interest drives me wild.
I take another deep breath and get a firm hold of myself. This isn’t about me. Though I can’t help cursing the fact that the first guy to come along in all my twenty years of life and who is my stepmom’s son, is also a man that I honestly want to be with. He’s here to see Morgan and I shouldn’t get in the way of that with my stupidly raging hormones.
“How have you been?” I ask awkwardly, trying to disperse the heavy fog of desire that seems to have settled over the room since we drew apart.
He shrugs and eyes me hungrily.
“Conversation would help,” I croak.
“Thinking about you. You?” he mutters and lifts his chin as if daring me to agree with him; to admit that I’ve done nothing but think of him since the moment we parted company.
“Why did you really come?” I need to know why. He was so cynical when I left. I seriously never thought he’d actually bother to come all the way here to see her.
“To see you,” he says in a flat voice as if it should have been obvious.
My heart leaps at his answer, but as much as I love his answer my first concern is about Morgan. I want him to be here for her sake too.
“You are going to see her, aren’t you?” I press. “You’re going to give her a chance?”
“Sure,” he agrees, shrugging his shoulders casually, but I can see the cynicism etched onto his face. I have no idea what is going through his head, but judging by the look on his face, it isn’t anything too good. It sucks to know that he doesn’t believe Morgan is his mom. What does he think we are up to then? A case of mistaken identity? Or maybe he thinks we’re trying to con him out of some of his cash? Or, I’m one of his adoring fans doing this to meet him and get into his pants?
“You don’t believe us, do you?” I hear myself asking.
He shakes his head. “Frankly, no.”
I bow my head slightly with sadness.
“But I’ll hear your stepmother out.”
“Thank you.” I raise my head. I want him to know that I’m grateful, even if we both need to admit there’s something more going on here than just fulfilling my stepmother’s greatest wish.
Before we have a chance to say anything else, Dad emerges at the top of the stairs. He rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand and grins broadly when he reaches the bottom of the stairs.
“You must be Drake?” He holds his hand out to Drake.
Drake takes his hand and shakes it. “I’m sorry to hear about your wife, Sir.”
I’m taken aback by Drake’s politeness. This is a completely different man than the one who told me to lock the locker room door and strip naked.
Dad’s smile is sad. “Thank you for coming. I know it’s been a big shock to you, but she really appreciates you coming to hear her out.” Dad glances over at me and I can’t help the flush that creeps up my neck. He gives me a funny look and frowns slightly. “Are you okay, honey?”
“Uh, yeah.” I smooth down my hair and force a smile to my lips. I really hope I’m not making it too obvious that Drake has just been eating me out.
“Do you want to offer Drake a cup of coffee or something?” Dad prompts.
I nod quickly, throwing any thoughts of Drake’s face buried between my legs out of my mind for good. I turn towards Drake. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” I mutter. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Sure,” he agrees easily.
“Right, I’ll go make some,” I say too loudly, and hurry towards the kitchen. I stand at the kitchen door and eavesdrop on their conversation.
“Would you like to wait in the living room while I’ll go and get my wife ready?” Dad asks.
“No, I’ll keep Reese company in the kitchen,” Drake replies.
“That’ll be good. She needs a bit of time to wake up properly. I’ll need about ten minutes.”
“Take your time,” Drake says politely, and Dad heads back up the stairs.
I jump away from the kitchen door and start collecting some mugs from the cupboard.
Drake joins me in the kitchen and stands with his hip leaning against the counter.
I can see a little hint of worry on his face, and wonder if it’s just sinking in what he’s about to do. People don’t tend to like spending time with people who are terminally ill. I’ve discovered that since Morgan became sick. He looks a little pale, but to his credit, he doesn’t try to back out.
“You okay?” I ask softly, and he turns to me, his face snapping back into its usual, cocky self.
“Yeah,” he nods and watches as I fill the coffee pot and switch it on.
“Milk?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“Sugar.”
He shakes his head again.
I hand him the mug, careful not to let our fingers touch.
He holds the mug and stares at his hands as if he is trying to psych himself up for his meeting with Morgan. “Anything I should know before I go up there?” he asks.
“All my life I’ve never known Morgan to lie once. Not once. So, just be… open-minded,” I suggest.
He frowns and stares into his coffee.
“She doesn’t want anything from you, Drake,” I say gently. “She has nothing to gain by this. Just her own peace of mind. She’s dying.”
He keeps my gaze for a second, and then nods, but before we have a chance to speak again, we are interrupted by the sound of Dad’s footsteps on the stairs. He sticks his head around the kitchen.
“You’ll never believe this, but she’s actually wide awake.” He smiles at Drake. “Whenever you want to go up…”
Drake puts his untouched coffee mug on the counter, nods at Dad, goes through the door. I follow and watch him pause at the bottom of the stairs for a second. Then, with a deep breath, he starts his journey up.
Chapter Seven
Drake
I must admit this whole thing has started to give me the creeps. I was certain that it was all a scam. Fuck, I wouldn’t even have come if I didn’t want to mark Reese as my property so damn badly.
