Empire of Desire(Empire #1)(99)

My chin trembles as I stare from him to Aspen. The her he’s talking about is me, right? No one left another baby at his door twenty years ago.

And…did he say a mother?

Aspen?

Mother?

My fingers dig into the metal of the car I’m hiding behind and it burns.

It burns so hot that I release it with a jolt and jump up. I do it so suddenly, so violently, that both of their attention jerks toward me.

Life as I’ve known it so far seems like a big, giant lie.

And I’ve been the joke all along.





35





Nathaniel





I knew something was wrong the moment I saw Gwyneth sneaking up behind a car.

Then came King’s fucking loud voice, because he doesn’t know how to stay quiet.

Then Aspen’s full-body shudder as she barely remains upright.

But the only person I care about is the girl who’s standing in front of them, her mouth falling open and her nails clinking against each other fast, as if she’s on a mission to injure herself.

I step to her side, holding her elbow because she’s on the verge of something, and it’s not something good.

Her gaze slides to mine and it’s a myriad of confused, muted colors as she gulps. “Nate…they said…Dad…called her my mother. It’s not true, right?”

I tighten my jaw, then glare at King, who’s clenching his fists because he knows he fucked up. He couldn’t just keep quiet. No, he had to make a scene and have her find out this way.

He hasn’t been subtle at all since he woke up from the coma. Even I could see that his animosity toward Aspen was uncalled for. She hit back as hard as she could, but he’s been going as far as sabotaging her cases, which isn’t like him. He never did that in the past, no matter how much he hated her.

But after he hit his head, he started going after her like he does to Susan, ruthlessly and without pause, which means it’s a personal grudge, not just some differences in ideologies.

That’s when I dug deeper—met with his PI, got him drunk, then asked him a few questions that he answered like a parrot. And my suspicions were right. He did find Gwyneth’s mother for King and told him about it the day of the accident, which is probably why he lost control of his car in the first place.

“Can you believe he’s been searching for her for years when she’s been under his nose all this time?” The PI laughed, then went on with a grandiose speech to show how smart he was in connecting the dots of the timelines they met. He even performed a secret DNA test by stealing Aspen’s toothbrush from one of the hotels she stayed at and using a sample from Gwyneth that King willingly gave him.

That’s what I was going to hold over his head and wouldn’t have hesitated to use so he’d stop trying to separate us. But it’s all null and void now that Gwyneth knows.

“Right?” she repeats, staring at her father now. “Tell me it’s not true, Dad.”

“Angel…” He steps toward her, but the moment he reaches for her, she jerks into my hold.

He pauses, flicking his lighter on and off, but it’s not in the slow, steady pace that he’s used to. He’s doing it as manically as her nail-clinking.

“It doesn’t make sense.” Gwyneth shakes her head slowly. “She can’t be my mother; she’s only thirty-five. When did she even have me?”

“I was fourteen when I found out I was pregnant,” Aspen says quietly, but for the first time in the years we’ve known each other, her voice shakes.

She’s not the type who shows her emotions. Like me, she doesn’t even get emotional. That’s why we got close in the first place.

Right now, though, her put-together front and aloofness are gone. Maybe that’s been a fa?ade, too, just like with me, because she’s crossing her arms over her chest to stop them from trembling.

Like Gwyneth does sometimes. Now, that I know they’re mother and daughter, I can see the similarities. She has her nose and a darker shade of her hair.

And that heterochromia? It’s a mixture of King’s blue-gray eyes and Aspen’s hazel ones.

“You should’ve left your age in the note when you threw me in front of Dad’s house then. That way, I wouldn’t have felt abandoned by the woman who gave birth to me.” There’s so much venom in her voice that she trembles with it.

Aspen jolts, but instead of stepping backward, she starts toward us. “Let me explain.”

“No, no, no! You had twenty years for that. Twenty damn years of me crying on my birthdays because they remind me of the mother who threw me away on that same day.”

“Just hear me out. Five minutes, no, three is enough.”

King blocks Aspen’s way. “She said she doesn’t want to talk to you. So fucking disappear.”

“You shut up, shut up! You ruined my life, you fucking asshole, and you don’t even remember it, so don’t stand there thinking you’re better than me. You’re not.”

“Oh, I don’t just think I’m better than you, I am. It’s a fucking fact. I didn’t throw away a few hours old baby in the cold, not caring whether she lived or died. I raised her, I took care of her. I became both her father and mother when you were living your life with not a care in the world. So go back to that life and leave us the fuck alone. You vanished once. Surely you can do it again.”