The last attempt I made was when Cam was one and I had no money to buy him milk. I was young and naive then. With time, I realized Dean, along with the rest of the band, must have gotten letters and accusations like that all the time. I doubted Dean would remember that night or the broken condom. I’d never imagined I’d see him again.

  When I’d been told he was coming to the college to have lunch with the president after making some huge donation, I’d wanted to get Cam his autograph. The man whose DNA was the reason he loved the drums so much was going to be within my reach. Cam had wanted it because that same man had become his idol.

  The turn it had all taken this summer wasn’t something I could have prepared myself for. Now, I had let it go on so long that I wasn’t sure how to begin to tell Dean. Or Cam. I didn’t know if it would be good for either of them. I’d been lying to them both. Withholding a truth from them. Something I knew with absolute certainty.

  Cam was Dean Finlay’s son.

  It had been over two months since I’d had sex with Bradley when I slept with Dean on his bus. Bradley had worn a condom, and it hadn’t broken.

  Nine months, three weeks, and a day after I slept with Dean Finlay, Cam had entered this world. I cried because I didn’t know how I was going to take care of him and because I hadn’t known I could love so strongly. I’d never loved anyone like that. His little hand grasped my finger tightly, and I knew then that I would do anything I could to keep him safe.

  The delivery nurse, Janie Meadows, had just celebrated her sixty-third birthday the day before Cam was born. She took us home with her, and we lived there for the first ten months of Cam’s life. Janie was good to us. She helped me find my feet and get my GED. She instructed me on getting food stamps and help from the state. When she died from the cancer I hadn’t known she was hiding, she had left what little money she had to me and Cam. It had been the only thing that kept us off the streets.

  For years, I’d told Cam stories about Janie. Telling him she had been our guardian angel. I often wondered if she would be proud of me now. I liked to think she would be.

  One thing I knew for certain was, Janie would tell me that it was Cam’s right to know his father. No matter how Dean took the news. Even if I turned whatever feelings Dean might have for me into hate. Possibly disgust. My not telling him and Cam was selfish. I knew it. I just didn’t know how to begin. Where to start.

  The more time I spent with Dean, the harder and harder that conversation seemed.

  The door opened, and my internal struggle was halted by the face I had grown to love. I’d never meant to fall in love with him. Out of all the men in the world, he was the last one I should have given my heart to. He was the one that could destroy me. Destroy everything.

  “I was hoping for a happier look on your face at the sight of me,” Dean said, closing the door behind him as he studied me.

  I pushed all of those thoughts back and smiled at him. “Sorry. Long day. My head was somewhere else.”

  “Clearly, I’m needed here,” he said, closing the space between us.

  When his hands touched my waist, I glanced up at him and knew that even if I lost this—him looking at me as if he wanted me, as if I mattered to him—I loved him too much to continue lying. Cam needed to know him for who he was, but first, I would have to tell Dean. Let Dean decide how to tell our son.

  He lowered his mouth to mine, and I let myself enjoy the kiss as if it were the last one. I clung to him, wishing it were different. That life hadn’t put me in this situation. I had known getting too close to him was dangerous, but I’d done it anyway. I had let all my guards down and fallen in love with him. He pulled back slowly and stared down at me.

  “Please tell me we are alone,” he said in a husky voice.

  I shook my head, and he groaned.

  Smiling, I stepped back just as I heard Cam’s footsteps running down the hallway.

  “Dean!” he called out happily. “You are not going to believe this! The junior high marching band instructor came to hear us play today since we will be moving up next year, and he asked me after band practice if I wanted to step up this year. He said I could march this season at the JV games.”

  Dean walked over to him and gave him a high five. “That’s fucking incredible!” Dean said. “When is the first game?”

  “They’re ordering me a uniform. He said I could start next Thursday. He said if I keep showing this kind of talent, I’d be moving up to the varsity band before I even got to high school.”

  Hearing it come from Cam and seeing the excitement on his face made me tear up again. I’d choked up after talking to his band teacher. But I was closer to tears now, seeing Cam so proud as he told Dean.

  “Mom, are you crying?” he asked me with a smirk.

  I shrugged, then sniffled and wiped at the stray tear that had broken free. “Maybe a little,” I said, then walked over to him and hugged him to me. “I am so proud of you,” I said as I held him tighter than he wanted me to. Especially in front of Dean. It wasn’t cool for your mom to hug you.

  I hated how that had changed and how life went too fast and took turns you weren’t ready for.

  thirty-two

  dean

  Brielle had been different last night. I didn’t know what it was, but something wasn’t right. Sex had still been incredible. She’d still fallen asleep in my arms. I just couldn’t get an easy feeling about things. We had been getting along so damn smoothly.

  I woke up, excited about my day, about seeing Brielle, working with Cam on the drums. They were the biggest part of my life now, and I wasn’t sure when that had all happened.

  I’d gone from wanting to fuck Brielle endlessly to needing her near me all the time. I hated when she was at work. I missed her. I counted down the hours until she came home.

