The Heiress' Return: No More Pretending novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Roads

I asked him that night, on the terrace, with the sea turning black below us.

"What did you know two years ago?"

Ronan put down his glass.

He had known I would ask, and he didn't make me wait.

"The night of the crash, Camille told me there was another girl."

I sat down on the stone step in front of his chair.

"She was out of her mind that night. She said it was a secret, that she wasn't a Hollister, that there was a second daughter somewhere who was." He looked at the water. "I couldn't prove a word of it from a hospital bed. So when I could sit up, I started looking."

"For me."

"For you. Every week for two years. The records at Cedars were sealed, and the investigator I paid kept hitting the same wall." His jaw worked. "Gordon found you first."

I had been ready to be angry.

I had it all lined up, and it wouldn't come.

"You looked for me," I said.

"Yes."

"And you didn't say so in the study."

"No. I should have."

"Then say it."

He met my eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should have told you the first night, and I didn't, because I was afraid you'd walk out of the gate. It wasn't fair to you."

"No. It wasn't."

I stood up, and I put my hands on either side of his face.

"Thank you for looking," I said.

He closed his eyes.

"Come inside," he said, hoarse. "Please."

His bedroom was dim and bare, with a wide low bed and the windows open to the sound of the ocean.

He stopped the chair beside the bed and set the brake.

"I'll get myself up," he said. "It's quicker. Don't help unless I ask."

"I know."

He took the headboard in one hand and swung across in a single motion, and I stood and watched his arms do it.

He sat on the edge of the mattress and looked up at me.

"I want you to know what you're getting," he said. "From my ribs down it's a map with half the roads missing."

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