“I think you better come into the conference room,” Dennis said.
He said something else too, but his words were drowned out by the blood rushing in Nic’s ears.
The two women had turned around.
The older one was Victoria, which made sense as Garrett was here.Her strawberry blond hair had gone white, but her face was as kind as ever, if a bit more wrinkled.She smiled wide, like she couldn’t be happier to see him.The younger woman, taller than Victoria, shared her mother’s features, but her smile was cautious, guarded, not quite reaching her eyes.
Her eyes.
Not the same warm, sparkling hazel as her mother’s and brother’s.
Blue, like ice.
Like his.
Everything fell into place.
TheUnknowncalls from Camp Lejeune, home to the US Marine Corps, in which her brother was a major.
TheUnknowncalls that had started when the money Nic’s father had been depositing into an offshore account had stopped, the calls resuming again when news of Curtis’s death broke.
Victoria and Garrett disappearing completely off the map twenty-seven years ago.The age of this young woman, if Nic had to guess.
Vanished because Victoria had been protecting her unborn daughter.
From her abusive father.From Nic’s father, who’d died.And now they were here, showing themselves to him.Victoria and Garrett, ghosts back from the abyss, and the sister Nic never knew he had.
“Dominic,” Mary urged, shaking his arm.“Maybe you should sit back down.”
The world snapped into a flurry of motion.Garrett turning to his mother and sister, herding them back into the conference room.Dennis hurrying his receptionist out and closing the doors behind her.Mary grabbing a bottle of water off the reception desk and shoving it in Nic’s hands.
Dennis appeared back in front of them.“Nic, if you’ll join us in the conference room, I’ll explain everything.”
Nic saw red, fire prickling the underside of his skin, a sandstorm tearing apart his insides, but his mouth was too dry to utter more than a seething, “You knew.”
“I’m your father’s attorney, Nic.Not yours.”
Shaking off Mary’s hand, he guzzled back half the water, then threw the bottle aside.While the water had quenched his parched mouth, it did nothing to douse the betrayal, hot and bitter, coursing through his veins.
This man was supposed to be his mentor.Someone he considered a trusted colleague and friend.He took a step closer, getting in Dennis’s face.“You knew I had a sister and you didn’t tell me!”
“Nic—”
“We’ve been in the local bar together for years.”
“I urged Curtis to tell you, but he thought they’d be safer if no one knew, including you.”
Safer.
Fuck!
There was another Price heir now.Another point of leverage for Vaughn to press, either directly or against Nic.
Nic stepped back, turned, and covered his face with his hands, hiding a moment from this new, upside-down reality.He wished like hell Cam was with him, because fuck if he wasn’t coming untethered, the past unmooring him from the present, from the reality they’d been building.Their future had seemed right there for the taking last night and now it was hurtling away at warp speed.
A hand landed on his back; it wasn’t the one he wanted.
“Dominic, where’s Cameron?”Mary asked, as if reading his thoughts.“Do you want me to call him?”
