They also told interesting stories with their fashions and hairstyles, the backgrounds of gardens and homes and the style of the photos themselves. Mostly, she loved the emotions. Here was naked affection between siblings on a beach, the water and sky faded by age while their love was still clear and vibrant. There was an earnest smile from a child to her photographer, her closed lips suggesting she was self-conscious of lost teeth.

  Eden remembered that feeling and smiled with sympathy.

  “Eden?”

  “Oh, I know, I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist. You look so much like your father and his brothers, don’t you? And the girls all look like your aunt. This whole side of your family stamps everyone out like carbon copies. I don’t know why I find that so endearing, but I do. Your sister takes after your mother, though. They’re both so pretty.”

  Except—The strangest thing happened. A trick of light on the glass of the frame over a preadolescent snapshot triggered the most bizarre, random sense of... I know that face.

  Eden had seen Yasmine’s photo online with Remy. They were all pictures of her as an adult with her tall, curvy frame, her ultrachic clothing, her hair in locs and her femininity emphasized with bold eyeliner and thick lashes, and lip colors like blue and mauve. She was clearly artistic and effusive.

  Yasmine had her mother’s skin tone, too—lighter than Remy’s and his father’s. Lighter than her mother, actually. As Eden stared at a nine-or ten-year-old girl, she saw another, similarly aged face. One that was Caucasian, before he had grown facial hair and thick eyebrows and a hard jaw and an Adam’s apple.

  “Oh, my God.” She backed into the opposite wall and leaned there, afraid she would faint again for an entirely different reason.

  “Eden.”

  Remy’s voice came from the other side of the universe, but it was so quiet, it might as well have been inside her own head. He knew what she was seeing. He knew that she knew and she knew that he knew.

  She began to shake. “Does Micah know?”

  Remy seemed to be holding himself under such pressure, she half expected him to split out of his own skin. His head jerked once in negation, but it was his only movement. The rest of him was held in paralytic stillness, the way one stood when facing a deadly viper looking for an excuse to strike.

  “No one does,” he rasped. “Yasmine doesn’t.”

  Why not? Eden tried to say it, but the ugly truth hit her like a meteor—jagged and explosive. Devastating.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “EDEN DOESN’T FEEL WELL,” Remy told his aunt. Neither did he.

  Auntie Celeste was a medical doctor, but she was also a woman shrewd enough to glance between them and understand something emotionally catastrophic had occurred.

  “Take her home to rest then,” she murmured.

  Remy did and, once there, followed her into the living room where she sank, zombie-like, onto the sofa. He was too restless to sit and felt her gaze follow him as he paced.

  “How...?” Her voice strangled on the word.

  Remy began to talk without making the conscious decision to do so.

  “After my dustup with Micah, my parents were worried Gould would start harassing them again, impacting the lives they’d made in Canada. That’s when my father told me the first part—the part I told you. He insisted they’d been robbed and told me not to get into any more shoving matches with Micah.” Stay as far from him as you can.

  “The next time we had a game with that school, Micah was gone. I mostly forgot about the whole thing. A few years went by, then Yasmine got sick. It turned out to be a blood disorder that she has since learned to manage, but at the time they thought it might be leukemia. By then I was closer to fourteen, capable of researching what a bone-marrow transplant was. I said I wanted to donate mine. My mother brushed me aside. It was...” He pinched the bridge of his nose, still hurt at how abruptly she had dismissed him.

  Don’t be foolish. You can’t.

  “It was trying times for them. Obviously. My mother wanted my sister to be well, but I overheard her arguing with my father. What if they had to ask him. What if he took her?”

  “Oh.” Eden breathed in a sense of discovery.

  “Yes. That was their greatest fear, right from the beginning. I cornered my father and he completely broke down, terrified that he would have to go crawling to Kelvin Gould to save his daughter’s life. Terrified that Gould would let Yasmine die, rather than help her, purely out of spite. He swore me to secrecy, of course. Then Yasmine came out of hospital and I carried that secret with him.” For him. “I never even told my mother that I knew.”

  He rubbed the center of his chest where the weight of it felt heavy enough to crack his sternum.

  “It wasn’t an affair, was it?” Eden asked sadly. “Did your mother go to the police?”

  “No. She didn’t even tell my father right away. He was working in the Netherlands, finalizing that prestigious contract. He was on top of the world when he came home. She had recently been awarded a lucrative research grant. He could tell she wasn’t herself, but she made excuses. She told him later that she was trying to pretend it hadn’t happened. She couldn’t keep pretending once she realized she was pregnant. She honestly didn’t know if Gould or Dad was the father.”

  Eden released a sob of agony. “Can you imagine that decision?” she asked in a voice scraped thin with anguish. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Remy. So sorry she went through that. That you all did.”

  “It’s not all tragedy. Yasmine is a gift. We all love her. It’s not her fault that—” He couldn’t finish.

  “I know,” she murmured. “I can tell you love her with everything in you.”

