“Was it…?”
“We were…” His voice was dull, exhausted. “When we were kids, Archer and I were pretty close. I’m four years older than he is. We fought a lot, but we were brothers, you know. Taught him how to play football.”
A sick foreboding rose in me. I couldn’t speak.
“The affair my mother had…” Dean dragged his hands through his hair and expelled a heavy breath. “She got pregnant with Archer. I was nine when I heard her talking to her sister about it. When my mother realized I’d overheard, she told me it was a secret, never to tell, that everyone had to think Archer was my father’s biological son. She and my father couldn’t risk a divorce or the rest of her family finding out. They were helping with some outstanding debts that could have damaged my father’s career.”
“How?”
“The governor of California had just nominated him as a potential judge in the Court of Appeals,” Dean said. “Big deal for him. Step on the road to Supreme Court. He had to go through a whole review process, investigation, public hearing. He was already worried about the possibility of his financial troubles getting out. If people discovered the truth about Archer, it would have ruined everything, especially for the retention election.”
“So you kept the secret?”
“For four years,” Dean said. “Then Archer and I were arguing one day… can’t even remember what it was about. I was thirteen. Paige was in the room too. I shouted at Archer that he wasn’t our father’s real son. Of course, the kid didn’t believe me, but then he ran to ask our father and… all hell broke loose. Archer has hated me ever since.”
He fell silent, staring at the opposite wall.
“What… what did your parents do?” I asked.
“Nothing. Everyone had to fall into line. They had to pretend they had a perfect marriage. We had to pretend we were a perfect family.”
I saw it then, clear as glass. For years, Dean had blamed himself for divulging the secret that had cracked his family apart from the inside and created the cold silence. Spurred by guilt, he’d thrown his energy into being a success, an overachiever, the best at everything… all to make up for his mistake and protect the West family image of perfection.
And Archer West had done the exact opposite.
“Told you it was fucked-up,” Dean muttered.
I shook my head, unable to speak. I knew it was part of his blood now, the urge to be the perfect son.
Just as I’d always tried so hard to be good.
An ache was building inside me like steam, rolling and pitching. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Couldn’t stand the thought of you knowing.”
A lump clogged my throat. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I never should have told him.”
“Dean, you were a boy.”
He shrugged. “My mother… well, she never forgave me either. She and Paige have always stuck together, and they all blamed me, especially when Archer rebelled. Obviously he’s never stopped. And… then my grandfather got sick and I had to deal with him. But I’m done with it now. All of it.”
“I can’t let you choose me over your family, Dean.”
“No, you can’t. You can’t not let me either.”
I swallowed hard. “You can’t make that choice if I walk away.”
Tension rolled through him. “You’re not walking away.”
Despite my fear, I could not prevent the surge of warmth at his possessive tone.
“You can’t stop me,” I whispered.
He pushed off the bed and went to his suitcase. He rummaged for something and turned, extending his hand to reveal the key to his apartment.
“I’m going to make a copy of this,” he said. “And I want you to take it. But don’t use it until winter break.”
“Winter break?”
He nodded, his eyes determined. “For two weeks of winter break, I want you to live with me. Twenty-four hours a day. You and me. No classes. No work. Nothing and no one else.”
I pressed a palm to my chest. Electricity crackled in the air. My heart suddenly felt brittle.
“I… I thought you were going on a research trip over winter break.”
“I leave on January ninth and get back before the semester starts.” He stepped closer to me. “I want you for two weeks, Liv. Completely. I haven’t even begun to show you everything we’re going to do together. At the end of those two weeks, you’ll know exactly where you belong. And you won’t want to walk away.”
I stared at him, feeling as if I were poised on the brink of something both exhilarating and terrifying. Something I had never had before. Never expected to have.
“Liv, I told you once that I’ve never been able to start a new life,” he said. “But I want to now. And I want to start it with you.”
I felt something loosen inside me, something that had been knotted for longer than I cared to remember. The sick guilt and shame I’d harbored since Fieldbrook seemed to dissolve, as if it were being overwhelmed by the urgency in Dean’s voice, the heat we generated, the growing certainty of our belonging together.