After everyone leaves, I move to the handcrafted mahogany casket and stare at the man who poisoned everything he touched. I dig around in my heart for love, but it had died for this man long before he took his last breath.
For the last three years, I tried to be a different man. It took ten minutes with his illegitimate kid to prove I’m still his son. I lean closer like he might actually hear me. "At least you can't fuck anything else up. Your poisoned legacy ends here."
I want to slam out of the church, but refuse to let his ghost see me upset. Pushing open the heavy oak and iron door, I step into the Kentucky heat. A woman in a summer dress crosses the street, and for a second my chest tightens before I realize it's not her.
Christ. I don't do this. Don't look for women in crowds the morning after. I don’t want to see them again.
I pick up my pace and walk to Blackstone's main building five minutes later. I’m the last to arrive. Sebastian sits between his wife, Rosalia, and Blackstone’s head lawyer, Daniel. Lillianna is on the other side of the conference table. My sister waves me to the empty seat next to her.
“Everything okay?” she asks. Her concern sounds genuine, though I’m not sure if it is for Madison or me.
“Everything’s fine,” I reply, having no idea if I’m telling the truth.
“I thought your train was supposed to get in early this morning. Why didn’t you stop by your house before the funeral?” she asks.
“There was a delay sometime during the night, so I got ready on the train. I sent my driver with all my luggage to the house after he dropped me off at the funeral.”
I leave out that part where, after Ivy and I went through the box of condoms, I fell into a dead sleep, not returning to my traincar until the morning. I found a panicked Bruce the Porter who’d thought that, after I hadn’t returned and wasn’t where he’d left me, I either had fallen or jumped from the train. I tipped the poor bastard enough to make up for the years I took off his life, thinking he'd inadvertently killed a Blackstone.
“Do you want me to find another place to stay while you’re here?” she asks.
Out of everyone in the family, Lilly’s the one who never wrote me off completely. And she’s always stayed with me during her infrequent visits. So when I left, I gave her the keys to my place. I wasn't ready to sell it, and she wasn't ready to buy something permanent.
“No, I’m only here a few days.” I prefer having my own space, and the house is big enough we won't cross paths.
The receptionist opens the door, cutting off our small talk. "Ms. Payne and her guardian are here."
We nod and the door opens all the way. Madison walks in and I register her, but my gaze slides automatically to whoever is behind her. Dark hair. A black pencil skirt, grey blouse, long hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail.
Something snags in my chest.
I know that hair. I know that elegant neck.
No.
I blink, certain I'm manufacturing her out of exhaustion and guilt. My brain is pulling last night's woman into the first female shape that walks through a door. It's a trick. It has to be.
Then she turns her head and scans the room, and her gaze finds mine, and the trick evaporates.
Her eyes go wide. She stumbles in her heels before catching herself. Her mouth pulls into a flat line and she looks away — fast, deliberate, like she's already building the wall.
It's her.
What. The. Fuck.
Daniel stands, pulling back the two empty chairs. “Ms. West, thank you for coming. I understand you're her half-sister and you’ll be Madison's legal guardian. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Ivy replies, her voice cool and professional. Nothing like the breathy gasps she’d made on the train.
Guardian. She's Madison's fucking guardian.
We all knew Dad had a fourteen-year-old daughter from an ongoing affair. The secret that wasn't quite secret. But we'd never met her. She was a name on documents. A reminder of Dad's infidelity we'd all agreed to ignore.
What I sure as hell didn't know was that Madison has a half-sister.
Or that I'd already had that half-sister naked in my bed less than twelve hours ago.
Fuck.
