Chapter Two
Morgan
“When was the last time you spoke to your father?”
“I’m not speaking to him.”
“Still? Morgan, you need to let it go. He had his reasons.”
I stared at my mother. We talked every day at the spa, seeing as she worked for me. But we had lunch together a few times a week.
I leaned forward and hissed, “Do not defend him. He could have told me the truth when he learned it. Instead, I had to find out from my best friend, and I had to pretend it meant nothing to me.”
In December, my father, who most people thought had been absent from my whole life, found out he had a son. Kingston O’Rourke. A man he believed was his little brother. A man I knew, but my father didn’t know I knew.
“Have you reached out to him?”
“What am I supposed to say, Mother? Hey, remember me, the girl who married your best friend? That one you found bleeding to death and held while I cried after losing my husband and then my child? Well, surprise, I’m your sister.”
“I think you’d be surprised to see how accepting he would be.”
“Mom, I knew who he was then, and I never said a word.”
She put her menu on the table. “You believed he was your uncle. You couldn’t reveal who your father was to anyone, noteven someone you believed was related. You never told your husband. In fact, you never told your father you got married.”
“No, I didn’t, and I’m never going to. Jude is gone. Dad never needs to know.”
“I talked to Romeo.”
My mouth dropped open. “You what?”
“He wanted to see how you were doing. If there was anything you needed.”
“It’s been seven years. Why now?”
My mother looked away, and I knew immediately she was hiding something. “What did you do?”
My mother was beautiful; it was no surprise my father fell for her. Just not enough to marry her. He’d never married anyone. I knew about Darcy, his childhood love. My father had never kept his past from me. He’d never kept anything from me except his name, and the knowledge of my brother.
I had my mother’s name. They both swore it was for safety. Apparently, my grandfather was a mean son of a bitch and had no use for girls. If I’d been a boy, he would have claimed me and raised me in the family business, as he called it.
But being a girl, he was afraid his father would use me as a pawn. So, he’d hidden me and my mother away in a small town in Virginia. He never missed a birthday, and he was there as much as he could be. I’ve often wondered why he didn’t come for me after my grandfather died, but my mother said he didn’t want to uproot my life.
So I lived on the outskirts of his.
But his life and mine were slowly encroaching, and I wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep me a secret much longer. Freyja, Scribe’s sister, was having a baby with Duncan Murphy. My father’s right-hand man.
I knew Duncan, Cian, and Mac. They’d each come with him over the years, and I saw them as uncles. Though I’d never metCaity, my aunt. She was with Cian now. Apparently, they had a daughter who was a year older than me.
I had so much family I’d never known. Family I still couldn’t be open with. Couldn’t have a relationship with.
“They never forgot you, Morgan. King still checks up on you. When Romeo was here for Jack’s wedding, I met him for coffee. He knew you didn’t want anyone to know you knew him, so he stayed away.”
“Mom, you didn’t think it would look suspicious, that my elderly mother was having coffee with a biker?”
“Elderly?” she asked, raising her eyebrows at me.
I giggled at the expression on her face. My mother was far from elderly. She was only a year younger than my aunt Maureen, whom I also hadn’t met. Maureen was married to my uncle Declan, my father’s actual younger brother. They’d had a baby last month.
