“Then tell me, for once, Savannah. Fucking look me in my face and tell me the damned truth.”
“He’s threatening Aiden,” I yelled.
Ace’s eyes ballooned. “Who?”
“Almost six months ago, this guy, Vincent Reyes, appeared on my doorstep and told me that Aiden’s biological father sent him.” I swallowed.
“Why?” Ace asked.
“Because Aiden’s real father is a Florida senator. Who’s been married for over twenty years.”
Ace’s forehead wrinkled. “Which one? Flores?”
I nodded. “Yvette was only sixteen when she got pregnant with Aiden. She had him at seventeen.”
I paused and inhaled, trying to stop myself from crying. Talking about Yvette always broke my heart. She’d been taken advantage of so young, abused and threatened.
“She was trafficked at a young age.” I shook my head as I revealed the story of the pieces of her life that she’d shared with me. “Somehow, when she got pregnant, she managed to run away and made it to Philadelphia. That was where we met. She never told me the name of Aiden’s birth father, but she said he was a powerful man. Well-connected.
“I saw fear in her eyes whenever she talked about him. When she was diagnosed with cancer, and her condition turned terminal, she begged me to keep Aiden safe. I thought he was, until a few months ago, when Vincent Reyes showed up at my door.”
I pressed my palm to my forehead. I’d kept this secret for months, and it felt relieving but damn tiring to say it all out loud.
I sunk into one of the chairs at the table. Ace took a seat next to me, his demeanor noticeably different now.
“He told me that Flores wanted him toget rid of the little problemhe had. Can you believe that?” I peered over at Ace. “He called my son a fucking problem?”
I tightened and flexed my hands.
“But Reyes said he would make a deal with me. At first, he demanded one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars to go away. He said he would make up a lie to Flores and tell him that he’d handled it. Then he doubled the amount.”
“This was all before you came back to Harlington?” Ace asked.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “I had just been laid off from my last job and had no means to raise that kind of money quickly. But a letter I received from my grandmother’s attorney six months earlier got me thinking. I went to the lawyer, and he told me about the inheritance. It was what I needed, but the condition was…”
“You have to divorce me.”
I swallowed and nodded.
“A few months ago, Reyes showed up at Brightside.” I peered up at Ace. His face tensed.
“He was here? In Texas?”
“He insisted that I pay him a portion of the money. All I had was my old retirement account, so I withdrew it. Reyes was silent for a while, then he called today and said there was a change of plans and he needed all of the money sooner.”
I pushed out a breath.
“Ace, I was coming home to tell you the truth today. I swear I was.”
He reached across the table, covering my hands with his much larger and stronger ones. When he squeezed them, I almost lost it.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you from the beginning, but you were so angry when I first came back. We were barely speaking, and I didn’t feel like I could burden you with my mess. And then, we got back tous.”
Our eyes met, and the coldness that had been in his when I first got home was gone.
“I don’t want a divorce. I never did. But, I…I can’t lose Aiden. I wouldn’t survive the loss of another child.” My voice cracked.
The loud scraping of Ace’s chair was the next sound I heard as he rose to his feet. He lifted me and pulled me into his arms. I cried at the fear I held in my heart for months, the terror at the possibility that Flores would find out the truth about where Aiden was, and use someone to take him from me.