  She was coming up to the penthouse as soon as Cam left with Jeremy for a campout that Jeremy’s dad was taking them on. Cam had been talking about it all week. I’d taken him to get a good sleeping bag and some other supplies. Brielle had offered to pay me back, and I’d bent her over the sofa and fucked her until we were both screaming our release.

  The knock on the door before she opened it always made me smile. She knew my code. She knew she didn’t have to knock. She did it anyway. I couldn’t decide if I was going to strip her naked and take her to the sauna first or make her talk to me. Get off her chest whatever it was that had been bothering her.

  When she walked into the living room, I could see on her face what we would be doing first. She was ready to talk. Whatever it was, I wanted to get it out of the way. This was our alone time, and I wanted every second of it.

  “What is it?” I asked her, walking over to take her hand. “Get it out. Something has been heavy on your mind since yesterday. I’ve seen you get distracted before, but not like this. Let’s hear it, so I can fuck you.”

  She laughed then, but it didn’t reach her eyes. What the hell was wrong? What could be this … holy fuck.

  I grabbed her arm then and looked into her eyes. “You’re not pregnant, are you?” I asked.

  I’d shot so much cum into her that I wasn’t sure the IUD could handle it all. I was fifty-three years old. I was too old for a baby.

  She laughed loudly, then covered her mouth with her hand. Those big blue eyes staring up at me. I let out a sigh of relief. That was clearly not it.

  “Okay, I take that as a no,” I replied, grinning at her amusement.

  “Can we sit?” she asked me then.

  This seemed serious. As in I can’t do this anymore, we need space serious. That wasn’t going to fucking happen.

  I looked at the sofa and back at her. “You’re not ending this,” I told her.

  She gave me a sad smile and shook her head. “No, Dean, I am not ending this.” But the way she said it sounded as if there were unspoken words left hanging.

  I walked over to the other side of the sofa and sat down. Spread my arms across the back of the sofa and propped my feet up onto the ottoman. “In that case, spit it out, so we can go fuck,” I said, then winked at her.

  She walked over as if she were going to sit, then paused. I watched her take a deep breath.

  “Okay, I need to go back in time. Bear with me,” she said.

  I nodded, waiting for her to say more.

  She opened her mouth to say something, then shook her head and closed her eyes. “I don’t know where to begin exactly. I’m sorry. I thought I did, but now, I’m not sure.”

  “Just talk, baby. You’ve got my full attention,” I assured her.

  “That concert of yours I didn’t go to,” she began.

  I nodded my head in encouragement.

  “Well, I didn’t get inside, but I did walk around outside. I was so lost in thought, trying to accept my best friend was inside with my boyfriend and that they’d been messing around behind my back for a while.” She waved a hand, as if that was unimportant. “Anyway, I got lost. It was dark, and then a man spoke up. I got nervous, realizing I’d walked away from the cars and security to the back of the coliseum.

  “The man was alone and smoking a joint. He talked to me a moment, and then he walked into the moonlight. I was speechless. There before me was … you.”

  Me? I frowned and waited for more. Why was she just now telling me about this? It seemed strange. I wanted to ask, but I needed to hear more.

  “We talked. You thought I was a groupie. I didn’t correct you. I was young,” she said.

  “How young?” I asked.

  “Seventeen.”

  My stomach knotted up, and I swore. “Please tell me I didn’t fuck you.”

  She took a deep breath, and her gaze leveled on mine. I had my answer. I had fucked a seventeen-year-old kid.

  “I told you I was twenty-one,” she said. “You’d asked, and I lied. I had known you wouldn’t keep talking to me if you knew my age.”

  “And I believed you?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  I ran a hand through my hair and dropped my feet to the floor, leaning forward with my elbows on my knees. I needed to hear all of this, but there was a part of me that wanted her to stop talking now. I wanted to end story time and go fuck the grown Brielle.

  “We went to your bus. You had me take off my dress for you. Then, you took me to a bed, and we had sex. You passed out right after you climaxed and rolled off me. I stood to leave.”

  She stopped then and closed her eyes. Her body was strung so tight that I was afraid to hear what more she had to say. This wasn’t going to be a funny story. It wasn’t something that we were going to laugh about, then go fuck. She was about to change everything. I could feel it. The tension in the room was too thick.

  My hands clenched into fists as I waited, terrified of what she was going to say.

  “The condom was broken. There was cum between my thighs.” She swallowed hard, and then she looked at me, her eyes now wet with unshed tears. “Nine months later—” she said and then covered her mouth on a sob.

  I sat there, numb. What she was telling me sank in. Questions started to add up in my head. But nothing came out. I just sat there. My gaze dropped from her to the wall behind her.

  Finally, after several moments—I wasn’t sure how long we’d stayed there, silent—I asked, “Are you sure he’s mine?” I didn’t look at her when I asked it. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her. The lies. Everything I’d believed about her no longer held up. I was questioning it all.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  I managed to nod, then ran a hand over my face. I was stunned. I had never been this stunned in my life.

  “I’ll need a paternity test done,” I said then.

