Isabella Mitchell hurled her yellow clutch bag at Dominic Moretti’s chest.
It struck him with a heavy thud, then dropped onto the polished wooden floor with a faint metallic clatter. In the high-ceilinged living room, the sound seemed to travel beneath the ornate wallpaper and up toward the painted crown molding.
"You coward!"
Dominic did not move at first. He stood in his beige jacket, shoulders squared, his face composed in the way Rocky Mount had learned to expect from him. But beneath the calm, his pulse had begun to pound.
Isabella’s chest rose and fell sharply. Her light brown hair remained perfectly pinned in its sophisticated updo, yet one trembling hand betrayed the effort it took to keep herself from breaking apart.
The clutch lay open between them.
A small silver locket had spilled from it and rested near the edge of the rug.
Its chain curled across the gleaming floor, catching the late-afternoon light that filtered through the tall windows.
Isabella pointed at Dominic.
"Your trembling hand betrays you."
He glanced down before he could stop himself. His right hand had tightened against his side, the fingers shaking almost imperceptibly.
"I know."
The words came out low, nearly swallowed by the old house’s quiet. Dominic hated that she had seen it. He hated even more that she had chosen this room, before the family portraits and the people who would soon arrive for dinner, where every secret seemed to acquire an audience.
Near the doorway, Max Brandt watched with wide, uncertain eyes. The seven-year-old had been holding a wooden toy car, but it slipped from his fingers as his attention settled on the object lying beside the open clutch.
Dominic saw him kneel.
For one suspended moment, the room narrowed to the boy’s small hand reaching toward the silver locket.
Dominic’s breath caught. He knew that locket. He had not seen it in years, yet he recognized the delicate engraving on its back before Max even turned it over.
Max carefully lifted it from the floor and examined the tarnished metal.
"What's this?"
Dominic’s composure fractured. His eyes fixed on the locket, then on the child who held it, and his hand rose slowly to his chest, pressing against the fabric over his heart.
"Max, put that down."
The urgency in his voice made Isabella go still.
Max looked from the locket to Dominic, confusion gathering between his brows. He pointed at the inscription, the words Our Secret shining clearly in the fading light.
"Why does it say 'Our Secret' like Daddy's?"
Silence fell so completely that Dominic could hear the old clock beginning to count the seconds.
And in Max’s innocent question, the secret Dominic had buried for seven years finally opened its eyes.
* * *
Dominic crossed the room too quickly, reaching for the locket before Max could turn it over again.
Max flinched and closed his fingers around the silver case. "You told me to put it down. Why?"
"Because it doesn't belong to you," Dominic said.
His voice was softer now, but the urgency remained. He crouched in front of the boy and held out his hand. The old instinct to command had deserted him; all that remained was fear.
"Give it to me, Max. Please."
The word seemed to surprise everyone, including Dominic himself.
Max looked toward Isabella. "Is he mad at me?"
"No," Isabella said. "He's afraid of what you might learn."
Dominic rose sharply. "Enough. You came here to make accusations, not frighten a child."
"A child you've lied to since the day he was born."
Max's eyes moved between them.
"What did he lie about?"
Dominic felt the room closing around him. The portraits on the walls seemed to lean forward, their painted faces preserving the family’s dignity while his own blood stood in the center of the floor, asking for the truth.
"Nothing," Dominic said. "She is upset, and she is trying to make you part of an adult argument. Go to the kitchen and wait for me there."
"But the locket says the same thing as Daddy's."
Dominic's hand stopped halfway toward him.
Isabella saw it. A grim, wounded satisfaction crossed her face.
"You heard him," she said. "He knows about the other locket."
"I know nothing about his father's jewelry," Dominic replied.
The lie tasted like ash.
He had seen the second locket every day for seven years, hanging beneath Seth Winslow’s shirtsleeve or resting in the palm of his brother’s hand whenever they believed no one was watching.
Max turned the locket over. "Daddy lets me touch his sometimes. He says it is a promise."
Dominic’s stomach tightened.
"Max, give it to me now."
"Why?"
"Because I said so."
The harshness in his voice made Max’s lower lip tremble. Dominic reached out, but Isabella stepped between them.
"Don't touch him."
"Move aside, Isabella."
"You had seven years to protect him. You chose silence."
