“I’m not much like my mother, but you’re probably correct,” I say.
Lionel sighs. “Sit,” he says, once again pointing to the chairs. “And tell me what this is about. I don’t have a lot of time, so please be brief.” He reaches for the glass of water at the edge of his desk.
So I settle into my chair, and Aiden does the same. I take a deep breath.
And then I drop my bomb—keeping it brief, like he asked.
“It is my belief that you are either my father or my uncle.”
In hindsight, maybe I should have waited to speak until he wasn’t in the middle of taking a drink. But it’s too late now; I watch as the water he’s just drunk appears to go down the wrong pipe. He begins coughing, wheezing and choking and turning beet red.
Aiden rolls his eyes and then stands up slowly, rounding the desk. He thumps Lionel on the back several times, way harder than necessary. “Your delivery could use work,” he says to me.
Despite the violent hacking and spewing going on on theother side of the desk, Lionel still manages to push Aiden away from him. Aiden just shrugs and then returns to my side of the desk, the corners of his lips tilted into a little smirk. I wait for him to sit down, but he doesn’t; he moves to stand behind me instead, his hands coming to rest on my shoulders, his thumbs stroking lazily at the skin just past my neckline.
“He just has one of those faces, doesn’t he?” he murmurs to me. “So smug. Makes me want to piss him off, just for the heck of it.”
“Mmm,” I say, because he’s kind of right.
When Lionel finally stops coughing, he’s red faced and wide eyed and nothing like I’ve seen on any of his commercials.
“That,” he says in a choked but haughty voice, “is absurd. I am not your uncle, and I am very certainly not your father.” He settles back into his chair, folding his hands in front of him on the desk and staring at me.
“You and my mother?—”
“Were never intimate,” he says sharply. “We never had that kind of relationship.”
“But you wanted one, didn’t you?”
If it’s possible, Lionel’s face flushes even redder. “I did,” he says, the words short and biting. “But Nora did not feel the same way, and I value consent. Now either explain yourselves, or leave.”
I stare at him for a second, looking for any similarities between us that might be hiding behind my clear resemblance to my mother. Unlike in the childhood photo, however, all I can see now that links us is our eyes.
I think I’m going to have to tell him.
“I am going to take a giant risk,” I say slowly, “and have a very frank conversation with you. I don’t care that you’re a hotshot politician or whatever. I don’t care. I just need toknow the truth.”
He raises one brow at me but says nothing, and I don’t blame him. Who the heck do I think I am, barging into his office like this and saying these things?
But this is the only thing left I can think to do. So I’m going to do it.
“Do you know Sandra von Meller?” I say.
His eyes narrow, his forehead wrinkling with confusion. “Sandra…yes,” he says. “The daughter of Tonya von Meller. What about her?”
“She’s dead,” I say. It’s difficult to keep my voice so flat, so emotionless, but I think infusing my own feelings into this situation will only make it harder to read Lionel’s.
And his surprise is unmistakable. Unmistakable—and undeniably genuine. His brows hitch just slightly, his vivid eyes widening as his jaw falls open. “I’m sorry?” he says.
“She’s dead,” I repeat, even as I do my best to push away the mental image of her body. “She was killed, presumably because she asked to meet with me about my parents.”
Lionel’s eyes go from wide with shock to completely blank. “Your parents? Nora never said who your father was.”
“What did she tell you?” I say, and now it’s hard to keep a note of curiosity out of my voice. I’ve been wondering about this. If she thought she was assaulted by one of her friends but didn’t know which one, what would she have told them about her pregnancy?
“She told me she slept with someone that summer. Someone she met passing through town. I always assumed she was lying.”
“What did you think was the truth?”
