by Leila James
Me: Well, that’s …
Max: Really fucking weird, right?
I swallow hard, stunned. If my father is one of these people …
Only one of those two men has reddish hair …
Holy fuck. Is Sebastian Coventry my father? My mouth is suddenly very dry as I try to think back to the night I’d met him a week ago. Had I met my dad as I was running from Xander and hadn’t even realized it?
A few more texts come in, but I can’t look. I’m frozen. Is this why Xander is pushing me away? Does he actually know something that will hurt me? Or—? Bile rises in my throat. I’m scared to contemplate all the implications here. With a huff, I finally look down again at the incoming messages.
Daphne: So, your dad could be …
Max: Well, I fucking hope it’s Sebastian because if it’s not, she’s into her bro.
Me: OMG, please don’t go there.
Max: Calm down, Cupcake. I was messing with you.
Max: It’s obviously Sebastian, right? The hair …
Daphne: OMG, you’re right. His is a dark reddish-auburn color. Still no word on that yearbook, btw.
Me: Crap. Okay, I need to go. I have a lot to process, assuming we are on the right track.
Me: Thanks, Max.
Chapter 13
Xander
I look up from where I’m lying on my bed as my door creaks open. For as long as I’ve lived in this house, Aria has snuck into my bedroom—so since the age of about twelve. She’d never done it before when I lived in my dad’s home. She knew better. She knows what my dad is like.
But then Mom and I moved in here after she and Sebastian married, which was around the same time Aria began having trouble at home. So, in the middle of the night, she’d appear and crawl into bed with me. She was looking for comfort, nothing more. We share a fucked-up bond, that’s for sure.
We’ve been best friends practically since birth because of our parents, but everything we’ve been through together since then has shaped our relationship. Honestly, she’s more like my sister than anything else, which makes it really weird when people think we’re dating and especially bizarre when her mother starts in about us marrying someday. Aria knows it’s not happening. At least, I don’t think she thinks it will ever happen. She’s still pretty possessive of me—entitled, even—based on our history. And yeah, people like Beau and Micah thinking it’s fucking crazy, but it is what it is. I’m close to them but not in the same way I am with Aria.
Anyway, she shows up in my bed all the time—it’s become a habit now. Anytime she’s anxious or upset about something, she sneaks in. I’ve told her often that she should see a therapist for the things she’s been through—things she’s made me swear to no longer talk about but I’ll never forget.
She crosses the room in her leggings and oversize T-shirt, pulls back the covers, and slips between them. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
I’ve been staring at the ceiling, arms folded behind my head, for the last two hours. I glance down to where she’s huddled next to me on her side. “I’ve really fucked things up with Scarlett.”
“Isn’t that what you were trying to do?” She frowns, a line forming on her forehead. “You’ve been losing your shit in one way or another for well over a month now. Ever since she showed up.”
“I know.”
“So, what’s going on? Are you going to ever tell me why you’re pushing her to leave? You know I won’t tell anyone.” She gives me a small smile, shifting her head on the pillow to see me better and pats my shoulder. “I’d do anything for you.” She snorts. “Apparently, I’d even strip down and make it look like we’ve been doing the nasty.”
“Yeah, I know. And I know I told you to fuck with Scarlett’s head, but—”
“But nothing. You told me you wanted her gone. Why? And why the change of tune now?”
“Any other girl probably would have freaked out and asked her parents to transfer right the fuck out of here. Or reported everything to the headmaster.”
“But Scarlett isn’t like most girls, is she?”
“No.”
“Why do you suppose that is?”
“She’s been through a lot. Already experienced a major loss. Knows she’s pretty much on her own. She doesn’t want to burden her aunt and uncle with any of her problems, even though they’re her guardians. She’s strong. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want her.” I groan. “Why’d it have to be her?”
Aria smirks at me. “Xander Grey taken down by Little Orphan Annie. Who would have guessed?”
“Yeah. It’s fucked up how much I want her.”
“Do you still want me to mess with her? I have to admit, I’m getting a little bored with it. She doesn’t really cry or freak out much.” Aria shoots me some crazy eyes as she shakes her head. “I guess you’re right. She’s way stronger than you thought she was.”
I growl, frustrated. “I don’t know. I’m at the point where if she’s not going to leave, I might need to tell her everything.”
“Will you lose her if you do?”
“Maybe.”
“Is she worth the risk? Whatever that is, since you don’t seem to want to share.” She pokes me viciously in the side with her pointer finger. “Because if you keep pushing her away, eventually you’ll lose her that way, too. I guess I don’t really understand what’s going on.” She gives me a funny look and draws her knees up to her chest. We’re quiet for several minutes.
“Yeah. I’ve looked at it from every angle.” I blow out a breath. “What it comes down to is I don’t want to upset Mom’s life again. And Janie’s.”
“What’s this all about, Xander? Why won’t you tell me?” Her voice hitches. “I thought we trusted each other. With everything.”
My chest feels heavy. She’s right, and I’m going to ruin our friendship if I’m not careful. I can hear it in her voice. “I found something. In Sebastian’s office. It’s bad. But potentially really bad.”
