The Reluctant Heiress: A Novella(38)

I want to run into his arms.

I want to run away screaming.

Flustered, I take comfort in old, combative patterns. “Why are you lurking?”

He doesn’t smile, his dark eyes narrowed as they dissect me. “What’s so important that you’re braving the lion’s den before dinner?”

My internal panic alarm starts wailing. “What? Nothing. I just wanted to say hello. I didn’t, uh, leave on great terms.”

“You’re a horrible actor,” he says, pushing off the wall and striding toward me. “You look good. Healthy. How’ve you been?”

I glance behind him, like any second his super-hot girlfriend is going to slink around the corner in a designer cocktail dress. Alex gave me the heads-up that Sebastian was bringing her, presumably so I wouldn’t embarrass myself. I told him I didn’t give a shit, then hung up on him.

“I’m great, thanks. You?”

Sebastian frowns. “I’m fine.” He glances at the office door. “Really, why are you going in there? We all know it’s their ritual to yell about politics and their investment portfolios the night before Thanksgiving.”

He’s right. But there’s no way I’ll admit my reason for seeking them out. “It’s nothing—not important. So, where’s the girlfriend?”

A smile twitches his mouth. “There is no girlfriend.”

“What?” I shake my muddled head. He’s standing too close to me. It’s overwhelming. Too much heat and muscle and enticing scent and smooth olive skin. Flustered, I take a step back.

He takes another step forward.

“Bast, what the hell?”

“We need to talk. Your room or mine?”



Never in my adult life have I run away from someone out of cowardice. As in physically turned around and booked it in the middle of a conversation. Albeit, the exchange between Sebastian and me hadn’t felt like a conversation. More like an interrogation. Intimidation. Impending conflagration.

Whatever Sebastian wanted to talk about, the look in his eyes instantly regressed me twenty years, to when fight or flight were perfectly logical responses to adolescent discomfort.

My feet fly over wood and carpet. I don’t stop running until I’m back in the kitchen. Vera and Nona turn from the stove, both of them gaping at me like I’m seconds from a meltdown. Maybe I am. At the very least, I look the part, my face flushed and breath rasping.

“Tesoro mio, what on earth is wrong?”

My wide eyes swing to Nona, then to Charles, who sits on a stool at the island munching on carrot sticks. His brows lift, hazel eyes widening.

I abruptly change my plans.

“Charles, I need to talk to you right now.” When he doesn’t move, I repeat, “Right now. Please.”

“Okay, sure.” He tosses a half-eaten carrot to the counter and slips off his stool, walking quickly to me.

I offer Nona and Vera a quick and false, “Everything’s fine,” before grabbing my brother’s arm and pulling him from the room.

As we walk upstairs and down a hallway, I’m not certain of my destination until the destination appears before us—our mother’s art studio. Yanking open the door, I flip the light switch, pull Charles inside, and close and lock the door behind us.

“You’re making me nervous, Candace.”

As soon as I look at him, I know this is the right decision, if a completely selfish one. Charles may have a reputation as the most even-tempered of us, but it’s because his inner strength is fathoms deep. In many ways, he held our family together after Mom died. Whether he was playing the role of court jester, mediator, or simply being his strong, silent, and dependable self, he was never given due credit for putting his own grief on the back burner to keep us afloat.

“You know you’re the rock of this family, right?” I ask softly.

His brow pinches. “What’s going on?”

So I give him my burden—the burden of truth.

“I might have breast cancer.”





25





The cold should bother me, but it doesn’t. Dry leaves crunch under my boots. My breath expels in puffs of pale mist. Above, branches rub and squeak, their bare limbs directing soft shafts of moonlight to the forest floor.

I feel separate from myself, insulated by an almost supernatural calm. While my teeth chatter and my fingers tingle with the need for gloves, my mind is soothingly disconnected. I wonder if this feeling, right here, is why people go to confession. Not that I unloaded my sins—well, except for my initial avoidance of calls from my doctor—but I do feel unburdened.

Poor, unlucky Charles, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t deserve him. Any of them, really—the small, incomparable army of Hughes men. The first thing Charles did after I told him was drag me to my father’s office. I could barely meet my dad’s worried eyes or Deacon’s searching ones as Charles in turn unloaded his new burden onto them.

Where does a confession stop? What happens when there’s no one left to hold the secrets?

After my mother’s diagnosis, my parents decided not to tell us right away. They wanted to protect us, to give us a little more time to be innocent, untouched by true suffering. But fear itself is a cancer that spreads—must spread—according to its very nature.