  “I do.” He rubbed his face, trying to work feeling into his numb skin. “But loving her doesn’t mean my parents weren’t angry. Mom couldn’t stay where she might see Gould. She suggested the move to Canada and my father agreed, but it was too much for him to let Gould benefit from what he’d developed. He struck back the only way he could. The only way that mattered to Gould.”

  “Money,” Eden said, guessing.

  “Yes. He threw his laptop in the river and sent the backup files anonymously to the competitor.”

  She nodded slowly, taking in all of what he’d said while tangling her fingers in her lap. Her thick lashes lifted.

  “But all of them are gone now. Why haven’t you told her?”

  “I can’t.” His voice grew unsteady just thinking it. “I don’t care where the DNA came from that made her. She is my sister in all the ways that matter and I will protect her with every fiber of my being. Even from—especially from—information that could destroy her.”

  Eden started to say something, but thought better of it and swallowed it back.

  “You took down her photo.” She pointed at the wall. “You knew I would guess.”

  “I forgot about the ones at my aunt’s house.” Had he, though? Or was he so weary of carrying this heavy secret, he’d allowed her to discover it?

  He went long periods without really thinking about it, but lately it had sat like a pearl in an oyster, growing bigger and more intrusive the more he tried to ignore it.

  Because it stood between him and Eden?

  This was why she was such a danger to him! He had not only broken his father’s confidence, but he had also broken it with her.

  “Remy.” Her voice was very quiet. Very grave. “Micah needs to know.”

  “No.” He swept his hand through the air with finality.

  “He can’t keep thinking your family is the one who wronged his.”

  “Have I just made the worst mistake of my life by trusting you?” he asked in his hardest voice.

  “I won’t tell him.” She sat straighter. “But you know I’m right. This feud has to stop.”

  “No. He has to grow up and leave me alone. We all have to keep our distance.” He pushed his hands through the air, feeling a pang in his chest as he included her.

  “I disagree.” She swallowed and sat even taller as she seemed to gather her courage. “I think we should marry.”

  * * *

  “What?” Remy’s eyebrows crashed together.

  Eden’s heart flipped over. Her thoughts were tripping over each other, taking in crimes and astonishing outcomes, so much pain and blame and protectiveness and love. At the heart was an innocent woman who deserved to know her kin, even if she didn’t know he was kin.

  “We have to become a family. She has to become Micah’s family.”

  “Yasmine doesn’t need a family like his,” Remy growled.

  “Micah can’t help the family he grew up in.” Eden rose to pace off her agitation. “My mother did what she could, but he was his father’s heir. He wasn’t given a choice about stepping into his father’s shoes and running an empire—”

  “He had a choice,” Remy interrupted scathingly. “We all have choices.”

  “Yes. I have the choice to walk away from my father’s legacy, too.” She waved a hand. “If I don’t want to marry for money, I can sell off rural branches and doom small communities to driving out of town for their housewares. The choices we’re faced with aren’t always good ones.”

  “That is why you want to marry me.” His pointed finger stabbed the air. “To save your company. Don’t pretty it up.”

  His words went straight into her like a blade, but all she could think of was Micah and the emotional deprivation of his childhood. She and her mother had poured love all over him when they could, but it hadn’t been enough. That’s why he was such a hardened cynic. It broke Eden’s heart that he had missed all those years with his other sister. That Yasmine had missed getting to know him. That she had been taught he was the enemy.

  “I want to right the scale.” Eden’s voice cracked under the pressure of her emotions. “This feud has to stop. Micah and your sister deserve to know each other, even if they don’t know they share genetics.”

  “They’ll figure it out if they’re sitting across the dinner table, won’t they? Then she has to learn what his father did to our mother. No, Eden. It can’t happen.”

  “Remy.” She wanted to stamp her foot, but settled on rubbing her eyebrows with her thumb and fingertip, trying to find a delicate way to say this. “In the same way you believe your baby would have a right to your fortune, I know that Micah would feel Yasmine has a right to a share in his.”

  “She doesn’t want a cent of that.” His lip curled in disgust.

  “That’s not your decision to make, is it? She’s an adult. You’re treating her like a child.”

  “She doesn’t need anything from him,” he insisted. “She has a vibrant career and she already has a brother who will step in if she needs anything she can’t get for herself.”

  “Careful. You’re starting to sound jealous.”

  The dangerous flash in the grim bronze of his gaze chilled her blood, but she continued making her point.

  “Micah knows his father was rotten to his core. He has made countless changes—at his own expense—to repair things and ensure the company is more ethical moving forward.” Micah had returned ill-gotten art and donated questionably obtained properties to the indigenous people they’d been appropriated from. There had been an infamous “winter cull,” when a number of executives had been fired for various harassment complaints and other corruptions. “By refusing any part of Kelvin’s fortune, you’re allowing him to continue avoiding the consequences of his actions, even after he’s dead.”

  Remy bared his teeth in a snarl of dismay, rejecting a truth he didn’t want to hear.