“Like work stuff?”
I give a swift jerk of my head. “No. An old photo. I think—” I pause, on the verge of spilling everything. “I think the baby in the photo is Scarlett.” My throat goes dry.
Next to me, Aria swallows hard before whispering, “Fuck.”
That gets my attention because if I know Aria—and I do—she sounds like she’s frustrated with herself.
She sits up, turning so she fully faces me. “I came over for a reason tonight, but I wasn’t sure how to bring it up.” She glances down at her hands, which are knotted in her lap.
I slide to a sitting position and lean back against my headboard. Eyeing her warily, I wait her out.
“I have something … something you need to see. I-I was going to send it out to the school to try to shake Scarlett, but it sounds like you wouldn’t want me to do that at this point. I—”
“Aria you never stumble over words like this. Would you just tell me? Or show me whatever the hell it is that you have?”
“I have to go get it.” She takes a deep, steadying breath. “It might be related to that photo you found.”
“Go. Go get whatever it is.”
Aria scrambles off the bed, then stands at the edge of it for a second, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though, okay?”
“Understood.” I make a shooing motion at her, and she leaves the room.
My mind is a twisted, fucked-up mess. What the hell could Aria have possibly found? It’s obviously big if she’s nervous about showing me.
Chapter 14
Xander
“Where the hell did you find this, Aria?” My puzzled eyes dart to hers and then back to the letter written on notebook paper.
S,
I’m pregnant. We need to talk.
Amelia
“Um, I was looking at my aunt’s old high school stuff and stumbled on it. It was folded up and tucked inside of her senior yearbook.” She shifts uncomfortably on the bed, her legs tucked under her.
/> “Which aunt? And why were you looking through her stuff?”
“Christina. My dad’s younger sister. The one who was the head cheerleader, like me.” She swallows. “I should have told you about this before.”
“Tell me. Now.”
She huffs. “Back when Scarlett first showed up, I mentioned to Christina while we were hanging out one day that you seemed interested in this new girl. We were kind of chitchatting about Scarlett, and I told her about how she’d recently moved to town to live with her aunt and uncle after losing her mom. Christina asked what she looked like, and I told her all about ScarJo’s super long, red hair. It didn’t take long before she asked what Scarlett’s last name was. I told her it was Miller, and Christina got this really odd look on her face. I thought it was fucking weird because Miller is a pretty common last name.” She shrugs. “Anyway, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. You know how I am when something starts bugging me.” She takes a deep breath and gestures at the letter. “So, I started snooping around in Christina’s old stuff and—”
I shake my head, blowing out an exasperated breath. “You’re really fucking nosy, Aria. But I don’t get it. Your aunt had this the whole time?” Gears in my brain shift and start spinning fast.
She nods, her jaw clenched. “Yep. I don’t know what I thought I was looking for, but it wasn’t this. I was confused at first, because one, why does my aunt have it when she’s obviously not Amelia? And then, two, who is S? She never names him.” She starts waving her hands wildly in the air. “And then when I realized Amelia was Amelia Miller? I about died.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek trying to calm myself, and not sure what to say to this revelation.
“Xander, I think S is Sebastian. Christina first started wigging out when I mentioned Scarlett’s red hair. And if you’re saying Sebastian’s hung on to some random baby photo, then it has to mean something to him.” She keeps rambling, as if this is new information to me. “So, I started doing some digging, looking more carefully at the yearbooks. Christina’s with him in a lot of photos. I mean, he was a big, bad football player and she was head cheerleader. It’s not too weird to think that they’d be in the same photos, but there are a few where the photographer caught her looking at him and O-M-G, the longing in her eyes is incredible. At least that’s how I interpreted it—Christina had a thing for Sebastian.”
“But then how and why did Christina have that note? And obviously, she kept it from him.”
Aria shrugs. “I have no idea. I could ask her if you think it would help, but I really don’t want to. Here’s the really interesting part—I went to the library because I wanted to see prom pics from that year.”
“Why’d you have to go to the library?”
She rolls her eyes. “Dudes never know this stuff. Yearbooks are finalized before prom. All the photos of the prom king and queen are in the following year’s book.” She starts bouncing on her knees a little, she’s so excited. “Guess who the king and queen were that year?”
“Sebastian and Christina.” I nod as the probable truth sinks in. “You think she purposely hid that note from Sebastian?”
Aria wears a smug little smile. “Trust me. Imagine this: Amelia and Sebastian are dating—secretly, for whatever reason. Amelia gets knocked up. Maybe she’s scared and reaches out to Sebastian. Christina, who has the hots for him, intercepts it. Amelia thinks he’s ignoring her. He doesn’t know why she’s acting weird. Christina somehow convinces him to go to prom with her instead.”
I think she’s dead on. “Seems plausible.”
“But we’ll never know Amelia’s side of it.” Aria winces. “Scarlett deserves to know all of this.”
