by Judy Corry
"I. Don't. Care," he said more firmly, his towering height and muscular physique more intimidating than it had been a moment before.
"Carter…" I braced my hands on his chest, needing him to see reason. "It's illegal. There’s no future where we can be together."
"It's illegal if we know that we're related and we break the rules anyway." He gripped my waist tighter and pulled me impossibly closer. "But your mom still hasn't told you. And my dad certainly hasn't said anything to me. As of now, the only evidence we really have are a few photos that place them together at the scene of the crime."
"But that's just a technicality."
"No one has to know." He leaned his mouth close to my ear. "It can be our little secret. Our last goodbye."
"But Carter…" I sighed, feeling my resolve wilting like a dahlia that had seen too much sun.
Because even though I knew I shouldn't, I wanted to do exactly what Carter was saying.
I wanted to have one last memory before everything was taken away from us.
"Just one last night," he whispered, his hot breath on my neck. "One last moment to remember what might have been if the universe was kind."
My heart felt like it was going to pound right out of my chest. Because until my mom confirmed my worst nightmare, I couldn't get in trouble for feeling the way I did, could I?
And so, even though the logical part of my brain knew I shouldn't, I gave him the slightest nod.
Carter cradled my head in his hand and whispered, "I love you, Ava. Even if everything changes after tonight, I just want you to know that I love you—not as a brother, but as a mere mortal man who fell under the spell of a goddess."
A tear escaped my eye because I knew this was a goodbye. It was the last time I'd ever be able to admit my true feelings for him. So I whispered, "I love you too, Carter."
His lips descended on mine then, and as he led our mouths in a slow and passionate kiss, I felt my heart ripping apart inside me. It slowly unraveled like a ribbon, because this kiss was not a promise of more good things to come. It wasn't like any of our previous kisses that burst with the excitement and anticipation of a future we could have together.
No. This was the kiss of death—the death of all my hopes and dreams where Carter and me and the future I still selfishly wanted were concerned.
His arms slid more firmly around my waist and he pulled me against him. He was solid and strong, but even though he was both of those things, he was also mortal and vulnerable to the same overwhelming feelings I was susceptible to.
In other words, he was human. Imperfect and only able to be tempted so far before he inevitably fell.
We were both falling.
I wondered if this was how Adam and Eve felt in the Garden of Eden. To know that the consequences of their actions would affect them for the rest of their lives, but to still fall to the temptation standing right before them because not giving in was worse than forever living without.
Eve offered Adam the forbidden fruit, and not wanting to be without his other half, the woman born from his rib, he tasted the fruit and exiled himself to an eternity where he could no longer live in the beautiful, lush garden—the only home he'd ever known.
It made me wonder about the person who had named Eden Falls. Had they somehow known that this town, this little paradise, had something brimming in the air? Something unseen that made its inhabitants act out in ways they normally wouldn't?
Was that what had happened to my mom? Had she come back to Eden Falls and gotten caught up in its spell only to wake up the next morning and realize too late that she’d done something she hadn't really meant to? Something she couldn't continue?
Carter's hands flattened against my back, and when he flicked his tongue along my lips, I opened my mouth to his. If I was already falling to temptation, I might as well make the most of it.
I knotted my hands in his hair as tears trickled down my cheeks, telling him with my kiss all the things I'd never be able to speak aloud after we were torn apart: I love you, Carter. I love you, and I don't care that I shouldn't. I don't care that loving you like this is wrong because loving you makes me feel more alive than not.
41
Carter
I slipped my hands up Ava's back, tangled my fingers in her hair, and let myself memorize everything about how she felt in my arms as we kissed. Because if things went the way we feared tonight, the only time I'd be kissing her again would be in my dreams.
So this needed to be a goodbye kiss. It was one last opportunity to reveal how we truly felt before we were forced to lock away our feelings for the rest of our lives. This was most likely the last chance I'd be allowed to fully appreciate this beautiful creature who had wiggled her way into my heart over the past six weeks.
But even though I'd asked Ava for just one last stolen kiss, I knew deep in my core that this would never be enough.
I would still crave to be with her every second for the rest of my life. These moments alone with her were the times where I felt most alive—most like the person I was supposed to be—the most like my true self.
She might be my sister, I tried to tell myself as I pulled her closer when I should have been pushing her away. My own flesh and blood.
But I might as well have been speaking a foreign language because those words meant nothing to me.
Absolutely nothing.
I trailed kisses across her jawline, burrowed my face into the curve of her neck, and breathed in her intoxicating scent as I smoothed my hands up her sides and tried to brand it into my memory.
Because this would be the last time I'd ever be able to touch her like this again, when I could still claim to not really know anything romantic between us was forbidden.
I knew I should probably be disgusted with myself for even thinking it, but if I wasn't worried about the repercussions for her, I knew I would gladly kiss her again.
Kiss her every day until my lips were swollen and her delicate skin was chaffed, and they would have to literally lock me behind bars to get me to stop.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I was going to have to move out of the country and put an ocean between us to keep myself from acting irrationally.
