Chapter 1
Brenna did not ask Gavin the question a third time.
She sent Tobin downstairs with her chief housekeeper, Nora, and ordered two bodyguards to remain outside the family den.
No one was to question him.
No one was to tell him what his father had or had not done.
No one was to repeat Sybil’s words about sleeping on the street.
Only after Tobin was gone did Brenna turn back toward the hallway.
Gavin had pushed the luggage off himself and was sitting against the wall, blood at the corner of his mouth.
Sybil stood near the bedroom door.
“Brenna,” Gavin said, “I can explain.”
“You can answer.”
He closed his eyes.
“There’s a boy.”
Brenna’s fingers tightened around the wedding ring in her palm.
“How old?”
“Seven.”
“Name?”
“Owen Cole.”
She waited.
Gavin forced himself to continue.
“His mother is Marissa Cole. I knew her before I met you.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
That answer landed differently than a present affair would have.
It was still devastating.
Just not for the reason Sybil apparently wanted it to be.
Brenna and Gavin had been married six years.
If Owen was seven, the relationship predated their marriage.
“What makes you think he’s yours?”
Gavin looked toward his mother.
That was the first thing Brenna noticed.
Not confidence.
Permission.
Sybil answered for him.
“There was a paternity test.”
Brenna turned.
“I asked my husband.”
Gavin swallowed.
“The result said I’m his father.”
“How long have you known?”
“Three weeks.”
Brenna stared at him.
Three weeks.
Three weeks of breakfast.
Three weeks of putting Tobin to bed.
Three weeks of discussing holiday travel.
Three weeks of Gavin sleeping beside her.
“And you said nothing.”
“I was trying to figure out what to do.”
“So you let your mother figure it out.”
“No.”
Brenna looked at the stripped bedroom.
Tobin’s books were boxed.
His clothes had been removed from the closet.
Even the framed photographs from his dresser were gone.
“That room didn’t empty itself.”
Gavin looked ashamed.
“I agreed Owen could stay here temporarily.”
“In Tobin’s room?”
“No. Not like this.”
Sybil interrupted.
“Owen is Gavin’s son too.”
Brenna turned toward her.
“That does not make Tobin disposable.”
“Nobody said disposable.”
“You told a three-year-old he was sleeping on the street.”
Sybil’s jaw tightened.
“He needs to understand he isn’t the only child in this family anymore.”
Brenna felt something inside her go completely still.
She pointed toward the bedroom.
“Put everything back.”
Sybil laughed once.
“This is my son’s house too.”
“No.”
Brenna looked at Gavin.
“It’s ours.”
Then at Sybil.
“And until I know exactly what you two have been doing behind my back, you are finished making decisions inside it.”
She called her attorney before leaving the hallway.
Not because she had decided whether her marriage was over.
Because one fact was already clear.
If another child existed, that child deserved truth.
May you like
So did Tobin.
And neither boy was going to get it from Sybil.
