“After we learned my name,” Jeremiah said, “Remy ran a few searches about me. Which is how I know my wife was named Alexis. And that she died fifteen months ago. I know that I retired from racing. And I know that the Camden family is a famous American family. That’s about all.”
“It’s true that the Camdens are famous. We have been ever since the 1800s, when a great-grandfather of ours named Finbar Camden came over from Ireland and made his fortune in banking. His sons established more banks and enlarged the empire. Many of the families from that time weren’t able to maintain their fortunes over the generations. They gave a lot of money away to philanthropies and the heirs spent the rest. But the Camdens were good with money from the start. To this day, we all receive a large sum at the age of twenty-five from the family trust. We’re expected to be entrepreneurial with that money and grow it.”
Jeremiah downed more beer, then nodded. “What did I do with my inheritance?”
“Invested it. By the time you were twenty-five you were already making a huge salary driving.”
“Ah.”
“Many of our Camden relatives still work in banking but Dad was never interested in that. He was a great athlete—a college quarterback at Notre Dame. He was picked in the second round of the draft and went on to play for sixteen years and win three Super Bowls. Now he’s a commentator for one of the networks on Sundays.”
“And his personal life?”
“Eventful. Soon after he started playing in the NFL, Dad fell in love with a model named Isobel O’Sullivan. They were both already celebrities. They allowed their wedding to be broadcast live, which doubled their fame. The media dubbed it a wedding of American royalty.” Jude sighed. “The whole thing was a debacle and I wish Dad hadn’t made it so public.”
“Why?”
“Because the fact that they were such a well-known couple made the scandal worse.”
“Scandal?”
“It came out that our mother, Fiona, who is Isobel’s younger sister, had been having an affair with Dad. That affair resulted in a child.”
A pit formed in Jeremiah’s stomach. “Me?”
“Yes. I’m sorry to saddle you with this.” Jude gave Jeremiah a level look. “It’s hung over both our heads all our lives. The fact that we’re the sons of scandal is a part of our identity.”
He missed Remy. The realization came to Jeremiah clear and certain.
He hadn’t been apart from her during the day for longer than a few hours since the part of his life he remembered had begun. He was at his own house talking to his own brother. Yet he wasn’t going to feel like himself again until he was with her. “Would Remy have known all this about our family when she found out who our parents are?”
“Ninety percent likely.”
That type of notoriety was exactly the kind of thing she hated.
How was he supposed to deal with all of this without being able to look at her hair, flying seven directions at once? Without the distraction of sparring with her?
“What did Isobel do,” he asked Jude, “when she found out her husband had been cheating on her with her sister?”
“Immediately left Dad and filed for divorce. She ex-communicated her sister. The two of them haven’t talked since. Mom and Dad married shortly before you were born. I was born two years later.”
“What happened to Isobel?”
“She’s done well. She’s had a long modeling career. She married a man who loves her and is faithful to her. They have two grown kids.”
Jeremiah chewed a bite of carrot. “I can see why that would hang over our heads.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not the only scandal.”
Jeremiah shot his brother a glance like,You’re kidding, right?
Jude’s expression said that he was not. “We were raised on an estate near here called Maple Lane that Dad inherited from his family. There was a separate caretaker’s house on the grounds and a woman named Nicole lived there. She worked for Mom and Dad doing a lot of things—cleaning, cooking, babysitting. She and Mom were around the same age and became good friends. When Mom was pregnant with me, Nicole was also pregnant, due a few months after Mom. Nicole had a son named Max. He and I—well, really, all three of us grew up together. We played together. We shared the same land. We drove to the same school in the same car. Max and I were best friends until we were fourteen and it was discovered that . . .” Pain tightened Jude’s features.
“It was discovered that Felix was Max’s father,” Jeremiah guessed.
“Yes.”
“Felix enjoys adultery, apparently.”
