He smiled faintly. “Lots of things.”
“I like that they’re unique. Not the usual tribal—” She stopped, finally recalling where she’d seen that pattern on his shoulder.
Tribal.
It was a Hawaiian design. Jackson had it on his upper arm. And once, when she was a kid, she’d spotted it on Robert Kane’s forearm. She’d assumed it held some specific meaning to the Kane family.
Genes were funny things. She was a carbon copy of her mother—there was no way to tell who her father might be simply from looking at her. Her brother was a mix of Brendan and Maria. Jackson and Livvy resembled each other a little, but people were often surprised to discover they were twins.
Eve thought about Robert as a young man. If she unfocused for a second and took some of Gabe’s features and blurred them out, and swapped his darker skin for Gabe’s lighter, slightly tanned complexion... if she changed his hair to a deep auburn instead of almost black... switched his eyes from black to green...
Oh shit.
She’s like my sister.
Gabe’s words about Livvy, when he’d been inebriated in the back seat of her car, came back to her. When she’d been young, Eve had had a tutor who deplored the wordlike, so much so he’d forced Eve to write an essay on good grammar whenever she used it.
She’s, like, my sister.
Which was a different sentence thanShe’s like my sister.
Oh my God.
She’s, like, my sister.
She’s my sister.
Eve closed her eyes, puzzle pieces sliding into place. That picture of Robert holding a baby on Gabe’s shelf. If that baby was Gabe, it would explain why Gabe had that photo, in that place of honor, next to a photo of his adoptive family. It would explain why Gabe had been given privileges most wealthy families probably wouldn’t have given the children of their help, like private schools and family vacations and new clothes and solo trips to get ice cream.
Gabe was a year older than Paul and Nicholas. Paul had been born almost exactly nine months after Tani and Robert had married. It was entirely possible Gabe could be the product of an affair that had occurred before Robert and Tani’s marriage.
If he was Robert Kane’s child...
Oh shit. What were the odds that she and her brother would both be obsessed with Kanes? Was this some kind of cosmic joke?
This wasn’t just messy. This changed everything.
“Eve?”
She jumped. “I, um... I’m gonna go up to the house. I forgot... something...” She gathered her stuff up hastily, conscious of his gaze on her.
She didn’t get far, barely clearing the first hundred yards into the trees before a hand wrapped around her upper arm. “Eve.”
She stopped and breathed deeply, refusing to face him. If he looked at her, he’d know all the wild thoughts racing through her head. Her facade was too cracked right now to prevent him from seeing everything.
He clearly didn’t care about her facade. He exerted pressure on her arm and spun her around. His face was harder than she’d ever seen it, lips grim. She should have been terrified, but she was too shocked to feel anything but flabbergasted amazement. “What’s going on in that head of yours, Eve?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
She tried to wipe all emotion from her face, but she didn’t think she succeeded. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He stepped closer, and she moved backward, each step making her feel like she was retreating from a suspicious mountain. “You’re lying. Something is up.”
She made a rough attempt to go on the offensive. “What do you think is up?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “You know something.”
