He crossed to her and opened his arms, and she stepped forward, resting her head on his shoulder. It felt so good to be comforted, to have caring arms wrapped around her, telling her it would be okay. Ian ran one hand down her back and her body thrilled at the touch.
It felt good. Much too good.
She stepped back.
“I didn’t cheat on my husband. I knew there must be an explanation in our family history, so I started researching our ancestry.” She laughed without humor. “I foolishly thought I could save my marriage.”
“You were doing what any loving wife would do in a difficult situation.”
“Hard to believe I loved him once, but I did.” She sighed heavily. “Hattie May Edwards, his grandmother, was black. But she died when his father was so young, and his grandfather got remarried to a white woman. That piece of the story was left out in the retelling. A second cousin on a genealogy website sent me a picture of the grandmother with her baby, Doug’s father.”
Razorback moved to the bed and sat on its edge. “I’m ashamed to say, I just assumed your husband wasn’t Selena’s father, but he is, isn’t he?”
She nodded. Damn it, she was crying again, and she grabbed a fistful of tissues this time. “He didn’t want to try again after the miscarriage. I begged. I thought the family tree stuff would convince him I could be trusted, that I hadn’t done anything wrong and I loved him. But he still didn’t want to do another round of in vitro. I got pregnant with Selena the old-fashioned way, five years after we started trying. I was thrilled.”
“But your husband wasn’t.”
“No.” She sat down several feet from him on the bed. “I thought he was scared of losing her like we’d lost our first baby. But soon I realized it wasn’t fear I was seeing, it was anger. He thought I’d tricked him. Can you believe that horse shit? Tricked him, my ass.” She shook her head.
“Things between us were worse than ever. He was running for reelection as governor of California, and he wasn’t doing well in the polls. He was stressed. We were both unhappy. That’s when he dropped the bomb. He showed me the transcript of a speech he’d given at a town meeting after a racially charged shooting made national headlines, where he talks about being a white man, but a white man can still do some good.”
Razorback’s head tilted to the side. “I’ve heard it. It’s an amazing speech about what we can all do to stem the tide of racism.”
“Right. That speech is what got him elected the first time, but it loses some of its impact if he’s actually of mixed race and lying about his ancestry.”
“He didn’t know his grandmother was black.”
“Oh, but he did.” She turned to him. “He admitted it to me that night, and brought out of a picture of his grandparents that had been on the wall at his parents’ house the whole time he was growing up.”
“Wait a second. He knew he had African American roots. He knew your child could very well be his.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“And he accused you of cheating on him rather than admit that to you.”
“Yes.”
“And he lied to the American public, denying his true heritage.”
“That’s right.”
“Why did he tell you all this?”
“Because he thought by showing me how having this child would ruin his career, I would agree to an abortion.”
“That fucking coward.” He shook his head. “And you said no.”
“I said yes,” she whispered, her gaze locked on a spot in the distance. “At that moment in time, I wanted him out of my life for good. I thought if I got rid of the baby… I drove to the clinic—out of state, of course—but I couldn’t even get out of the car. I loved Selena, even then. What I didn’t know was that Doug’s campaign manager had followed me to make sure I did what I was supposed to do. And when I didn’t, he ran me off the road, into the Pacific Ocean.”
“That son of a bitch! How did you survive?”
She shuddered. “He had an attack of conscience and pulled me out of the water. Turns out cars take a long time to sink. We made a deal, he and I. I would walk away and start a new life out of the country. I wouldn’t tell anyone about Doug’s lies or Levi’s attempt to kill me, and he wouldn’t tell Doug I was alive. And it worked for eight years.”
“Until McGrath became next in line for the White House.”
“That’s right. Now I’m just a liability.”
11
