“Yeah, well, I’m not so sure about that anymore.” A question had been hovering in the back of my mind. “Have you ever met him?”
Axel looked over at me and nodded. His jaw was clenched as the muscles in his neck tensed again. “I grew up with the fucker. I thought he was her boyfriend who traveled for work. But I didn’t put it together until I read her letters. That’s also how I found out about you.”
A wave of sorrow and anger consumed me. I wanted to sob and fuck shit up at the same time. Clenching my fists as tightly as I could, I fought back the truth. “He was living a double life.”
Axel reached over and put his hand on top of mine. The effect of his touch was different from Thomas’s, but it still helped. “Yeah. But she finally had enough when she met Perry, my stepfather. She found someone who really cared about her and me. What I didn’t understand was if he was going to take one of us, why not both?”
I looked up at him. “That’s what I’ve been asking myself, too.”
“Did you ask him?”
My eyes went to Thomas, then I looked down. “No. I’m sorry. I didn’t get that far. Had to get out of there, and I haven’t spoken to him since I walked out. Not that he hasn’t blown up my phone.”
Axel chuckled, but soothed my nerves just like a big brother would. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. We’ll get to the bottom of it. Like I said, I’m sure you handled it better than I would have. I might’ve done more than wipe his desk.”
Unclenching my fists, I ran my fingers through my hair. I already felt like I’d known him my entire life, and in a way, I had. “I don’t know what to think anymore, Axel. My mind keeps replaying every single moment I spent with him, trying to piece things together. He brought me over here when I was seventeen. Showed me the office, claiming it was a boys’ trip. My mother was a shrew to me every time he came home from a business trip. Not to my sisters, just to me.”
Axel huffed out a heavy breath. “Seventeen. That’s about the time she was first diagnosed. We’d noticed she was experiencing gaps in her memory, but didn’t want us to know. She’d just married my stepfather the year before and proceeded to actively ignore her symptoms. Not that anything could have been done to stop it.”
Knowing our mother was suffering her own personal hell softened my attitude. It was just another thing my father had taken from me. “Where is she now?”
He sighed. “She’s at home with Perry. I pay for a nurse to help with her, so he can work and have a life. She always knows me when I see her during the offseason. But when I’m away for months at a time, sometimes she has to be reminded of my name.”
“Does she ever confuse your name with mine?”
He nodded. “Sometimes. I just thought it was the M names.”
I swallowed, thinking how hard that must be for him. He had our mother, but I had our father. Even though I didn’t know her, I needed to help with her care. “I want to help you pay for whatever they need. It’s only right.”
Axel turned to me. “I can more than cover it, but I understand.”
It made me happy he didn’t fight me on it. Even though he was also a professional athlete, I didn’t want him to handle it all alone. I wanted us to do it all together. ”How did you find out about me?”
“Letters. My stepfather was going through some things about six months ago and found a box she’d been keeping, with instructions to give it to me. We were trying to make the playoffs, so I put it away until the season ended. It was odd how she kept telling me she was sorry.” He paused and rubbed his hand over his mouth. “I thought she was talking about her illness. When I finally got around to opening it, there were two banded stacks of letters. One stack for me, the other addressed toMy Sweet Mason. There were letters from every year on our birthday until a couple of years ago. They progressively got shorter and shorter. I have them for you at my flat.”
I hung my head as I thought about our mother. Running my hands through my hair, I fisted it. It gave me hope that she hadn’t given me up willingly. That she regretted losing all those years with me. And it hurt me all over again. “How did all this happen to us?”
Axel took a deep breath, then released it as if he were calming himself. “According to her, he was visiting Europe after graduation, and they fell in love that summer, like some fucking Romeo and Juliet. But, shocker, he was betrothed to your stepmother. Before he went back to America, they conceived us. Nine months later, when we were born, he and the other woman took you, and our mum kept me.”
My stomach roiled at the thought of being a pawn in their love triangle. My mind jumped from scenario to scenario, trying to make it make sense. But nothing stuck. “Was she a good mother to you? Because mine was not.”
Axel’s jaw clenched. Even though he was only three minutes older, I could feel his protective instincts come out. He took my hand, then pulled me into a hug. “Fuck them all to hell. They’ll never separate us again.”
Tears filled my eyes as relief washed over me. With Axel and Thomas in my corner, I would be okay with them.
Chapter 17
Thomas
I stared into the sparsely supplied refrigerator as it became obvious that I needed to buy groceries. The staples I’d ordered before our arrival were the basics, but nothing I could feed two professional athletes. So when they realized that neither of them had eaten in half a day, Axel suggested we grab a bite at a local pub. “Are you okay going out into the world as a twin? I might be recognized, but with you, we’re going to draw attention.”
Mason’s face lit up. “Yeah. I’m more than good with that.” He looked over at me. “You okay with that, Thomas?”
I grinned at him. “Of course, Champ. You guys go and spend some time together.”
Mason furrowed his brow quicker than I expected. “No. I’m not going without you. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. So no flippin’ way.”
He was so damn cute when he put his foot down. How could I say no? “Okay. I’ll go.”
