Hope lowered her legs slowly back to the bed as Gage loosened his grip around her ankles, his cock sliding free as he moved to lay on the bed next to her. She arched her back as he slid an arm under her and pulled her flush to his body, a sigh of approval rumbling from his chest that her head now lay on.

“Did I hurt you?” The hair against her cheek vibrated as he spoke and caused her nose to tickle. She wasn’t sure how to answer his question. Did he mean in general or in this moment? She went with the later.

“No.” She always felt shy after she had sex, and it was no different with him. She liked that he was rough with her, took control of her, but didn’t know how to voice that once the act was over. “It was good.”

“Good?” He chuckled. “I can probably do better than good.”

“Okay, it was really good. Is that better?” This time, it was her turn to giggle.

“I was going to go with fucking amazing, but really good gives me room for improvement.”

She scoffed and pinched his nipple playfully in retort. “Smart ass.”

He swatted her hand away from his sensitive peak and rubbed it gingerly. “Ouch. That hurt.”

“Oh, stop being a baby. You’ve done much worse to mine.”

“Yes. Yes, I have, but I don’t believe I’ve heard any complaints.”

She rolled over so she was lying on her stomach facing him. “I do have a complaint, actually.”

His brows drew up in curiosity. “Do tell, because I seem to recall only moans of satisfaction coming from you in the last few minutes.”

She knew he thought she was still talking about the sex, which she would absolutely agree was fucking amazing, but she wasn’t anymore.

“I’d like to know why you never returned any of my calls or texts.”

He closed his eyes and let out a low groan as he raked a hand down over his face. “I was hoping we could put this conversation off and live in this bubble just a little bit longer.”

She was silent for a moment, contemplating his request, but knew in her heart she needed more answers from him. She decided to compromise slightly and see if she could learn more about his presence at the party this evening. “Were you working at the party this evening? You seemed to know Ben and Drew.”

He reached out, and she watched as he brushed a strand of hair that had fallen across her eyes out of the way, and then he swiped the pad of his thumb across her lip longingly before he replied. “I know Ben. We were stationed at the same location together. My unit went out with his quite often. He was a couple years older than me and looked out for me. I didn’t meet his brother until the other day. Their regular photographer had some kind of emergency, and they asked me to fill in.”

Her chin rested in her hands and bounced up and down as she nodded. “So, it was a last-minute thing.”

“Yeah, Ben asked as a favor.” He shifted to move on his side and asked her a question. “How do you know them? Work too?”

“Yes and no. Our fathers are friends and do business together, so I’ve known both Ben and Drew most of my life, but we also handle all their hotel publications, so I was actually here professionally this evening.”

She couldn’t help but notice the shadow that crossed his features when she mentioned her father and their company, and she let out a tired sigh. “I spoke to my father, Gage. I asked about what happened to your sister. I had no idea she was with my mother at the time of the accident. He hid it from me.”

He grunted and rolled his eyes as he rose off the bed and walked to the end, finding his boxers on the floor and pulling them on. “Yeah, I’m sure he did. I would, too.”

She sat up, following his movements, her head tilting, her eyes narrowing in confusion. “I don’t understand.” She felt very naked and also got up and, finding his dress shirt, pulled it right side out and put it on. “I mean, I understand how upsetting it is to lose your sister unexpectedly like that, but why would you have kept it hidden, too?”

Gage sat back down on the end of the bed and shook his head. “What exactly did your father tell you?”

Hope went and sat next to him. “He said my mother was in the office that day and offered to give your sister a ride home because the weather was getting worse. Apparently, she was an intern there. Mother’s car slid on the icy roads and crashed on the way. My mother died at the scene, and your sister lived for several days but eventually died.”

He nodded his head. “And what else? Why did he keep it from you?”

He was insinuating something more in his questioning, but Hope couldn’t figure out what, so she continued. “He said that the girl was the same age as me, and he felt dealing with my mother’s death was enough. He didn’t want to burden me with the girl’s death, as well. Your sister, Faith, that is.”

His lips tightened in a grimace as he shook his head in disgust. “That’s it? Nothing more?”