  She let out a shaky breath. “I’m not asking you for anything. I don’t want child support, Dean—”

  I stood then, anger slowly building inside of me. I swung my gaze back to her. “This isn’t about you, Brielle. It’s about the fact that you claim I have a son I didn’t know existed. A boy who needed to know his dad. I want a motherfucking paternity test. If he’s mine, he needs to know. I need to know. You took nine years from us.”

  Tears were running down her face now. I couldn’t comfort her. Not now. Not after this.

  “I’ll set up the test. Have him here tomorrow at noon. We will do it then,” I said to her.

  I wanted to ask her if she’d tried to get in touch with me. I wanted to know why she had waited until now to tell me. Had she meant to suck me in with her body and my need for her first? Had that all been a part of her plan?

  “You need to leave,” I said instead of asking her anything more.

  Right now, she was the last person I wanted near me.

  She didn’t say anything as she turned to go. No attempt at explaining. No apologies. She just left silently as I stared out the window, thinking back to every conversation I’d had with her since I’d walked into that office.

  If she had been the woman I thought she was, she’d have told me about Cam. She’d have found a way to reach me. She wouldn’t have kept that from me. Kiro had several kids, and all his baby mamas had been able to reach him. To let him know his kid existed. Brielle had done nothing.

  Nothing.

  thirty-three

  brielle

  Standing in front of the mirror in my bathroom, I stared at my reflection. My eyes were swollen and puffy from crying myself to sleep last night. I reached up to brush my wet hair. I’d hoped a shower would make me look less of a mess. When Cam returned home, I couldn’t look like this. He would get worried. He’d ask questions. He was going to ask questions anyway when we went up to Dean’s penthouse for a paternity test.

  I gripped the brush to my chest, and my eyes welled up with tears again at the thought that Cam could turn away from me too. He wanted a father. I knew that. How would he react when he found out the guy he worshipped was his father and I had kept that from him for nine years? Would he hate me too?

  A tear rolled down my face, and I wiped it away. I had to get control of myself. Cam needed me to be strong and levelheaded. I had to protect him. It was my job, although right now, I felt like a complete failure at it.

  Dean couldn’t even look at me after I told him. When he got the results back and saw that Cam was his son, then what? He would get him every other weekend, and we would be awkward around each other, barely speaking.

  I didn’t want that, but then I hadn’t wanted to fall in love with the father of my child either. As crazy as it sounded, I had known better. I had fought against it. Then, he’d made me love him anyway.

  This wasn’t about me anymore. It was about Cam. It was about Dean. I was just the woman that linked them.

  I washed my face with a cloth and swore I was done crying. I then dried my hair, brushed my teeth, got myself dressed, and went to the kitchen to find tea bags for my eyes. I needed something to help them look better, and I was running out of time.

  By the time Cam walked in the door, I’d used some makeup to cover things up a bit. Cam, however, paused and studied me.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked me.

  I smiled and shook my head. “Nothing. Tell me about your trip.” I hoped his excitement over the trip would be enough to distract him.

  He frowned a moment, trying to decide if I was telling the truth, then began talking about all they had done. I listened—or tried to listen—as I worried over what was about to happen next. When Cam was done talking, I pulled him to me and hugged him tightly.

  “I love you,” I said fiercely.

  “Uh, yeah, I love you too,” he replied, sounding confused but returning the hug.

  “Everything I have ever done since the day you were born is because I love you. I made mistakes because I was young, but I have always loved you completely, and I will always love you. No matter what life throws our way, I’m here.”

  He pulled back and looked up at me. “Mom, you’re not sick, are you?” he asked with fear in his eyes.

  “No, I’m not sick.”

  “You swear?” he said.

  I nodded.

  He relaxed then. “Okay, so it’s just you doing weird mom stuff. I can deal with that.”

  I smiled at his comment, but inside, I wanted to cry.

  “We need to go up to Dean’s penthouse,” I began.

  He beamed at the mention of Dean’s name. “Okay!”

  I wanted to grab his arm and explain first, but how would I do that? Should I without Dean?

  He headed for the door before I could stop him, and I had no choice but to follow.

  “What are our plans?” he asked as the elevator doors closed behind us.

  We had no plans. Maybe one day soon, he and Dean would have plans, but there wasn’t going to be a we any longer.

  “I’m not sure,” was all I could say.

  I wished we had talked about this yesterday. Dean hadn’t said how he wanted to proceed with Cam. I wanted to sit him down and come clean with him too, tell him everything, but I wasn’t sure if that would be good for him. What if Dean decided that he didn’t want to be a part of Cam’s life? I couldn’t allow him to be rejected by his own father.

  When the elevator doors opened, Cam bounded toward Dean’s door, excited to see his hero. He began to punch in the code to enter, and I started to stop him when the door opened, and a stunning blonde woman stood there. She seemed familiar, but I wasn’t sure why.

  Had I seen her with Dean in photos? Was this one of his past girlfriends?

  “Hello,” she said, smiling at Cam and then lifting her gaze to look at me. I could see her studying me, but she kept her smile in place before looking back to Cam. “You must be Cam. Come on in,” she said, stepping back.