Tyree slumped back in his chair, all the air sucked from his lungs. He realized that he’d known what she was going to say. But anticipating her words and hearing them were two different matters.

And believing them was a third.

“I—” He cut himself off with a shake of his head. “Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but that’s just not so. I knew your mother, sure. But somehow you’ve gotten your wires crossed.”

She drew in a breath, looked him in the eye, and said very simply, “no.”

Then she stepped over the threshold into his office and sat down in one of his guest chairs. “It’s true,” she insisted. “You’re my father.”

Tyree’s head was spinning. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. But how was he supposed to convince this girl who so obviously believed she’d tracked down her daddy?

She was obviously Eva’s daughter, that part he had no qualms with at all. The resemblance was striking enough to kick him hard in the gut, after all. But except for Elena’s height and her skin tone, which was just a bit darker than Eva’s, there was nothing about her appearance that seemed to come from him. More than that, he’d seen the man with her and Eva all those years ago. The black couillon who’d slid in and stolen Tyree’s place. He’d been tall, too. And his skin quite a bit darker than Tyree’s.

Then again, maybe the bastard had done him a favor. After all, what the hell would Tyree want with a woman who’d flip so quickly to another man and then keep the first man’s child a secret from him?

Secret? No, she hadn’t kept a secret from him. There was no secret.

There was no secret, he thought again, because this girl wasn’t his daughter.

“Is this your family?” Her head was tilted as she looked at the frame with the photo of Elijah and Teiko. She reached for it, then turned it slightly on the desk so that she could see the image better.

“My wife,” he said simply, silently begging Teiko to send him strength. “And my son.”

“They’re lovely.” Her smile trembled a little, and she rubbed her eyebrow. “Look, I’m not here to—I mean, I’m not looking for anything. Honest. And maybe I shouldn’t have burst in on you like I did. I should have called or written a letter. And so I get that I’m a shock. It’s just that I found you and I wanted to meet you and—”

She cut herself off with a frown. “What is it?”

He realized he was staring at her fingers rubbing her brow, a familiar gesture he knew only too well.

He stood up, pushing out of his chair so hard that it rolled back and slammed into the wall. He bent over, hands pressed against the desktop as the room swam and he breathed hard, trying to steady himself.

He wanted to lash out at someone. Wanted to put his fist through the wall. Wanted do something, anything, to still the emotions that raged inside him.

Most of all, though, he wanted to not scare this girl. This lovely young woman who was an innocent in all of this.

His daughter.

Dear God, he had a daughter.

He closed his eyes and thought of Eli. Teiko, I’m sorry. I thought it was just the three of us.

“I really am sorry.” Elena clasped her hands in her lap. “I honestly didn’t mean to overwhelm you.” He could see the nerves, but also the composure.

“You came in before,” he said. “The other day, I mean.”

She nodded, and a pretty smile flitted across her lips. “That was a baseline test.”

“A what?”

Her chin lifted. “I was scared to come see you. I wanted to, obviously, but I was scared. So I did it in steps. Step one was getting through the door.”

“Good thinking,” he said, and an odd sense of pride filled him as he thought about this girl he barely knew and the fact that she was neither a fool nor a coward.

With a sigh, he sat back down. “Tell me about the man who raised you.”

“The man?”

He didn’t want to explain about flying out there and seeing her with her stepfather, so he said simply, “Anderson. Your last name’s not Eva’s, and it’s not mine.”

“Oh. Right. David and my mom got divorced when I was little. She doesn’t talk about him much.”

So Eva had gone from Tyree to some other guy. And pretty damn fast, too. Why? Because she wanted a father for her child? He was the damn father of her child. Why the hell hadn’t she told him? Had Eva and this David asshole already been a couple even before Tyree and Eva had gone out? And then she’d run back into his arms?

The possibilities swirled in his head, each one pissing him off. He’d gone off to fight for his damn country, thinking that there was a woman waiting for him back home. A woman and the promise of a life together. Or at least the chance to explore that. To see if they fit together long term as well as they had for the short.

A lie.

Every memory that he’d clung to as bombs exploded around him—every memory that had soothed him to sleep, chasing away the nightmares of death and dismemberment—all of it had been a goddamn lie.

He wanted to shout. To lash out. To put his fist through the goddamn stone wall. But this poor child deserved none of that. She’d come looking for a father—for him—and no matter what else he might be, he wasn’t asshole enough to take out his anger on her.

Slowly, deliberately, he forced himself to calm down.

“So what happened?” he asked. “Between your mom and this guy? David Anderson, right?”

