“I’m so sorry! It’s just… you look so much like— so much like Harley…” she said, her eyes bright.
Just then a tall, thin man with red hair shot with silver walked into the reception area, his head down as his eyes focused on a paper in his hand.
“Rhi, have you heard anything yet from—” he stopped suddenly and looked up, and I stared into my own eyes.
Okay, notreallymy own, of course, but… add twenty years, add some crow’s feet at the corners of my eyes and some silver in my hair, and it was me.
“Who— who the fuck areyou?” I snarled. It was like a jumbled lock suddenly clicked into place in my brain. Part of me needed to hear it aloud, to confirm what my heart already knew about this man.
He was frozen in his tracks as he stared at me, and I saw something… lost in the depths of his eyes. I saw something…broken… andsovery sad as he looked at me. I saw grief. I saw anger. I saw regret. A whirlpool of emotions that threatened to suck me down.
“Nicki…” he whispered, his deep voice almost a rumble.
“Whoareyou?” I demanded again, realizing only a moment later that Kaine was holding my arms to keep me from grabbing the man and shaking some answers out of him.
“Dominick,” Rhiannon began carefully. “Nicki… This—this is Alex Young. AlexanderRowenYoung. He’s… he’s your biological father.”
The world began to spin, and if not for Kaine’s arms around me, I think I would have passed out.
Maybe Ididactually black out for a minute, because the next thing I knew I was sitting on a chair in a conference room off the main office, my head between my legs and Kaine’s comforting arm around me. Alex was sitting in a chair near us, and a man sat next to him. He was shorter, I think, than Alex, with neatly trimmed brown hair. Rhiannon was just walking into the room, a cold bottle of water in her hand.
“Here you go, dear,” she said, handing me the water.
I took it numbly. Kaine tightened his grip on my shoulders and I nodded at him. I could do this.
I looked up at my biological father, still trying to wrap my mind around the idea. My father? How could he be… I saw the man next to him shift slightly, catching Kaine’s attention.
“I’m not trying to be rude, but who are you?” Kaine asked, glancing at the gentleman who sat next to Alex.
“I’m Marty… Martin Zachary. I’m Alex’s partner,” he said.
“Law partner, or life partner?” Kaine growled, and I placed my hand on his knee.
Martin smiled calmly at Kaine’s protective response and answered “Both.”
I looked at Marty, my mind whirring, then back to Alex. My mind couldn’t wrap itself around the situation. How could he be my father? Mom and Dad had been together for years, except…
“You were the one she had the affair with,” I said, the pieces suddenly clicking into place. Those eyes that were so much like my own, winced at the accusation, but he nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “Dominick… May I call you Nicki? Harley always called you Nicki, and it seems… wrong… somehow, to refer to you as Dominick.”
I just nodded.
“Harley—your mom, and I… We were childhood sweethearts. We had been dating off and on since high school,” he began, his fingers alternately crumpling and smoothing a tissue he held in his hands. The man beside him reached his hand out and gripped his shoulder, squeezing it in encouragement. Alex looked at him and allowed a small smile to reach the corner of his mouth. I watched the look pass between them and realized these two men cared a great deal for each other.
“We… we had a fight. A big one. I had been accepted into law school in New York, but she didn’t want to leave Ohio,” he began. “I saw it as a big chance for us to make something of ourselves. I thought Harley would have a better chance of getting published in New York, and I could work and go to school as well.”
Alex’s eyes got a faraway look as he continued. “Your mom was an amazing writer. She was able to really capture the heart and soul of people in her stories. She wanted to write for the big literary magazines, but her family wanted her to take a more…traditionalroute.”
I vaguely remembered my grandparents on my mother’s side. They had been stiff, formal people and I had never understood how they could have given birth to a free spirit like my mom. She hadn’t been close to them, and I knew they had died when I was about seven or eight.
“Her parents lived in Ohio, and she didn’t want to leave them. You grandfather had heart problems, and your grandmother had diabetes. Harley absolutely refused to go to New York with me. She seemed to think I was making a mistake by going, that we’d never be able to make it in the big city. I thought that if I left for a while she would cool off, and eventually see my side of the argument.”
He grinned wryly at me. “I should have known better. Harley was damn stubborn when she wanted to be.”
I nodded. My momhadbeen stubborn, which was one of the things she and Dad had fought about. When she got an idea in her head, you might as well give up then.
“Willis had always wanted your mother. More than that, he wanted the prestige marrying her could bring him. Her father was a well-known judge in the area, and Will saw Harley as a fast track for his career. He pursued her when I was away visiting the school in New York.”