“She does. I also need to figure out if I should approach Sebastian with what I know. This letter combined with the baby photo is pretty much proof positive that Scarlett is his child. I just—” I let out a disturbed sigh. Now I’m even more worried about what’s written on the back of that photo. He’s kept it hidden this long …
I give myself a mental shake, then focus on Aria’s pinched thinking face. “I’m confused about one thing, and I should have asked you about this directly before now.” I run my hand over my jaw, eyes roaming over her face for answers. “Have you been texting Scarlett? She showed me some weird stuff questioning her scholarship and her mom’s past and who her father is.”
“Nope. I’d own up to it if it were me, you know that. I pretended to be you that one time to invite her to the party, but that’s it.”
I’ve always been able to suss out when Aria is lying to me. She’s not.
Chapter 15
Scarlett
I can’t get this new piece of information about the probable identity of my dad out of my mind. Early this morning, when I still couldn’t sleep, I’d gotten up, showered, and thrown on my school uniform, hurrying out the door.
Sitting in the parking lot, I watch as cars start to pull into the faculty parking spaces. When Mrs. Harden pops out of her little sedan, gray hair in a tight bun, I push out of my truck and jog across the parking lot to her.
“Mrs. Harden!” I shout, hoping she’ll hear me and stop.
Her head whips around, brows raised. “Oh my! Scarlett, you scared me for a second.” She looks me up and down. “It’s awfully early. What are you doing here already?”
After possibly getting the answer to the Who’s your daddy? text, I’m about fed up with whomever the hell is taunting me. I need answers.
“I was— Well, I was kind of hoping there was something else you could tell me … anything else about my mom. I mean, I know it was a long time ago and all, but—” I heave out a breath. “I have so many questions, and she’s not here to ask.”
She looks at me kindly, probably sensing my distress. “Don’t worry, Scarlett. Still sharp as a tack.” She taps her finger to her temple and takes a deep breath. “I assume you’re interested in finding out more about your father. Am I wrong?”
I press my lips together and shake my head. “No, you’re not wrong. I don’t know anything about him.”
“I don’t like to gossip.” She hesitates.
“Please. I really, really need to know.”
She gives me a swift nod. “There was a lot of talk once rumors started that she was pregnant. I heard snippets of things in class, mostly rude, nosy people just taking potshots at your poor mother. They called her awful names, made her feel terrible about herself.”
I look into her warm eyes and am positive she knows more. I wait.
“Word circulating through the faculty was that Amelia was seeing someone from a very influential family, though we didn’t know which one. People were afraid to even guess who it could be. And of course, your mother was a shy girl. Very quiet. Kept to herself. No one really believed that she could be dating a Rose. Maybe that’s why it worked between them.”
“Until it didn’t, you mean.” My mouth pulls down at the corners.
“Right. Look, I can’t say for sure who it was, although I have a guess. But there was certainly something happening … after all, here you are seventeen years later. It makes me sad to think she went through that alone. People can be downright vicious when they feel threatened.”
“But why? Why would two people falling in love make anyone else feel threatened?”
“It boils down to being a societal thing. Like tend to go with like. When people from different backgrounds fall for each other, it can cause terrible problems. Themes like this are present all throughout literature and history. Think about it.”
“I believe I know who my father is.”
“Then tread carefully, Scarlett. People’s reactions can be unpredictable when buried secrets are finally unearthed.”
Chapter 16
Xander
Why do I get the feeling I’m about to epically fuck all this up? All day, I’ve ignored Scarlett. I’ve been puzzling through how and when to tell her what I’ve figured out. I felt her eyes on me all day long, curious and contemplative.
Maybe even a little sad. I’m positive I’m confusing her even more by acting the way I am.
I know I can’t stay away from her for very much longer. I don’t think I can stop what’s coming. Not when I want her the way I do. And the only way I can think of to make things okay again is to tell her what I know. If I wasn’t so afraid of the ramifications, both for her and my own family, I’d have already done it.
Thank goodness we’d played one of the easier teams on our schedule tonight because my head was not in the game. It’d been squarely focused on the agitated redhead sitting in the stands at the fifty-yard line. I’d been surprised to see her, frankly, and her presence had thrown me off in a big way.
My cell phone lights up with a text notification.
Beau: Dude.
Beau: Where are you?
Me: Still at home.
Beau: Your girl. Not your girl? Whatever the hell she is to you … I’m so fucking confused.
Beau: She’s here.
Beau: Three sheets to the wind already.
Me: OMW.
Striding up to Beau’s front door, I wonder what’s going on. It’s not that I’ve never seen Scarlett drink before, but damn, she has a big meet first thing tomorrow morning. She’s so responsible about her scholarship, I can’t figure why she’d get drunk the night before.
All the usual suspects are present when I enter—football team, cheerleaders, and other assorted Roses deemed cool enough to be here. The place is hopping already, and it’s only ten o’clock.
I duck into the kitchen to find Beau exactly where I thought I would—mixing drinks, surrounded by a gaggle of girls, all hoping to be the one he takes to his bed tonight. Such a damn player. I snort to myself and give him a nod over their heads. “Hey, man.”