“Right, and like I said, I was little. Only four. But from what she told me, they weren’t compatible. As far as my life went, I was raised by a single mom. David didn’t stay in the picture. Like, not at all.”

“Not an easy life raising a kid alone.” Eli had been older when Teiko had died, but still young. And it had been so hard that there’d been times when Tyree was afraid he was going to lose the kid for good to drugs or gangs or worse.

Eva and Elena at least had Eva’s father to turn to. Leroy Wilson had the resources to help his single daughter and granddaughter out.

“We did okay,” Elena said. “I had a great childhood.” She fidgeted a little, as if she was afraid she’d said something wrong. “I only mean that I didn’t come here because my life is crap and I wanted you to fix it. My life’s great. My mom’s great. I really only came to meet you.”

He sat back, made some sort of agreeable noise. The best he could manage, because at the moment he wasn’t riding the Eva’s Great train.

Elena looked down at the hands in her lap, her fingers twisting together. “She told me stories about you.”

That surprised him. “About me?”

“Sure. She wanted me to know about my dad, right? She told me about you being a Marine. Said you were a hero.”

Since he didn’t know what to say to that, he said nothing.

“I wanted to know you so bad. And I missed you, too. Even though I’d never met you, I missed you. Does that make sense? Am I freaking you out? I’m sorry if I’m coming on too strong, but I—”

“It does make sense,” he said gently as that little voice trilled in the back of his head. A daughter. He had a daughter.

And it did make sense. Because he’d missed her, too, without even knowing she existed, he’d missed her.

“I know it’s probably crazy, but I’ve wanted to know you my whole life,” she said. “And so when I learned that you weren’t dead, I just came. I really am sorry if I’m being pushy, but I—”

“Wait.” He leaned forward, his blood turning cold as he replayed her words in his head. “Who told you I was dead?”

“Well, I just knew. I mean, as I was growing up, and—”

“But who told you?” he repeated.

“I did.”

He turned his head sharply toward the voice. Toward the woman standing in the doorway, a battered duffel bag hanging from one arm. A vision. A beauty.

A ghost.

His heart skipped a beat, and for a moment, time stopped as memory layered onto reality. She wore her hair short, just as she had back then. As Elena did now. And she had those same huge eyes, that same wide mouth, those same striking cheekbones.

She’d put on some weight, but it looked damn good on her. At nineteen, she’d been a skinny thing. Now, she was a woman, with curves in all the right places. The same, yet different. And so damned lovely it made his heart ache.

Once, he’d believed she was his woman. Now, he didn’t know what the hell to think other than that she’d betrayed him. Cut him more deeply than he could have ever imagined.

“I told her you’d died in combat,” she was saying, and Tyree realized that the memory had crashed over him in the space of an instant.

A tear snaked down the side of her nose, and the lyrical voice he’d remembered so well sounded rough. “But you have to understand—”

“Understand?” He hadn’t felt the rage building until it burst out of him, pushing him to his feet. All of his grief, his anger. All of his fears of being inferior. He’d known she was well-off. And he’d damn sure known that her father didn’t approve of him. He’d thought it was real between them, but now—hell, now he knew that she’d just been having a fling. Screwing around with the soldier while she waited for her life to really begin.

“Understand?” he growled again. He saw Elena’s eyes go wide and he tried to ramp it back, but it was as if seeing Eva had opened a floodgate, and two decades of buried pain had rushed back into him.

“You couldn’t even tell her the truth?” he demanded as Eva stood frozen and mute, her eyes as wide as her daughter’s.

He moved around his desk and took a step toward her. She stiffened, but she didn’t move. Just stood tall and still and silent.

His anger spurred him on. “Had to kill me off. Had to make me out to be some hero who’d died in combat saving the goddamn world? Couldn’t give her one shred of truth about us.”

He was only inches from her, so close he could hear her sharp intake of breath. He wanted her to answer him. He wanted a fight, and he remembered only too well how quick Eva’s temper had been. “Or was there ever really an us at all?”

He didn’t see it coming, but he damn sure felt it when her hard slap landed against his cheek, leaving it stinging.

Her eyes flashed with fury, and he could see a slew of words building up behind them. He waited, welcoming the tongue-lashing. The knockdown, drag-out he craved.

But she didn’t say a word. The slap notwithstanding, she’d learn to control her temper.

She turned slightly to face his desk, and he realized that she was looking at the photo of Teiko and Elijah. Then she turned back to him, her eyes flicking down to his wedding ring before she met his eyes, and in that moment, a feeling like shame crashed over him.

He pushed it back. He didn’t have a goddamn thing to be ashamed of.

