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1
ARIA
“Sorry about that, sis.”
Four words with the power to take everything I thought I knew and turn it upside down.
From a complete stranger.
Thoughts of my parents’ happy marriage and my secure family hit me all at once. So many of my friends came from miserably broken homes and hardly knew their parents. I used to think we were better than them. Looking back, it’s not something I was proud of.
Only the sharp pain in my bottom lip alerted me to the fact that I was chewing the hell out of it, gazing out the window of the SoHo restaurant where my sister was supposed to meet me for lunch. She would be as shocked as I was when I confessed everything that went down earlier when I learned exactly how a deer feels when headlights bear down on them.
The only thing I couldn’t convey was how he’d made me feel for weeks. Showing up in random places. The spin class where he’d stared daggers at me until I couldn’t stand the thought of showing my face. Standing behind me in Starbucks. Hanging around outside the restaurant where Valentina and I ate dinnera week ago. It had gotten to the point where I looked for him wherever I went.
He hadn’t said a word until today, but there hadn’t been a need to. His intense energy spoke volumes until he’d decided to stop playing around and finally introduce himself as a member of my family.
“My name is Miles.” He offered a charming grin while his eyes—green flecked with gold and apparently blessed with the ability to stare through me—darted over my face, searching for my reaction to his little announcement. It made my skin crawl the way he observed me like a predator anticipating his prey’s first move.
What was I thinking? He was nobody. A creep with an accent. “I don’t care what your name is, and I don’t care what scam you’re trying to pull.” I snatched my matcha latte from him, which, for some reason, made him laugh like there was something funny about that. “And if you think you’re the first person ever to claim you came from one of my dad’s swimmers, think again. I’m not impressed.”
“So distrusting,” he murmured. His accent would’ve been a serious turn-on if the rest of him wasn’t so repulsive. The sensual mouth now curved in a knowing grin. The laughter in his eyes. He scrubbed a hand over his head, raking his fingers through short, dirty blond curls that were just a little too long. They gave him sort of a roguish look.
“Whatever you say.” I wasn’t about to give him another moment of my time. There I was, worrying about him being a dangerous stalker when really he was nothing but a pathetic jerk with a scam in mind. Why he’d spent weeks intimidating me was anybody’s guess.
“Why don’t you ask your father?” he called out to my back. I turned away, determined to forget he existed. “Ask him about Leila.”
I paused my retreat, turning slowly to find him sneering down at me. What was it about the look in his eyes? The way they crawled over my body, pinning me in place? I would’ve sworn he knew everything about me, down to the color of my underwear. A chill ran through me when he moved closer, ignoring the crowd around us. “Run away if you think it will help, but I promise it won’t.”
How had he made that sound like a threat? How could he possibly be a threat to me? Somehow, I had regained control of my legs and wasted no time getting the hell away from him, almost knocking a toddler to the floor along the way. His revelation had unsettled something deep down, and to say I had been freaked out was an understatement.
If only he hadn’t used her name.Leila.She was part of Dad’s past before I ever came along. But she was very real, and they had once been married. I might have been able to dismiss the whole thing as a potential restraining order if it hadn’t been for her name.
Was Miles trying to say he was my brother by Leila? Why would he come at me with such a nasty, almost threatening attitude? I had nothing to do with our parents’ past.
If we had a half-brother, why wouldn’t Dad tell us?
Did Mom know?
The question burned a hole in me as I sat there, toying with a glass of chardonnay and waiting for Valentina. I wouldn’t normally have wine with lunch, but today, it felt necessary as my thoughts insisted on spiraling to a very dark place. If Mom didn’t know there was another kid out there, I couldn’t bring myself to hurt her by breaking the news. Was it my place to say anything? Should I talk to Dad first and figure out how much of what Miles said was true?
Why did it have to be a secret? I realized that was what bothered me the most. It felt like a dirty secret. If the wholething was innocent, something that happened before Dad and Mom got together, why not come out and talk about it? Why hide Miles from us?
It made me think back on something I’d overheard Dad talking about a long time ago. I used to love hanging around when he was with his best friends, creeping up on his study while they were having guy talk or whatever it was. We weren’t supposed to hang out nearby as they had a tendency to talk about things kids shouldn’t hear.
Come to think of it, it was Mom and Dad’s tenth wedding anniversary, and the big party they’d thrown at the apartment had wound down. Uncle Barrett and Dad had retreated to the study for brandy or something, and I had tiptoed behind them instead of going to my room to change out of my party dress. Uncle Barrett’s voice had floated out through the half-open door. “Ten years. Did you ever see yourself reaching this point back when you were married to Leila?” He’d laughed.
“Don’t speak that bitch’s name,” Dad had warned in a voice that made me wince, his anger evident.
“All I know is you became my fucking hero the night you turned her down in front of that whole party full of people.” I had peeked in to see Uncle Barrett laughing, slapping a hand against Dad’s back, and raising a glass like he was toasting him. “No wonder she ran to England when she knew you didn’t want her back.”
And Miles did have an English accent, didn’t he? It still didn’t mean anything. My father had not and would never cheat on Mom. That much I knew, and nobody could convince me otherwise. He was so in love with her, it was insane, and their relationship had taught me from a young age what to expect from a man. I would never settle for anything less than what they had.
So why keep Miles a secret? Why had I never heard his name until today? Was it possible that Leila tried to get Dad back and slept with him? Maybe she had deliberately gotten herself pregnant. Growing up the way we had surrounded by very wealthy people with complicated lives, it wouldn’t have been the first time hearing a story like that.
The difference was the story had never involved my parents.
My life.
