“Jillian.”
“What truth, Edward?”
Gia closed her eyes and rubbed her temples.
Edward took one step toward me.
“What are you doing here?”
I almost laughed.
Even then, he’d asked me a question instead of answering mine.
“I followed you.”
Gia closed her eyes.
“Jillian, we should talk somewhere private.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“No. Not yet.”
Gia looked between us.
Edward exhaled.
“Please.”
“This is Gia.”
“I heard.”
Gia gave me a tight nod. “I’m his sister.”
I stared at Edward.
“You’ve never mentioned a sister.”
“I’m his sister.”
Shame crossed his face.
“I know.”
I looked at Gia again. She had his eyes.
“How long has she known about me?”
“Jillian…”
“How long?”
She had his eyes.
Gia answered.
“Since you got married.”
She knew about me.
I hadn’t known she existed.
“Let me explain.”
“You change clothes on the side of the road, have a sister I’ve never heard of, and get called ‘sir’ here.”
“Since you got married.”
“Start somewhere.”
Edward glanced at Gia.
She lifted both hands.
“This part is yours.”
“My father owned the business,” Edward said.
“Start somewhere.”
Owned.
I caught it immediately.
“Owned?”
Edward went still.
“He died 18 months ago.”
“And?”
“Owned?”
His silence answered before he did.
“What did he leave you?”
Edward looked toward the ground.
“A controlling share.”
For a moment, the noise from the yard seemed very far away.
“You own this?”
“What did he leave you?”
“Not exactly.”
“Enough that people here answer to you?”
“Yes.”
“And every morning you put those clothes on and leave our house like nothing changed.”
“I still work with the crews.”
“Enough that people here answer to you?”
“That wasn’t my question.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“Please come inside.”
I looked toward the building.
“You keep asking me to leave the first place where I’m finally seeing the rest of your life.”
“Please come inside.”
His shoulders dropped.
He opened the door. I followed.
That was my choice, not his.
His office was larger than our living room, expensive but oddly lifeless. Without thinking, I started rearranging it in my head, the way I always did with rooms.
His shoulders dropped.
Then I noticed the photographs.
Jamie at seven. Me blowing out birthday candles. Our dog beneath the kitchen table.
I walked toward them.
“We were allowed in here.”
Edward frowned.
“What?”
“In pictures.”
I noticed the photographs.
I turned.
“Just not in person.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Then make it fair.”
Edward sat slowly.
“My father used money to control everyone around him,” Edward said. “My mother stayed too long because she depended on him. Gia stayed. I left.”
“That’s not fair.”
“And kept working here.”
“On the crews. I wanted my own life.”
“Then you met me.”
“Yes.”
“Gia knew about me. She knew about Jamie.”
Edward looked away.
“I wanted my own life.”
“But I knew nothing about them.”
“I wanted to protect what we had.”
“From what?”
“Money. Expectations. People treating us differently.”
“Us?”
He looked at me.
“I wanted to protect what we had.”
“You made that decision alone.”
Edward stood.
“You were the first person who ever looked at me and didn’t see what my father had.”
“Because you made sure I couldn’t.”
His face tightened.
“I loved our ordinary life.”
“You made that decision alone.”
“So did I.”
“I was scared it would change.”
“Then you should’ve been scared with me.”
He stopped.
I held his gaze.
“So did I.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me about him?”
“I told you we weren’t close.”
“You told me your parents were gone from your life. You never said you had a sister. You never said your father owned this place. You never said Jamie had an aunt who knew his name.”
Gia looked down.
Edward’s voice dropped.
“I told you we weren’t close.”
“My father wasn’t someone I wanted near you.”
“Why?”
Gia answered. “People were afraid of him. He was ruthless, especially in business. Edward was the one person who kept trying to soften things.”
Edward stared at the floor.
“Dad thought that made him weak.”
“My father wasn’t someone I wanted near you.”
“And you decided I could never know where you came from,” I said.
“I wanted to be free of it.”
“Free for who?”
He frowned.
“For us.”
I shook my head.
“Free for who?”
“You keep saying ‘us’ when every decision was yours.”
Edward moved closer, but I stepped back.
“The second people knew who my father was, I stopped being Edward. I became his son. His money. His name. His expectations.”
“You thought I’d do that too?”
