28

Will walked into a firestorm the instant he opened his front door.

For the first time ever, Laura ignored the rose he extended toward her. “Will, you have to go to your mom’s right now.”

His joy in being home deflated. “But I just—”

“Sean knows.”

“Knows what?” One glimpse of Laura’s face put the pieces together for him. “How did he find out?”

“Ava told him.”

He tilted his head. “She told him? Did she tell you she was going to?” Past experience had taught him that Ava often discussed matters of the heart with Laura first.

Laura shook her head. “I had no warning. She invited him over for breakfast this morning and told him. Only said she’d decided it was time, and she needed to do it while Bill was away in Arizona golfing.”

Will sagged. “How did it go?”

Laura touched his shoulder. “Not well. He stormed out of there without saying good-bye.”

“So you want me to—”

“Go over there and get the details from your mother. Then call your brother. He’s not answering your mom’s calls.”

He exhaled. “I’m not surprised.”

It would be a far different evening than he’d planned.

Sean walked the dusky streets blindly, not caring where he was going. Why didn’t he ever guess? Was he that stupid?

Does my father know?

The thought struck him like a lightning bolt, and he stopped under the awning of a storefront. He hadn’t asked his mother that before he took off . . . hadn’t stuck around long enough to have the wits to ask. He just had to get away from the pain, the betrayal, before it crushed him.

Father. The irony was so overwhelming, he laughed out loud. The reference to father was now ludicrous. Bill Worthington had never been his true father.

Is that why he’s treated me differently? Been harder on me? Ignored me and focused on Will?

Sean’s hands started to shake from the intensity of the shock, and he stuffed them in the pockets of his zipped sweatshirt. His stomach roiled.

What about Will? Sarah? Do they know?

They had to know, he reasoned. Or at least Will did, since he was older. If so, then they too had withheld the information from him. Why? Thinking naïvely they could protect him? Protect the Worthington name?

Realization dawned. That’s why Mom didn’t want me to run for governor. Didn’t want Will to run for senator. Because this skeleton in the closet might come to light and ruin the pristine Worthington reputation.

That was what she had meant by her enigmatic comment, “Things that are hidden will be revealed.” After a lifetime of secrecy, she had felt compelled to tell him the truth, before it was ferreted out and plastered all over the tabloids.

He shivered as the outside temperature dropped. Suddenly everything and everyone Sean thought he could count on eroded from him.

Then, right as the heavens opened and the drizzle began, he heard his mother’s words: “Sometimes desperate, lonely people do desperate things. And even good people can get desperate. I wish . . .”

Sean knew what she wished for—that she had never had an affair. That she’d never become pregnant with him. That he didn’t exist. After all, his very existence jeopardized everything she held dear.

As the rain sluiced downward in earnest, Sean made a decision. He stepped out from under the protective awning and stood in the onslaught, letting the water flow unheeded around his body.

He had nothing left to lose.