Chapter 160

As Miles heads onto the campaign trail, I go along with him. By day, I watch him give his speeches. By night, we fall into hotel beds together, sweaty and sated. It’s a good existence.

Miles’s charisma is back, and he easily charms anyone he talks to. Having Selena at the campaign rallies, opening for Miles with her own supportive speech has helped as well.

Daily, the assistants run the numbers for me. Each day, they look better and better.

Before long, Miles is back in the lead to win his party’s nomination.

“I couldn’t do any of this without you,” Miles whispers, planting kiss after kiss onto my shoulder. We’re spooning, with him behind me, while I check on the polls on my phone. We’ve already made love twice tonight. I expect two more times before the morning comes.

“I like when you say that,” I tell him, though I know it isn’t true.

Miles is incredibly capable and confident. He really doesn’t need me for anything.

Still, hearing him say the words makes me happy. After years and years of neglect, it feels good to be needed, even if it’s only for pretend.

“I mean it,” he says, adding another kiss to my skin. “I’d be lost without you.”

He’s putting it on think now, I roll my eyes as I rotate, turning onto my back. Like this, he hovers half over me. I gaze up at him through my eyelashes.

“Admit it,” I tease. “You only want a bed-warmer.”

Miles scoffs, as if the very idea repulses him. “Esther. I want you however I can have you. Mind. Body. Soul. I want it all.”

I know he’s blowing smoke now, so I roll my eyes again and turn back onto my side. Instantly, he curls back to his previous spot, dragging lazy kisses over my skin.

Much more of that and round 3 is going to start sooner rather than later.

Just as I’m considering which position to try next, my phone buzzes with a text. Opening it, I’m immediately sobered.

My Mom sent me a message.

Come home at one. Family emergency.

I sit up, leaving Miles confused.

“Esther? What’s wrong?”

I text my mom, What’s happening? Is everyone alright?

Miles looks over my shoulder and sees the message. He falls quiet, waiting as I am, for a response.

It takes two full agonizing minutes for her to respond.

The baby isn’t Garnar’s.

Maybe I didn’t really need to rush home after hearing this news. After all, no one’s hurt. No one died.

Yet knowing my sister is hurting, and knowing my parents want to include me in this, has me bidding Miles a temporary goodbye and boarding a plane back to DC.

Miles, incredibly supported, told me before I left, “Family is important. Stay as long as you need.”

Families are important, but even so, this isn’t the most dire of news, even if it feels that way to Thea.

“I should meet you Oregon tomorrow,” I told him.

Now, I stand outside my parents’ home, knocking on their door. Davis, the butler, answers with a grim expression.

“The sitting room?” I ask.

“Your sister’s bedroom,” he corrects.

Nodding, I leave my things in the entryway, kick off my shoes, and hurry up the stairs to Thea’s room.

Dad stands in the hallway outside of her room, looking for something on his phone. When he sees me, he huffs a breath. “Perhaps you can talk some sense into her.”

Why would she need that? “What’s happening?”

“She’s still insisting the baby is Garnar’s, even when faced with irrefutable proof.” Dad sighs. “You don’t have any idea who the real father is, do you?”

The only thing I know is what Thea has told me: that he’s broke. That’s not much of a lead, and Dad would hate to hear it. Not to mention, sharing that might ruin whatever confidence I had been building up with my sister.

“No,” I say. It’s not a lie, exactly, just a slight withholding of the one sliver of a lead I have.

Dad shakes his head. “What a mess.” Then, he walks by me, disappearing down the hallway in the direction of his office. Likely he intends to barricade himself inside, as he often did in our youth, when the female hormones became too much for him.

When he’s gone, I continue on, entering Thea’s room.

Inside, Thea has thrown herself dramatically across her bed. Her face buried in her pillows, she sobs so loudly even her shoulders shake.

Mom sits on the edge of her bed beside her, gently rubbing her back.

“There, there,” Mom says.

Thea lifts her head to whine, “If you would give me back my phone…”

“You’d only use it to call Garnar again, honey,” Mom says gently, with infinite motherly patience. “He’s made it clear he’s done with you. If you don’t respect that decision, you only embarrass yourself.”

“But he loves me,” she says. “He has to forgive me!”

“That’s not true,” Mom says. When I come closer, she spots me. “Oh. Your sister is here.” To me, she says, “Tell her, Esther. She might listen to you. Tell her that Garnar has moved on.”

“No!” Thea pushes herself to her feet, hopping off the bed, and approaches me. “You know Garnar better than they do, Esther. Tell them how forgiving he is, and how much he loves me. He’s going to take me back and we are going to be a family. Tell them…”

Her voice is pleading, her words spoken so quickly that many of them smoosh together.

“I… uh…” I hesitate. I’ve really valued the sibling relationship that’s been cultivating between my sister and me. But, as her sister, it’s my duty to tell her the hard truths. “No. I’m sorry. I’m sure that Garnar won’t take you back.”

Thea’s hopeful face fills with pain. “How can you say that?”

I hate that I hurt her, but facts are facts. “When questions of the paternity arouse, he pushed you away. He flat out told you that he won’t want anything to do with you if the baby isn’t his…”

“But!” She pushes back from me. Stumbling, she rights herself on her desk. “But the baby is his!”

“We’ve discussed this, Thea. You’ve seen the test results yourself,” Mom says. “You know that just isn’t true.”

“It has to be true,” Thea says. The tears streaming down her face are genuine. In real time, I watch her dreams fall apart.

Thea and I were never that close. With our age gap and the favoritism shown to her by our parents, there have been a few wedges driven between us over the years. Those gaps are wide enough that they are hard to bridge.

Yet, never in my life do I want to see my sister hurting like this. Even when I was at my most angry, when she admitted to her affair with my then-husband, I still didn’t want her to come to harm.

Seeing the pain on her face now strikes me, sending me back to an unpleasant time I thought long since buried.

The wind knocks right out of my chest.

“It has to be true,” Thea says again, and collapses.