“I think women don’t fall out of the sky at the same time unless someone is shaking the heavens.”
That’s the kind of thing Royal says when he wants to sound like he’s writing poetry on the inside of his skull. It also happens to be right more often than I like.
Amelia’s hands curl in her lap. “I’m not part of some plan.”
Sophie’s expression sharpens. “No one is saying you are.”
“They’re looking at me like I’m.”
I lean forward. “Because if you’re my sister, you’re valuable.”
She flinches.
Not from the word sister.
From valuable.
That tells me something too.
I soften my voice as much as it will go, which admittedly ain’t much. “Valuable means useful to enemies. To people who want leverage. To men who think blood is a handle they can grab.”
“Jeremy doesn’t know about this,” she says.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
That’s honest.
Good.
“I didn’t tell him,” she says. “But he went through my things. He read my mother’s letters after she died. He knew I wondered about Mike. He mocked me for it.”
Her voice changes on that last part.
Mocked.
I can hear him through her. Men like that are all the same in different shirts. They don’t just bruise skin. They bruise wanting. They find the thing you ache for and make it dirty in your hand.
Sophie’s eyes go sad.
Mine go cold.
“What did he say?” I ask.
Amelia looks away. “Nothing important.”
“What did he say?”
She rubs both hands over her face. “That women like my mother don’t know who fathered their kids. That if Mike Welles was my father, he clearly didn’t want me. That maybe I was chasing outlaw trash because trash recognizes trash.”
Derby makes a sound low in his chest.
Royal’s face empties.
Sophie whispers, “Amelia.”
My father was many things.