Mother: Maya Flores = YOUR Miss Flores? 1 u never let us meet?
He scowled and tapped out an answer.
Corin: It’s rude to send messages while you’re on a call with someone else.
Mother: IT IS
Mother: TELL ME
Mother: I knew u were hiding sumthing from us!!!!!
He stilled. Maya’s voice filtered through the walls, quiet and anxious. There was an ominous pause in the constant buzzing of his messaging app.
Oh, no. She wasn’t going to think—
Mother: A BABY???
Mother: CORIN LANCELOT BLACKBURN
Mother: ANSWER YOUR MOTHER
Mother: BABY?????
He dropped his phone into his pocket, swearing. Maya’s voice rose. He got the sense of her shepherding the conversation back on track and—oh, god, no, she wouldn’t have.
She is my mother. Of course she would have.
He wheeled around, ready to storm back into the front room and save Maya from a horrifyingly awkward ordeal he should have seen coming a mile off.
As his hand hit the doorknob, Maya said, “It’s not Corin’s! The father—”
He froze.
Tomás’s father. The man who’d got Maya pregnant and abandoned her to give birth and raise a child alone—without even knowing what sort of child he’d given her. His hand tightened on the doorknob.
“—he isn’t involved. He—doesn’t have any interest.”
“But you do know who the fatheris?” His mother’s voice was equal parts dismay and speculation.
“I—”
The world stood still.
Maya had already been pregnant when they met. She had never said anything outright, but she had given hints that she was hiding a long-term boyfriend somewhere offstage. Her colleagues had been surprised at the idea she had a partner but notthatsurprised, given how private she was.
Corin had believed her.
But there had been no adult male dragon at her shoulder to protect her, the night he’d destroyed everything, and he still had no idea of the truth.
Maya’s voice was firm. “That isn’t relevant. He isn’t a part of Tomás’s life.”
Corin stared blindly at the door. Whatever his mother said next, her words didn’t penetrate the haze filling his mind.
He knew that tone. It was a tone of voice he should have recognized for what it was years ago. Maya wasn’t just being brusque and professional.
She knew the father might be behind the stolen treasure. But she didn’t know who he was.
He’d meant to use the time while Maya was speaking with his mother to further his investigation into the stolen treasure, but that was a dead end. His grandfather had promised to look in to the hoard vault’s security, but had fallen silent. Every lead vanished into smoke the minute he looked in its direction.
