“I don’t know how to,” Evie admitted as she sat on the edge of the bed and adjusted Della’s pillows for her. “Or even if I should. Should I?”
Della watched her quietly, then reached for her hand with a slight shrug. “I don’t know how you two never figured itout. You are both the spitting image of Henry, except Tommy has Mary’s eyes.”
“It was their ages that made me think it wasn’t possible,” Evie explained, keeping her voice gentle. Her mother drifted off topic more and more easily now. She had hoped to make it through one more Christmas, but Evie doubted she would. She was skin and bone, living on lukewarm broth and ice chips. “Should I tell him?” she repeated, desperate for guidance, especially since Thorn had been maddeningly vague on the subject.
“I wouldn’t,” Della said after a long moment. “You two have always been close and thought of each other as siblings. Why risk losing that? It’s not as though you gain anything by him knowing, unless he decides to share things with you.”
“I don’t want anything,” Evie said quietly, frustrated that it always seemed to come back to the companies and Tommy’s fortune. She made more than enough on her own. With what Tommy was going to pay her for HELIX and future development, she could quit tomorrow and live comfortably for years to come.
“Then what’s the point?” Della asked softly. She ran a trembling hand through Evie’s hair, brushing it back from her face. “To make him angry at his deceased parents?”
“I feel awful keeping it from him because I’m scared,” Evie whispered, leaning into her touch.
“You need to consider why you’re scared.” Della’s voice was tired but steady. “If you thought he would be happy or accepting, you wouldn’t hesitate. Your intuition is warning you about something. Listen to it.” She gave her daughter a faint, weary smile. “You’re a Sloane, and nothing can take that from you. If you don’t want anything from that truth, then let it be.”
Later that night, she was on her couch, wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket, playing The Sims while The Simpsons played softly in the background in a futile attempt to distract herself from her thoughts, when there was a knock on her door.
“Who is it, HELIX?” she asked absently, knowing it was either Tommy, Thorn, or Nissa, since they were the only ones who could access her floor without security letting her know they were coming.
“Mr. Sloane. Would you like me to let him in?”
“Yeah. Let him in.” Evie sighed and saved her game so she could close the laptop. A second later, she heard the door open and Tommy’s footsteps coming toward her. She set the laptop and the portable desk to one side and smiled up at him as he sat beside her.
“Hey, Princess.” He draped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him, and Evie adjusted so she could cuddle into his side.
“Hey, what are you doing here?”
“You seemed sad this afternoon after your initial excitement for Cole and Lana.” He looked down at her, concern causing a crease to appear between his eyebrows. “I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Evie swallowed. She thought she had done a good job of hiding her feelings, but sometimes Tommy’s way of seeing through her was scary.
“Come on, Evie, I know you better than that. You aren’t fine.” He squeezed her gently and rubbed her arm. “Talk to me.”
“It’s just…” Evie took a deep breath, the truth about her parentage on the tip of her tongue, but fear closed her throat off, and she couldn’t bring herself to say it. “All that talk about families…” She cleared her throat and decided to blame it on hersituation with her mother. “Would you rather have your parents go the way they did or watch them waste away?”
“The way they did, no question.” He nodded, his expression clearing as he thought he understood her sadness. “Your visits with your mom were hard this week, huh?”
“Yeah.” It wasn’t a lie. Her visits with her mother were increasingly draining. Vermont had legalized medically assisted suicide back in May, the third state to do so after Oregon and Washington, and as she watched her mother’s health decline steadily, she found herself wishing it was legal in New York. Not that her mother, with her devout Catholic faith, would agree to it, but if she were in her mother’s situation in the future, she would absolutely want to have the option.
“It’s just hard watching her fade away and knowing she’ll be gone soon, while at the same time wishing it would happen faster so I don’t have to watch it, and then overlaid over all that is guilt and the realization that I’m soon going to be alone.”
“Come on now, Princess, you’ll still have me.” Tommy hugged her. “And Thorn, Nissa, Cole, and everyone else. You’ll never be alone.”
“Tommy…” Evie felt her breath catch as she almost let it slip for the second time in less than five minutes, and suddenly it was hard for her to breathe in. She pressed her head into his shoulder, focusing on him slowly running his hands up and down her back.
“It’ll be okay, Evie,” Tommy whispered as he held her. She knew he was very worried about what was going to happen to her when her mother died, and she couldn’t blame him; she was concerned about it too. “I promise it’ll be okay.”
Chapter Thirty-Three: The Break Point
Evie walked slowly through the cold drizzle of the grey December morning toward the Del Toro Cafe, where she was meeting Alex for breakfast. She was dreading the conversation she knew was coming, but she also knew she would feel at least somewhat better once it was over.
They had only been seeing each other since August, and after a rough start, things had improved. She wasn’t sure if Alex had thought she would just let him steamroll her boundaries in the beginning and decided to test his luck, or if he had been genuine in his remorse when he claimed he had lost control and forgotten himself. It took a couple of conversations and one serious discussion about whether they should break up for him to stop pushing her into situations that made her uncomfortable. Eventually, they settled into a more controlled and caring dynamic.
He still occasionally stepped over the line, but Evie would remind him to rein it in, and he would comply immediately, which she saw as a sign of growth. Still, she had a sneaking suspicion he was more into sadism than he let on. She noticed he tended to push boundaries far more with punishment than with the bondage or dominant and submissive aspects of their sex life.
All of that was in the back of her mind, but it wasn’t why she asked Alex to meet her for breakfast. Her mother’s health had worsened rapidly throughout November, and Eviedidn’t have the emotional or mental bandwidth to handle a relationship on top of her job and her mother’s impending death. She also found that he became sulky when she couldn’t see him when he wanted. Not overtly, but his messages would get shorter and less affectionate. He also worked overtime more often, which wasn’t unusual, but the way he mentioned it made it seem like he wanted her to know he was punishing her for not making time for him.
This was just Evie’s perspective, and she wasn’t sure if she was overthinking things or if she was simply more emotionally raw than usual. Since she never talked about her relationships or asked for advice, she didn’t want to jump to conclusions. She only knew that she no longer felt excited when she saw his name on her screen, and spending time with him had started to feel like a chore.