To start with I’m not good at all this emotional stuff, but worse I’m not so sure anymore that it’s a scam. My bullshit-o-meter has been waiting to spot a crack, a problem in the story so that I can unravel and bring the whole thing down around them, but so far nothing. Could these three really be that good at pretending?
I straighten my shoulders. Maybe this will be it. Reese was the honey trap, the Dad is the bit player, but the woman upstairs. She’s the eye of the storm.
I get to the landing and find three doors, but only one is slightly ajar. I start walking towards, but before I can even knock, a woman’s voice calls from inside the room, “Drake?”
I push open the door and my eyes immediately fall on a woman in a flowery nightgown. She’s sitting up in a double bed and leaning forward eagerly. She is thin and frail with light brown hair, hazel eyes, and deep lines of pain etched into her pale face, but she is beaming. A grin wide enough to split her face. And the grin is genuine too. You can see that a mile off. She is truly, truly happy to see me.
The small room dominated by the double bed and my eyes are drawn to the framed photos on the walls. Most of them feature me! There are even photos from years ago. I let my eyes return to her. She is still staring at me as if she can’t believe her own eyes, and grinning crazily.
Any lingering doubts that I have about this being a scam have all fallen away. Her face-splitting smile did that. It’s obvious that this woman not only thinks I’m her son, she is also very, very ill. Two emotions come into play. There was fierce joy that Reese was telling the truth and a sense of pity for this poor deluded creature. She is dying. I’m not sure anymore what to do. Do I play along? Or do I set her straight? She looks so weak, though. I can’t help wondering how long she has left.
“Uh, hello,” I say uncomfortably.
“You came,” she says, her voice cracking slightly.
“Yup.” I smile. Maybe, I can
just ride the middle line and not rock the boat. What’s the harm in letting her think I’m her son?
She pats the bed next to her, and I step over the threshold and to go perch on the edge of her bed, as far away as I can without being rude.
“I can hardly believe you’re here,” she whispers, shaking her head, and staring at me with a stunned expression on her face.
“I couldn’t say no to your stepdaughter,” I reply, more truthfully than she’ll ever know.
“Thank you. Thank you for coming.”
“It’s okay.”
She reaches out suddenly and covers my hand with hers, making me jump. Her skin is warm and dry, papery almost. Quickly, I glance around the room to distract myself from the suddenness of the contact. That’s when I see it.
A shiver crawls down my spine.
In a small photo on the windowsill, is a much younger version of Morgan. What stuns me is the fact that she is standing in a room I recognize. My grandfather’s drawing room She’s wearing a black and white uniform, the same one worn even today by the servants who worked for my grandmother and aunt. I stare at the photograph in shock. No. No.
It couldn’t be true.
Could it?
No, there must be some other reasonable explanation.
In a daze of disbelief, I look back at her, into her eyes. This close, I can see that her eyes were originally bright green, but her illness and the drugs have made them dull, filling them with brown flecks.
My head begins to spin, and I try to fit the pieces together in my head. Mom and Dad both have brown eyes, and no one else in my family has green eyes. When I was young I did wonder where my green ones came from.
Restlessly, I get up and pick up the picture. I gaze at it wordlessly. My grip on the picture is so hard that I’m surprised the frame does not shatter. How young and pretty she was then. My entire world feels as though it has lurched under my feet as if I’m struggling to stay upright.
“How do you have this?” I mutter, turning to stare at her.
“This was taken on the first day I arrived to work for your grandfather,” she explains.
She reaches for the picture, and I hand it to her. She looks at her photograph. “I was seventeen years old when this picture was taken. I was just a baby, a complete innocent. I knew nothing,” she says with a sigh, closing her eyes as though allowing herself to drift back off into the realms of her memories. Then she looks up. “I should start from the beginning, shouldn’t I?”
I can’t drag my eyes away from hers. I nod slowly. That would be a damn good idea.
“My parents were very poor. My father was a drunk and my mother had more kids than she knew what to do with. When I was sixteen I dropped out of school to work as a maid. I wanted to help support my mom and my family in the only way I knew how to. Your grandmother hired me to be one of the maids in her house.”
“Uh-huh…” I nodded.
“Your father was away in college when I was hired.” She pauses as if trying to find the best way to phrase it. “When he came down for summer break we fell for each other, your father and I, but we had to hide our feelings. We were too young, and I was from the wrong side of town. He was going to talk to your grandfather, God rest his soul, eventually.”
She sighs heavily again.
“That was the plan. It was a good plan, but I got pregnant. It was an accident, of course. I was so naïve I was very happy; not just happy, but deliriously happy. I thought it was a sign from God, and I was sure that this was how we were going to get your grandfather to take me seriously as a mate for your father.”
“And?” I prompt. I knew my father could be and had been a shit in his time, but this… surely not. Surely he couldn’t have.
“I waited till I was sure, and then I told him.” She clasps her hands together so tightly her knuckles showed white. “And he was not happy. He was furious. I couldn’t believe it. He wanted me to get rid of my baby, but I refused. Since there was nothing he could do or say that would change my mind, I left him no choice but to tell your grandfather.”