  “Micah would want to do what he could to right this wrong. He would want to compensate your family for your parents’ lost careers and damaged reputations. I understand why you want to distance yourself. You want to protect your sister. I will respect that, but at least let me make reparations on his behalf.”

  “This has nothing—”

  “Don’t tell me it has nothing to do with me!” she cried. “If that history hadn’t happened, you and I would have a very different relationship right now. Wouldn’t we?” Her voice dropped to a more tentative pitch.

  He looked away, not confirming or denying, which left her heart trembling in her chest.

  “I’m in the middle of this cold war whether I like it or not,” she said, pretending she hadn’t needily asked him to tell her he wanted her. “Let me try to fix it.”

  “By letting me buy in to your company?” he snorted. “Gee, thanks.”

  “It will be to your advantage. I’ll ensure it.” She crossed her arms, trying to stem the ache emanating from the pit of her stomach at the risk she was taking. “You’ll have enough control that you could annihilate my company. You can exact your final revenge, if that’s what makes you happy. You can also ignore my situation and let my company go to hell and leave Micah to stand by helpless as it happens.”

  “I’m not like that,” he growled.

  “I know. I trust you. And Micah will be suspicious of whatever arrangement we come to, but this is my company and my decision. He’ll have to accept it.” She could already feel the weight of her brother’s disapproval. Her mother’s shock and concern. “At least there would be a cease-fire. Then, as you bring Bellamy back from the brink instead of ruining us, Micah will start to believe you don’t have it in for him. If Yasmine were ever to find out, do you want to still be at odds with Micah? Or on civil terms?”

  Remy made another animalist noise of discontent, turning away as he asked, “What would you get?”

  You.

  Was that her real motive? To spin out her time with him as long as she possibly could?

  “I get to keep my company instead of watching it be stripped for parts.” She hugged herself harder. “Our marriage doesn’t have to be forever. It could be in name only and we could divorce in a year, if that’s what you want. You would still have a stake in BH and G and Micah would still have to behave himself.”

  “And if you are pregnant, we’ll marry, anyway.”

  She flashed him a startled look, heart swerving in her chest.

  “You had to know that’s what I would want, Eden.” He turned to face her. “What was my alternative? Watch the mother of my baby lose her company? Live apart from my child? Hide them? No, I was putting off saying it out aloud because...” He grimaced and rolled his wrist to encompass all he’d just revealed.

  Was that really all he felt for her? Possibly the mother of his child, but not...more?

  His hands landed on his hips and he hissed out a sigh. “I don’t expect you to sacrifice yourself for someone else’s actions. Gould wasn’t your father. It’s not your debt to pay.”

  Sacrifice. She bit the tremble from her lips.

  “Micah is my brother. I know you haven’t seen his softer side, but he has one. He’s angry with you because of me. If he ever learns he has another sister, well, good luck being the only pit bull in the yard.”

  * * *

  Remy brushed that aside, not wanting to consider that scenario. Right now, he was more concerned with keeping the secret of his sister’s paternity so she wouldn’t be hurt.

  Eden had a point, though. If Yasmine ever found out, it would be a softer blow if he and Micah had found some common ground first.

  Or was that a rationalization so he could get what he really wanted?

  “Would we...?” He searched her expression. “Continue trying for children?”

  Her stomach sucked in and she swallowed. “If you want.”

  “It has to be something you want,” he replied with such force she took a step back. “Consent is mandatory.” He had just explained why.

  “Sex and babies are two different things.” Her lashes swept down to hide her eyes. “I assumed we would have sex. I wasn’t sure about the babies.” She hugged herself and cleared her throat. “But consent goes both ways, obviously.”

  Good God. He ran a hand down his face while his heart fishtailed in his chest.

  This was madness. Madness.

  If there hadn’t been such an urgency to resolve her business problem, he wouldn’t rush into it. They might have had a quiet affair until this lust had burned itself out. In a corner of his mind, he knew that marrying her would ignite multiple bushfires in both their families, not to mention impacting his friendship with Hunter. He knew his relationship with his sister could be changed forever.

  All so he could openly bring Eden into his home and his bed.

  “Are you prepared for the kind of pushback we’ll get?” he asked, fearful she wasn’t clear-eyed to the repercussions.

  “It’s the right thing to do, even if we’re the only ones who know it.”

  He wasn’t strong enough to say no.

  “Then we’ll marry as soon as possible.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  REMY HAD SUCH a calm, unruffled persona, Eden had underestimated how fast he moved when he decided on something.

  She supposed she had seen it before, when he invited her to that club after exchanging a handful of words. Also at the wedding, when he ordered her into his car without any waffling and when he had made love with her very spontaneously, then brought her to Martinique at the last second.

  None of that made their decision to marry seem any less reckless than it was. At least with Hunter, she had a solid friendship with his sister and had dated Hunter long enough to get to know him a little.

  Her relationship with Remy continued to be a headlong rush toward possible disaster. What if Micah had been right all along and Remy was out to destroy her while she was too infatuated to see it?