“Tell me,” I say finally. I don’t look at her, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees. “Please. I know you told Kit. And Silas… he already knew.”
Her head whips towards me. “He told you.”
Nodding, I turn my face to hers. “Please,” I breathe. “Tell me. Not just that night, but… but all of it. How it came about, Stasi. I need to know.”
It’s eaten me up for ten years, not knowing how far the deception went.
I need to know if every part of her that I ever saw was a lie.
“Was it always planned?” I choke out the words. “Or was it just a… a spur of the moment thing?”
She closes her eyes, her voice barely a whisper. “I hoped it would never happen at all.”
And as I fall silent, Anastasia begins to speak. Of her mother, and their past. The different houses, the schools, the names.
“Anastasia Cooper.” I twist towards her, and she grimaces.
“I really hate that name.”
“How many have you had? Do you remember your original name?”
She shrugs, helplessly. “I’m not sure, truthfully. Angelica… she changed it all the time. Maybe to stop people from catching up with us. I don’t know. She’d normally change it to whoever we were with at the time, but… she never changed it to Tate.”
I close my eyes at the wistful tone in her voice. “So you never had a home?”
“I did, once.” She clears her throat. “When my father was alive, we were… we were happy. But he died, and the money disappeared too quickly. My mother had expensive taste. So she found someone who could give her what she wanted. And then, when she became bored, or they cut her off, she would move on to somebody else.”
A leech. Dragging her daughter along behind her.
It’s a world apart from the peaceful childhood my father gave us.
I study my hands. “I wish you’d told me. Told any of us.”
She sighs. “I wish that I’d done a lot of things differently. But that… I have regretted it every day, Rafe. I’m sorry. And… I’m sorry about your dad. William was a kind man.”
The guilt in her voice surprises me. “That wasn’t your fault.”
“Wasn’t it?” She’s staring down when I turn to her.
“No,” I say gently. “I don’t think there’s any use in proportioning blame for something that may well have happened anyway. And in any case, if there wereanyblame, it would rest solely with Angelica. What… what happened to her?”
Stasi’s shoulders stiffen. “Cancer.”
Here we sit. Both of us orphans. But I always had my brothers to lean on.
Who did you have, Stasi?
She jerks, but her fingers curl around my palm when I slide my hand over hers. “I’m sorry about your mother. That was when you were living with Ella Cooper?”
I’m not intentionally prying, more following a trail of thought. But her hand stiffens in mine, sliding away. “I should… I should get back to work, Rafe.”
When she stands, I follow her lead, regret tightening my throat as she looks up at me. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Thank you for the apology,” she murmurs in return.
I half-smile. “I’m sorry for the floors, too.”
She snorts a laugh. “Are you? Because you would never have apologized for that ten years ago.”
