“When my mother died, I returned to Crescent Creek Lake for the first time in years. I saw Clarissa Rose again. And for a moment, we were us again. Nothing had changed. We spent the night together.”
“Spare me the details.”
He chuckles when there’s absolutely nothing funny about this at all.
“The bubble didn’t last,” Sebastian continues, his voice bitter. “Clarissa Rose found a text from Gina. Asked me why she was wondering when I’d be home. I told her the truth. I had awife and kids. She told me to leave. To go back to the life I’d built without her.”
“That’s rich,” I say, arching an eyebrow. “She gets mad at you for having a family? A little hypocritical, considering she was married, too.”
Sebastian shakes his head, a flicker of regret in his eyes. “She wasn’t with anyone at that point.”
I frown, the puzzle pieces shifting.
“Clarissa Rose found out she was pregnant after I left,” he says quietly, words tinged with the burden of his history. “When she discovered the truth about Gina, she wasn’t with Carlos.”
The clogs in my brain turn as it all clicks into place. “He always knew I wasn’t his.”
“When Gina died, I returned again. I thought maybe, just maybe, Clarissa Rose and I could have our chance.” He pauses and shakes his head as if the very idea is ludicrous now that he’s saying it out loud. “I didn’t keep tabs on her. I feared I wouldn’t be able to stay away. I had no idea she’d married Carlos after my mother died. Had no idea she had a child. When I realized she’d named her hotel after the nickname I gave her, I knew she never stopped loving me.”
His gaze hardens, eyes locking with mine. “And then you saw us.”
The memory. My mother’s warning. The frantic look in her eyes. The phone call outside the hotel.
My breath catches as I realize what it meant. And then there’s the crushing silence.
“She told me nothing,” he continues. “No father’s name. No details. Just that I had no right to be angry when I kept a family from her.”
“She had a point,” I say quietly.
Fury flickers through Sebastian’s eyes. “I thought it was a one-night stand. And if anyone would know, it would be mybrother. I went to him and found your picture on his desk. The guilt was written all over his face. He never gave Clarissa Rose my letter, and he let me believe he was your father.”
I stare at him, everything inside me spinning. For a second, I almost believe if he’d known the truth, maybe everything would have been different.
He taps his tattoo. “My father gave me this mark,” he says. “It resembles your seat in the brotherhood. You want out, you kill the man who branded you.” His eyes flick down to his mark and then back up to me. “It’s the ultimate betrayal—a death sentence. You’d spend your life running. No protection. No loyalty. Anyone from the brotherhood who found you would be ordered to kill you.”
A cold ripple runs through me. I wait for his confession to hit me.
“So, I burned the mansion with my father, his men, and his drugs to the ground.”
A shiver climbs my spine. “You’re a murderer.”
Silence commands the room.
“That’s why my brother never reached out,” Sebastian continues. “He didn’t want our father dead because he didn’t want Clarissa Rose to have a life on the run. And he didn’t want word getting back to our father that you were mine because he’d claim the child. But if people believed the baby was his…” He gestures at me. “You’d be safe from the world we came from.”
Carlos, the man I knew as my father my entire life, protected Clarissa Rose at every turn. And she…put three bullets in him.
My stomach twists. “She never loved him.”
“No,” he agrees.
Air fills my lungs with that heavy truth.
“Before the fire, we talked. He told me if I wanted to run away with Clarissa Rose, he wouldn’t stop us. His only request was that you stay with him.”
I have to swallow twice to get my words out. “If she had the option to leave, why didn’t she?”
“Because Carlos told her what her reality would be.”
