My Stepbrother's Regret novel · Chapter 8 of 32
Chapter 8: Her Birthday
Forty people turned and looked at me.
Lonnie tipped his glass toward me. My mother tilted her head, sweet and waiting.
She'd boxed me in, in front of everybody, the way she'd boxed in landlords and school principals my whole life.
If I said no, I was the ungrateful girl who'd just made a scene on Myles's lawn.
If I said yes, I was hers.
Roarke said, very quietly beside me, "Don't."
I smiled at my mother.
"I'd love to," I said.
People clapped again.
Roarke didn't.
He caught me at the back steps an hour later, when the light was going orange over the lake.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting inside."
"Inside a fraud."
"Inside the office. The files. His laptop. Whatever he wants me to sign." I kept my voice down. "You can't get near him. Your father won't hear it from you. I'm the only one they'll let in the room."
"Because they think you're theirs."
"I was theirs for twenty-four years. I know the job."
He looked at me for a long moment.
His jaw worked.
"I hate this," he said.
"I know. Help me anyway."
The last guests left at ten.
By eleven my mother was asleep in a wicker chair on the sun porch.
An empty glass of rosé sat on the floor beside her, and one shoe was off.
Myles had covered her with a throw and gone up to bed.
Her phone was on the little table at her elbow, face down.
I picked it up.
She didn't stir.
I went up the back stairs barefoot and knocked twice on Roarke's door.
He opened it in a T-shirt and sweatpants, with his hair wet.
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