She takes a shaky breath.
“Your grandfather was very calm about it. Then he sent me home and offered my parents a stupid amount of money, enough for them to pay off all their debts and buy a small house. In return, I had to agree to give up my baby to him. At first, I didn’t want to, but your grandfather asked me one little question. ‘Can you give your child a better life than the one you have?’”
She takes another shuddering breath. Obviously, she has never gotten over the hurt.
“When I was silent, he told me you would be given the best education money could buy, vacations, fine food, you’d live in a huge house, and when you were older you’d have access to all his contacts and opportunities. ‘What about love?’ I asked him. ‘Love? Do you think that just because you are poor and have nothing else your love is somehow better or more superior than the love of my wife, my son, my daughters, numerous other relatives, and me, can give this child?”
Growing up I remember my grandfather being a very stern man, but how could any of this be true? I stare at Morgan speechlessly.
“He then promised that you would be told about me when you turned eighteen. I was so sad, but I had no choice. I knew my parents were ashamed and furious with me. I had to work. Who would take care of this baby or feed this extra mouth? If I gave it up I could spare them the shame, make their lives so much better, and give my child a life I could not even dream of giving him myself.
“So, I sacrificed my own selfish desire of wanting to keep you and agreed to what your grandfather wanted. I signed all the papers he put in front of me without even reading them, and he sent me away to his ranch in Colorado. I spent most of my pregnancy in tears. I felt as if I’d lost everything, and in a way, I had. They did not even want me to hold you even once, so they made me have a Caesarean delivery. I never saw you. By the time I came back to Petersville, your father was already married to another woman.”
“Andrea,” I say my mother’s name without thinking, and she winces at the sound of it.
“Yes, Andrea,” she repeats bitterly. “The woman who you think of as your mother actually stole my child. She didn’t even have the courtesy to look me in the face when she saw me once on the street. She was pushing you in a stroller.” Morgan gives a short harsh laugh. “But as if God himself decided to punish her, she couldn’t have a child of her own while I was given sweet little Reese to love and to care for as if she was my own. She is a gift that keeps on giving.”
She smiles softly at me.
“Your grandfather said that I could go and visit you whenever I wanted, but when I turned up at his home he took me to his study and made me read the contract I had signed. He pointed to the section where I was expressly forbidden to either go around to any of his residences, ever approach or make attempt to make contact with you until you were eighteen. The penalty for breaking those terms would land me in prison for a very long time.”
I shake my head, my brain still running in circles as it tried to process everything that she is telling me. “So why did you wait until now to tell me?”
“I figured that you were probably pretty happy with everything the way it was,” she says sadly. “I didn’t want to put a spanner in the works for you. You were rich and handsome and so successful. You had love, you had everything. You didn’t need me. But when I got sick I couldn’t let it be. You were my son. You were unfinished business. All these years I have grieved silently for you. I couldn’t go to my grave without just once seeing and talking to you.”
Her voice wavers and cracks for a second, and she has to take a deep breath before she can continue.
“I knew my soul wouldn’t be at peace if I didn’t have some sort of closure. Even if you had refused to come that would have been a closure of sorts too,” she finishes. “Anyway, you deserve to know the truth. I wasn’t doing you any favors by letting you continue to believe a lie about your own ancestry.”
“I...” I can’t get the words out. What am I supposed to say? That I believe her, even though I have no good reason to except for a photograph taken in my grandfather’s drawing room? It was hardly evidence. Sure, she worked for my grandmother. So what? The color of my eyes is not in any way conclusive proof either.
I just want to walk out of here right now because I don’t want to deal with this heavy shit, but at the same time, I feel bad for her. I want to stay and convince her that somehow everything is going to be all right?
“What happened then?” I ask. “How did you end up here?”
“I married Reese’s father,” She smiles fondly. “After he divorced his first wife.”
“Right.”
She gazes at me for another moment, then reaches out to pat my hand gently.
“I’m so proud of you and everything you’ve achieved,” she murmurs. “I just wanted to tell you that. You don’t know how happy you’ve made me. I’ve watched every game you’ve played. Whenever you lost my heart ached for you, and whenever you won I felt drunk with happiness. You are my son, Drake Kelly. My son.”
“I, I…”
Her eyes drift shut, and for a second I have the horrible sensation she’s dropped dead on me. I reach forward to hold my hand over her mouth and find that she has gone to sleep. I look around me at the poor surroundings, then at her sleeping face. There is no firm evidence, no DNA test, but in my heart, I know. This woman is my mother! Everything I believed has been smashed in this bedroom.
I get to my feet, and the ground feels like its swaying beneath me. Slowly, I head down the stairs.
Chapter Eight
Reese
I’m wearing out the carpet in the living room pacing back and forth when Drake re-emerges. I can’t take my eyes off him. The look on his face is unlike anything I’ve seen on anybody before. He is so livid his eyes are practically shooting sparks. His mouth is clamped tightly with steely determination, and there’s a white ring around his mouth. Uh oh, something big is about to go down. What did we expect, though, when we invited someone as hot-headed as Drake to find out that he’s been lied to his entire life?
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