I was just trying to figure out a way to ask her to run away with me when a loud gasp sounded behind us.
Ava's hands, which had been sliding up my back the moment before went still, and she took a sharp intake of breath when she saw who had walked in on us.
I turned my head over my shoulder, to see who'd caught us, and found Ava's look-alike.
Elyse.
And though it was dark and I couldn't see everything clearly, I could tell from the way she stood with her hand to her chest and her mouth hanging open that she was shocked.
Shocked that Ava and I would be entangled in each other’s arms this way when we knew the possibility of who we might be to each other.
I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. I didn't want to release Ava yet—because I could hold her in my arms forever and still never get enough—but I forced myself to let her go and stepped away.
"So…" Ava said to her sister as she readjusted her dress until it rested over her hips more comfortably. "I guess you saw that."
"Yeah," Elyse said, still seeming shocked. "I-I did."
I blew out a long breath because I really didn't know how I could explain any of this in a way to make us look good in front of Elyse—like we hadn't just been kissing each other when we knew it was highly possible we were related.
Ava didn't seem to want to say anything about it either, so we just waited for Elyse to explain her reason for coming here.
"So, um," Elyse said after realizing we weren't going to address the big, fat elephant in the room. "Mom just texted me to say that she’s here and that she’s ready to talk to us in Mr. Hastings’s office."
42
Ava
When Elyse and I walked into Mr. Hastings’s office a few minutes later, I expected to find our mo
m with Mr. Hastings and Mr. Aarden. Instead, we walked in to find only her sitting on one of the brown leather chairs.
"Hi girls." She stood up and moved to hug us.
I wasn't exactly sure I wanted to hug this woman who had been ignoring my calls and texts all week, so when she opened her arms for me after hugging Elyse, I just gave her a sort of side hug.
A flash of pain crossed her face after my rejection, but she replaced it with a wary smile. She gestured to a leather sofa against the wall, saying, "Go ahead and take a seat."
I sat next to my sister, set my hands in my lap, and waited expectantly for my mom to explain herself.
"So," she said, drawing in a deep breath. "I guess we all probably know why I'm here, so I'll just get right down to what I have to say to you two." Her brown eyes looked sorrowful. "And well, I guess it's pretty obvious to all of us that we probably should have had this conversation a long time ago."
You think?
I considered saying that out loud and putting up a big stink about how she was about seventeen and a half years too late for this conversation, but since she was actually finally promising answers, I kept my mouth shut.
She smoothed her hands along her black pencil skirt and sighed. "I'm not exactly sure how to start this, so I'll go back to the beginning and hope it explains why I made the choices that I did concerning you two and your biological father."
"If you're going to tell us about how you and Mr. Hastings dated in high school, we already figured that out," I told her, wanting to just cut to the chase. I didn't need a long drawn-out explanation about how they'd been in love at one time and all that crap.
Just give me the details, woman.
"Okay," my mom said, seeming a bit surprised at the mention of her previous relationship with Carter's dad. "Does that mean you also know that before I started dating Joel, there was also a short time when I dated Brendon?"
"Brendon?" I furrowed my brow, not knowing who Brendon was or what he might have to do with this story.
"Oh, um," my mom said. "You might know of him as Dr. Aarden? He has a son your age named Mack."
Still frowning, I glanced at Elyse, curious if she understood where our mom was going with this, but she looked just as confused as I felt.
Mom cleared her throat. "Okay, so Brendon and I dated for just a short time in high school during the fall of our junior year. It was nothing big, just a few dates here and there that fizzled out before it could get too serious. He went on to date my best friend at the time, Brianna, and I got to know his best friend Joel better during our production of Romeo and Juliet."
Elyse and I nodded, this information fitting with what Mrs. Simmons had told Elyse.
"Anyway," my mom said. "Joel and I dated for the next year and a half and grew quite close during that time. But when we graduated and I had to move back to Israel because my student visa was about to expire, we had no choice but to try to move on."
"Did you keep in contact after that?" Elyse asked, clearly more interested in the details than I was since all I was here for was the moment when she told us he was our long-lost dad.
Mom nodded, seeming encouraged that at least one of her daughters was being pleasant to her. "We emailed every week for the first year or so, but after we realized that a long-distance relationship wasn't going to work out, we decided to just end things for real and tried to move on with people in our same zip code."
"That makes sense," Elyse said.
Mom continued, "I basically lost contact with all of my friends from the academy after that and just went on living life, helping take care of your grandfather and getting my degree. As you know, I was able to move back to New York after graduating and started working toward becoming a citizen. Then about five years after my high school graduation, I received an email announcing a class reunion. Since I thought it might be fun to catch up with everyone from the old days, I got myself a cute dress and drove the few hours to attend."
I flexed my hands into fists, my heart rate increasing as I realized she was finally getting close to the part of the story I'd been waiting my whole life to hear.