“That’s it.” She grabbed his hand and pulled it into hers. “Except that he made me understand why you pushed me away. How seeing me, and my connection to Faith’s death, would only serve to act as a reminder of what happened to her and cause you constant pain. When he made me realize this, I at least finally understood why you pushed me away without explanation. I didn’t like it, but at least I felt like I had some kind of reason.”

He squeezed her hand gently, his eyes meeting hers, sadness rimming their edges. “Hope, there’s more to this story than he’s told you.” He stopped and let out a long breath, shaking his head regretfully. “And I’m not sure if I should be the one to tell you.”

“You have to tell me. If there’s more, I want to know.” She dropped his hand as she stood up and began pacing at the end of the bed. “Gage, please, how can we move ahead if I don’t know everything?”

“Because, I’m afraid what I’m going to tell you is not only going to change the relationship you have with your father, but that it will also change the way you look at me. I’m not sure if I can bear that. I don’t want to be the one to reveal this kind of betrayal to you.”

She stopped short and whirled to face him. “You speak of betrayals and lies and expect me not to want answers? Gage, just tell me. You must.”

“Let’s go in the sitting area then. If you keep pacing back and forth in my shirt and those heels, I’m afraid this conversation’s going to take an entirely different direction.” He stood up then. “Come on. I’ll make us each a drink. I think you’re going to need it.”

“Okay.” She spotted her panties on the floor and grabbed them, sliding them on before following him out to the two couches that were in the main area of the suite. He had opened the mini-fridge and was scanning the contents.

“What do you want? We always drank wine at the lake house.” He turned and looked at her. “Do you want me to order a bottle?”

She pointed to the small clear bottles on the door of the fridge. “I’ll take Grey Goose on the rocks. Do you have ice?”

“I’ll get some.” He walked over, grabbed the bucket off the counter, and headed for the door.

“Um, no.” Hope stood in front of him and held her hand out. “You are not going out there in just your boxers. Put a shirt on. No one is getting to see that body but me while we’re here.”

He chuckled but complied and walked back into the bedroom, emerging a minute later wearing gym shorts and a t-shirt. “Better, Mom?”

“Much.” She grinned. “Thank you.”

Ten minutes later, they were seated on the couch, both of them nursing a vodka on the rocks. He took a deep breath and began, watching as she took a sip of her drink. “I just want to state for the record, one more time, that I’m not sure if this is going to make things better or worse. And I know this is going to sound bad, but knowing you knew nothing about my sister makes it easier for me to be here with you right now.”

She lowered the glass from her lips as concern seeped deeply into her eyes. “Gage, you’re starting to scare me now. Just get on with it.”

“Okay, here goes.” He took another quick sip. “Your dad was telling the truth when he said my sister was working at your office. She was in art school in Brooklyn on a scholarship and got an internship working in one of your design departments.”

Hope nodded her head. “Yes, that’s very common. We generally offer five internships a year and send out requests to all the local art schools.”

“Faith was really excited to work for Yorke Publishing. She loved graphic design and said the creative department was very liberal and invited her to submit her work at any time. I was deployed at the time, but she wrote me emails almost every day telling me about her time here in New York.”

Hope smiled wistfully. “It sounds like you had a really close relationship with her.”

“Yeah, I guess we did. It was just the two of us, and Irish families tend to be close, I think. We probably get in each other’s business more than we should, which brings me to the next part of the story.” He took another sip of his drink and went on. “After writing me nearly every day for months, all of a sudden, I didn’t get an email for almost six weeks. When she finally responded to all of my worried notes, it was to tell me that she had fallen in love. Then, she went on to tell me that it was to a married man, but she couldn’t stop herself from seeing him because he made her so happy.”

Gage watched as Hope’s breathing seemed to falter, her cheeks growing pink, her head shaking slowly back and forth as she began to put together the pieces of the puzzle he’d been relaying to her. “No. Please, tell me it’s not who I think you’re going to say.”

He put his drink down on the coffee table and slid down the couch to be closer to her. Speaking softly, he confirmed her guess. “Your father, Hope. She had fallen in love with your father.”

Dismay sprang to her eyes as they widened in disbelief. “How? I don’t understand? I know he loved my mother. He would never cheat on her!”