For a moment, she simply studied him. Then she shifted her attention to Elena. “You have some place to stay?”

The younger woman rolled her eyes. “No, Mom. I’ve been here a week sleeping under bridges. Yes, of course I have a place. I’m watching a friend’s apartment while he’s doing summer studies at Cambridge.”

Eva nodded, the gesture brisk and efficient. “Good. Marianne booked me a room at the Driskill. I’m going to go check in, and I’ll text you my room number. You be there at nine o’clock tomorrow and we’ll go have breakfast.” She shot her daughter the kind of stern look that Tyree had seen generals use to quell the troops. “Do not be late.”

“No, ma’am.”

She nodded again, this time in satisfaction. Then, after shooting Tyree a look so cold it about froze his testicles, she turned and walked out of his office, her movements stiff, as if she was holding a storm inside of her.

That he understood. Because he damn sure was, too. And before he had the chance to either tamp it down or let it go, Elena was on her feet, her words and temper flying. Apparently that was a trait she’d inherited from both her parents.

“What the hell?” she bellowed. “I mean, seriously? What the ridiculous stupid hell do you think you’re doing?”

He heard the light tap on the doorframe, then turned to see Brent. “Everything okay in here?” His eyes cut to Elena. “I heard shouting.”

“We’re fine,” Tyree said, the words coming out sharp despite his best efforts to chill the fuck out.

Brent’s attention shifted to Elena. “It’s all good?”

She nodded. “It’s fine. Thanks for checking.”

Brent nodded slowly, and Tyree could practically see the questions and calculations zipping across his face. “I’m the one who sent Ms. Anderson back,” he said. “Sorry if that was a bad call, but she said she was a friend of the family and Elena’s mother.”

Tyree’s glance cut between Brent and Elena. “You two know each other?”

“We met in the bar earlier,” Brent said.

“Huh.” Tyree turned to Elena, lifted a brow in question, just the same as he did when he wanted Elijah to spill all.

She rolled her eyes. “I have a place to stay here, but I’m fond of eating, and I’ll burn through my savings pretty quick. So I was asking about a job.”

“Here?” Tyree asked.

“Well, yeah. But I didn’t want to ask you because I thought it would be weird.”

He ran a hand over his shaved head and sighed. If nothing else, at least the raging fire of his temper had burned itself out. “We can talk about that later,” he said to Elena. To Brent he said, “It’s all good. And shut the door on your way out.”

To Tyree’s irritation, Brent glanced toward Elena, as if requesting confirmation of the order. Did Tyree look or sound that rabid?

But it didn’t matter. Elena nodded, and Brent backed out. And Tyree realized that he really was tight and stiff. But damned if he didn’t have a good reason.

He’d lost a daughter.

No. Eva had stolen his daughter from him.

He thought of all the moments he’d shared with Eli through the years. The kind of moments he’d never experience with Elena. First steps. First birthdays. First day at school.

He looked at her, planning to tell her that he was sorry he’d missed that. Sorry that her mother had kept those moments from both of them.

He didn’t expect—though he probably should have—the glint of steel in her eyes as she lashed right back into him again. “Just what the hell is wrong with you? My mother spent the last twenty-three years thinking you were dead, and you go off on her as if she was playing games?”

The anger Tyree understood. But the words weren’t making any sense.

“Wait, hold on. Slow down.” He frowned. “You said she told you I was dead. Hell, she said the same thing.”

“Maybe you should have let her finish. She would have explained, you know. But I guess that didn’t occur to you.” Her voice was clipped, dripping with sarcasm.

“You explain.” He sank back into his chair, suddenly unbelievably tired.

“She told me you were dead, because she believed it. Because my grandfather was an asshole. All Mom ever said was how amazing you were. Like you’d been some fairy-tale prince who’d promised to come back and rescue her. Except you didn’t come back because you didn’t survive.”

“Leroy told her I was dead?”

Elena nodded. “My grandfather. Yeah. And then she told me. She wanted to make sure I had a sense of you growing up. But I don’t think I ever really believed it. That you were really dead, I mean.”

He frowned. “Why not?”

A tiny smile tugged at her mouth. “Because then it wouldn’t be a fairy tale, would it? If the prince gets eaten by the dragon? In a fairy tale, the prince has to slay the dragon.”

“Are you sure I’m the prince in this story? Maybe I’m the dragon.”

Her forehead crinkled. “Huh?”

He thought of Eva, and the way he went off on her. The cold, closed-off expression on her face before she’d walked away. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I think maybe I’m the dragon in this one.”