Mom crossed one of her legs over the other as if trying to get comfortable for what she had to say next. "The reunion was held at one of the hotels in Eden Falls, so I checked myself into a room there. When it came time for it to start, I headed down to the conference room where it was being held and nervously waited to see if any of my friends had come. My friend Cortney was there." Mom met our gazes. "I think she actually teaches math at the academy. Her married name is Cortney Simmons."
"She's my Statistics teacher," I said.
Mom nodded. "So I hung out with Cortney for a little while and asked her to give me an update on all of the latest Eden Falls gossip. She told me that both Joel and Brendon were planning to come and that they were both single, if I was interested in reviving an old fling." She shook her head and cleared her throat. "I'll admit that the idea of rekindling something with Joel did spark some interest in me since here we were, both single and available, but when he showed up, I soon realized that nothing would be happening there because while he was friendly and courteous, he was not open to flirting with me like old times."
"So you and Joel—Mr. Hastings—" I corrected myself. "—didn't rekindle anything that night?" I asked, feeling more confused than ever.
Mom shook her head. "I later found out that he'd been trying to get back with the woman that he’s actually married to now, and so he wasn't interested in going down memory lane with me."
I frowned for a moment as I tried to make sense of what she was saying. If she hadn't hooked up with Mr. Hastings that night, then why was she telling us about her high school reunion in the first place?
Why even talk about Mr. Hastings at all?
And since I was tired of beating around the bush, I blurted out, "So is Mr. Hastings our dad or not?"
"What?" Mom put a hand to her chest. "No. Of course not." She shook her head. "Is that what you thought?"
"Well, yeah," I said, like it should have been obvious. I gestured at the room around us. "We’re in his office right now and you did come here to talk to him. Isn't that why we're here?"
"No, honey." Mom leaned forward and put her hand on my knee. "Joel Hastings is not your father. I don't know what led you to believe that he was, but it's not him."
It wasn't?
Mr. Hastings wasn't my dad?
Carter's dad wasn't my dad?
It took a moment for the words to sink in, but when they did, I suddenly felt lightheaded.
Carter's dad wasn't my dad.
Which meant that Carter wasn't my brother.
We weren't related.
Which meant that Carter and I could actually be together.
I hadn't fallen in love with my brother.
I needed to tell him. I needed to tell him that our worst nightmare had just been a huge misunderstanding.
I was about to stand up to go and tell him the good news when Elyse brought me back to the present by asking our mom, "So if Mr. Hastings isn't our dad, then who is? Is it another guy from the reunion? Billy?" Elyse looked at me for confirmation that she was remembering the name Dr. Aarden had given us correctly. "Is it a guy named Billy Monaco?"
I didn't know what I expected my mom to do when she heard Elyse's question, but I certainly hadn't expected for her to laugh. Laugh so hysterically that I worried about her sanity.
"You thought Billy Monaco was your father?" she asked.
Elyse and I looked at each other, not seeing how this was funny.
"Who else would it be?" Elyse asked.
Mom sobered up and after drawing in a calming breath, she said, "Okay, so I…" She smoothed her hands along her skirt again, like her palms were suddenly sweaty. "I'm not sure how you even know who Billy Monaco is, but let me first assure you that no, he’s definitely not your father. He was hanging around Joel during the reunion because he was trying to sell Joel some kind of business idea and thought it w
as his chance to do so. But well, I guess I'll just come out and say it. Your father is Brendon." She cleared her throat and looked at both Elyse and me carefully. "Dr. Aarden is your father."
What?
"H-how?" I asked, pulling my head back.
"How?" Mom asked, her voice rising an octave—like she thought I was expecting her to explain the birds and the bees again.
I shook my head. "How could Mack's dad be our dad? Wasn't he married to Mack's mom at the time?"
Mom's features darkened. "Brendon and Brianna were not married at the time, no."
"But Mack is older than us," I said as if it proved that his parents had been together.
"Yes, he is." Mom looked down at the carpeted floor for a moment. "Like I said earlier, at the time of the reunion, Brendon was single. He and Brianna had been together ever since high school and were very serious, but then just a couple of weeks before the reunion, Brianna broke up with him out of the blue and told him she didn't want to see or talk to him anymore. She basically just cut things off with him cold turkey without any warning signs or any real explanation for why she had a sudden change of heart."
"Did he know she was pregnant with Mack?" Elyse asked.
"He didn't."
"Did she know she was pregnant with Mack?" I asked.
Mom shook her head. "I don't think so. He was actually born a couple of months prematurely because of some complications, so I don't think she knew about the pregnancy yet herself."
Interesting.
"Anyway," Mom continued. "Brendon wasn't exactly in the best headspace the night of the reunion after having his heart broken a couple of weeks before. And I was pretty bummed that Joel wasn't interested in rekindling anything with me. So we both kind of commiserated together and ended up getting wrapped up in our own little bubble that night."
"And then you slept together?" I asked, knowing that my mom was trying to find a delicate way to put it.