“It’s the oldest story in the book. Pretty, young new secretary falls for older, sophisticated man. How is that not flattering to both of them?”

She still shook her head in denial. “I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t do that. He’s not that kind of man.”

He took her face gently in his hands and looked into her eyes. “Hope, she sent me pictures of them. He took her with him to a conference in Miami. They went sailing, had dinner on the beach. I’m sorry, but it’s true.”

“I don’t understand. I know he loved my mother completely.” She looked at him, her eyes filled with grief, cracking his heart open just a little more for her.

“I don’t think he felt the same about Faith that she felt for him. She was young, naïve, and so inexperienced. I’m sure she believed she was in love, and maybe he told her he was, too. I don’t really know because there was a lot that she didn’t tell me.”

“I still don’t understand how she came to be in the car with my mother then. Did my mother know about the affair?”

“I think so, but I can only make assumptions based on the little information she told me leading up to her death, and the lies that your father has tried to tell me.

“Wait, you’ve met my father?” Shock bloomed over her features.

“Yes, when I came home for Faith’s funeral, I confronted him. I wanted answers about what really happened.”

“So, tell me, what happened?”

“About two weeks before Faith’s death, she sent me an email and told me that she was no longer seeing Robert.” He looked at her and clarified to be sure she understood. “Your father.” She nodded that she understood, and he continued. “She said he had told her the affair had to end as it was getting too involved and he didn’t want to hurt your mother.”

Hope scoffed and muttered under her breath, “A bit late to be worrying about that, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, I think so. Anyway, a week or so later, Faith actually called me, which she never did. It wasn’t easy getting calls overseas. I never knew where I was going to be day to day, but she managed to get lucky and catch me on base. When I finally got on the phone and said hello, she started crying. I was terrified that something had happened to one of our parents, but when she could finally speak, it was to tell me that she was pregnant.”

Hope’s hand flew to her mouth as she gasped in surprised horror. “What? Pregnant?” Her eyes flew open wider as the next thought crossed her mind and flew out of her mouth. “And it was my fathers? Are you sure?”

He spoke quietly. “Faith had only ever been with one other person, her high school boyfriend, and that had been three years prior. I’m quite certain it was your father’s. Although, he didn’t believe that and told her as much when she told him. Called her a gold digger and accused her of trying to trap him. She said she pleaded with him and even showed him the date of conception to prove it was his. She was already almost five months along at that point and knew it was a girl.”

“Your poor sister. She was so young. I can’t imagine what she must have been going through.” She looked up to meet his eyes and could see how hard this was to talk about with her, and then a thought struck her. “Oh my God, Gage. Do you know what that means? Your sister was pregnant with my half-sister. What does that make you to me?”

“It doesn’t make me anything because the baby was never born and Faith is dead.” His words weren’t meant to sting, but they did.

“I’m sorry, Gage.” She spoke the words as if it was her fault his sister had died.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Hope. But perhaps your father does. Maybe if he had treated her differently, maybe she and your mother would still be here today.”

“So, my mother did learn about the affair?”

“This is the part I don’t have all the facts to. Faith sent me an email the day before the accident and told me that Robert was insisting she get an abortion, saying he would take matters into his own hands if she didn’t. She said she would never abort the baby that far along and was going to contact his wife and tell her about the baby. Faith thought, if your mother knew, she would leave your father and then he would go back to her.” Gage shook his head. “Like I said, she was very young and naïve."

“I don’t know what happened after that. The next news I heard was from my captain, informing me my sister had been in a car accident and wasn’t expected to live. By the time I arrived back in the states, she was gone.”

“But you asked my father. What did he say?”

“He actually told me the same story he told you, that his wife had given her a ride home due to the bad weather. What he didn’t know was that I knew about the affair and the baby. And when I told him I knew, he denied it all. How can a man turn his back on a woman carrying his child? He knew he had a daughter coming into this world and wanted my sister to kill it so it wouldn’t interfere with the picture-perfect life he had already created for himself.”

Hope began to shiver as the words he spoke about her father sunk in, and slow, fat tears slid down her cheeks as she finally, once and for all, understood why Gage left her at the airport that day. Not only did her father destroy a young girl’s belief in love and happily ever after, he had also just destroyed hers.