Page 42 of Connor's Claim

The thought of her being someone else’s hadhurt. So much, I still felt the burn even after the wrong conclusion had been lifted.

But she’d never be mine. Never had been either.

I had to cut her off. With Convict out the door, I had a way into her enemies, and she had people at home. She’d be fine on her own. I needed to stop the insanity in me before it consumed my whole life again.

Once Everly returned to her father, I’d leave her the hell alone.

Chapter 15

Everly

In Arran’s office, we all took seats, other than Connor who stood with his arms folded. Riordan sat across from me.

My brother.

I broke the silence. “In what way are we related?”

“We share a father.”

Genevieve’s mouth dropped open. “I’m sorry, what? Dad isn’t your dad? Since when?”

He gave an unfunny laugh. “Conception.”

“Who told you this?” she continued. “If it was Dad, he was probably drunk or upset about something. He wouldn’t have meant it.”

I twisted my hands in my lap, watching on, trying to keep my expression neutral like I’d learned to in public-speaking training. I didn’t want my shock to show. Hadn’t I just considered how I knew all my father’s secrets?

A cold chill slunk through me, and my stomach curdled.

Riordan spoke. “Mum told me shortly before she died. She had that guy harassing her, and I guess she worried she was in danger so needed to give up that news. She met me from college and drove me to Victory Park, and we sat in the car while she worked through it.”

Genevieve swallowed. “What did she say?”

“That she’d had an affair with a married man, got pregnant, he rejected her, then a month later she met your dad.”

He heaved a deep breath and turned from his sister to me.

His other sister, apparently.

“Shit. That sounded bad in terms of your father. It’s only one side of the story.”

“It’s okay,” I said softly.

It wasn’t, though.

Riordan watched me. “I take it he didn’t tell you?”

Faintly, I shook my head. Never once had Father mentioned another relationship, let alone a child. I did his accounts, and no maintenance had ever been paid.

A memory rose. Of a brown-haired teenager at my front door. Riordan’s hair…it was the same colour as mine, and as my father’s. I sat forward. “Years ago, you came to our house. Long before the night you gave me that warning. That’s where I recognise you from.”

He inclined his head. “I went to confront your father, despite Mum demanding that I never try. I was eighteen, and it was a few months after she died. We’d moved back to Deadwater to live with Gen’s dad, and I just needed to know, to make sense of the bomb Mum had dropped and meet the man who I knew next to nothing about beyond what his bio told me.”

I hid my recoil. Riordan was better off staying away. I was glad it had been me who’d answered the door, though for the life of me, I couldn’t remember our conversation. Onlythe impression that there was something noteworthy about the visitor.

His gaze gentled. “I lost my nerve in revealing who I was. You were kind and offered to help make me an appointment, then chatted about the weather and said you’d fetch me a drink if I was thirsty.”

The image clarified in my head, those same words vivid now. “I remember.”