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I keep my distance, watching as Killian opens the door and immediately pulls the woman in the doorway—his mom, I assume—into a hug. If my kids grow up to be still so happy to see me in their thirties, I’ll have done something right.

Time moves too quickly as Killian hugs his siblings, and suddenly the family Dom never told me existed is standing in front of me.

“Scar, meet my mom, Carrie, and Ronan and Fallon. Everyone, this is Scarlett,” Killian introduces us, before coming to stand by my side. He doesn’t touch me, but just having him close helps.

“Hi. Um … Welcome,” I say, because “it’s nice to meet you” doesn’t feel like the right thing to say under the circumstances.

“It’s so nice to meet you, Scarlett,” Carrie says anyway. Her voice is soft enough that I think I might believe her. “I’m sorry to barge in on you without warning. I knew if I told Killian I was coming, he’d try and stop me.”

Killian grumbles something unintelligible beside me.

“It’s no problem. I understand it’s an … unusual situation.” It’s as diplomatic as I can get, and it makes them laugh a little, so it’s something.

“Well, then. Let me take a look at you.” Carrie steps in front of me, clapping her hands and looking me over in a way that reminds me of my own mom when I tell her I’m doing well, and she scrutinizes me like she doesn’t believe me.

Killian doesn’t look like Dom—something I’m damn grateful for. To strangers, he probably does, but my eyes know them both too well. I assumed he’d look like his mom, and he does. They have the same dark brown hair that falls in the kind of perfect waves I spent hours with a curling iron trying to achieve, before I had children, though Carrie’s has threads of silver running through it. They also share the same pronounced Cupid’s bow and angled jaw.

Killian has Dom’s green eyes, but they’re kind, like his mom’s. Warmer. Everything about Carrie feels warm. I know she’s sick, but she radiates energy.

She tsks, and my stomach twists. “You really are very young, aren’t you?” She shakes her head, but there’s no heat in her expression. If anything, she just looks sad.

“Stunning, though,” Fallon pipes up. “And I bet you were a knockout at eighteen. Not that that excuses a forty-something-year-old ma—”

“Fallon, what the fuck?” Killian growls at his sister.

She holds up her hands, eyes wide. “Sorry! This is my first time in this situation.”

“It’s okay. It’s awkward. I get it,” I say, giving Killian the biggest smile I can muster to let him know I’m okay. Ish. Fallon reminds me of Piper, and I already know they’re going to get along.

It’s my first time really seeing his siblings. I’ve seen pictures, but people never really look like themselves in pictures. Fallon looks more like her dad, with softer features and his sharp eyes. But Ronan … God, it’s like I’m looking at James all grown-up.

“I know, right?” Killian says, noticing the surprise on my face. “They’re like twins. They both look like our grandpa. You and James,” he tells Ronan.

Ronan lifts his brows, and it makes his glasses slip down his nose a little. “Do you have pictures?”

“Yeah. Of course.” I step aside and gesture to the wall of family pictures. Carrie, Fallon, and Ronan all move closer to it, but Killian takes a step toward me instead.

“Okay?” he mouths, reaching up to brush my hair back behind my ear.

I nod. Okay is relative and, god, I would love to take a nap right about now, because this whole situation is exhausting, but I’m hanging in there, all things considered. “You?” I mouth back, and he nods, squeezing my hand for a split second before we turn to his family.

“Shit, you two really do look alike, Ro,” Fallon says, looking at a picture of James on Landon’s shoulders. “They’re adorable, Scarlett. You made some damn cute kids. Is this your brother?”

“Yeah, that’s Landon.” I point out Piper and my parents too, talking them through some of the pictures of Caitlin and James growing up, and avoiding any of the pictures with Dom in them. They’re not blind—they can see them—but I’m not going to be the first to bring one up. I’d have taken them down years ago if I didn’t think Caitlin would ask questions. She loves this wall; she’s already asked me if we can go to the thrift store to get more frames so we can add pictures of Killian.

“Was this before Caitlin was born?” Carrie asks, pointing to a picture of me and Dom standing in front of my parents’ house where I’m very visibly pregnant. There are pumpkins on the porch steps, and Honey is curled up at our feet, wearing bat wings that Piper wrestled her into before taking the picture. She always disliked Dom, but she said I should still have pictures to look back on and share with our daughter as she grew up.

“Yeah, it was just a couple of days before I had her.”

“Were you still eighteen here?”

“I was, yeah. I got pregnant just after my eighteenth birthday. And then I was twenty-two when James was born,” I explain, and she furrows her brow.

“Christ. I felt like a baby when I had Killian, and I was twenty-three. It’s amazing how well you’ve managed on your own.”

“Oh, I’ve had a ton of help,” I say quickly, ignoring the way Killian side-eyes me. The last thing I want to do is complain about how hard motherhood is, when the only reason I’m a mom is because her husband knocked me up.

Carrie gives me a look so reminiscent of Killian when he doesn’t believe me that I almost fold. Damn. Now I know where he gets it.