Footsteps sounded in the hall.
The front door opened, followed by the muted voices of arriving relatives and the scrape of a cane against the hardwood. Dominic recognized the measured rhythm before Seth Winslow appeared in the doorway.
Seth stopped when he saw Max clutching the locket.
For one brief second, the color drained from his face.
Then his gaze met Dominic’s, and something unspoken passed between the brothers: warning, guilt, and the knowledge that the moment they had dreaded had finally arrived.
"What is happening?" Seth asked.
Max ran to him. "Daddy, she says Uncle Dominic is afraid of this. Is it yours?"
Seth looked down at the locket.
His hand moved instinctively toward his chest, where an identical chain rested beneath his shirt.
Isabella noticed.
"There it is," she whispered. "The second half of the lie."
Seth’s face hardened, but he did not deny it.
Dominic took one step toward his brother. "Seth, take Max upstairs."
"No," Isabella said. "He deserves to hear this."
Seth’s eyes narrowed. "You don't know what he deserves."
"I know exactly what he was denied."
Max looked up at Seth. "Daddy?"
Seth placed both hands on the boy’s shoulders, trying to steady him and perhaps himself.
"Go with Mrs. Carter for a minute, Max."
"But you said we never kept secrets from each other."
The boy’s innocent accusation struck harder than any shout.
Seth closed his eyes.
When he opened them, Isabella was holding a photograph in one hand. It showed a young woman standing beneath a flowering dogwood tree, her smile gentle and unguarded.
Dominic knew the face before Isabella spoke.
"Her name was Tessa Ramsey," she said. "And she was my sister."
Isabella had spent seven years learning how grief could become a weapon without losing its shape as sorrow.
She had carried Tessa’s name through hospital corridors, funeral homes, courthouse offices, and every locked door the Moretti family placed between itself and the truth. She had written letters that went unanswered and left messages that were never returned.
But she had never stopped looking at Max from a distance.
At first, he had been a swaddled infant in Tessa’s final photograph.
Then he had become a solemn toddler, a laughing preschooler, and finally the curious seven-year-old standing beneath the Moretti family portraits with a locket in his hand.
"You are his aunt?" Seth asked.
"His only living aunt who was willing to remember where he came from."
Dominic’s throat tightened. "Isabella, don't do this here."
"Where should I do it? In the cemetery, where Tessa has been waiting for someone to speak for her? Or at your father’s table, where every lie was served with expensive wine?"
Max looked toward the photograph. "Who is she?"
Isabella’s anger faltered when she saw his face.
"She was your mother."
The words fell into the room with terrible gentleness.
Max stared at her. "My mother is dead?"
Seth moved closer. "Max—"
"Don't tell him another half-truth," Isabella said. "Not now."
Dominic could still remember the first time he had seen Tessa Ramsey.
She had been standing outside a small bookstore on Main Street in Rocky Mount, holding a paper cup of coffee in both hands while rain darkened the shoulders of her blue coat.
She had laughed when Dominic offered her an umbrella, telling him she had already been soaked and saw no reason to pretend otherwise.
After that, he found reasons to pass the bookstore. Tessa found reasons to stay late. Their love grew in quiet places, away from the Moretti estate and Mason Hoffman’s watchful circle of attorneys, donors, and business associates.
Tessa never cared about the Moretti name.
"I care about the man beneath it," she had told Dominic one evening beside the Tar River. "If there is one."
There had been one. He had loved her with a freedom he had never allowed himself before.
When she told him she was pregnant, Dominic had held her so tightly that she laughed through her tears.
"You look terrified," she said.
"I am."
"Of being a father?"
"Of losing you."
Tessa had placed his hand against her stomach. "Then don't leave."
He had promised he would not.
The promise lasted until Mason Hoffman summoned him to the family office and placed a folder on the desk between them. Inside were photographs of Tessa, records of her employment, and a carefully typed account of every weakness the family could exploit.
Mason had not needed to threaten Tessa directly. He had only explained what would happen to the Moretti businesses, the employees, and Dominic’s younger brother if the pregnancy became public.
Then he had given Dominic a choice that was not a choice at all.
"You abandoned her," Isabella said, bringing him back to the room. "You stopped answering her calls.
You let her believe she had been discarded because she was not good enough for your family."
"I thought I was protecting her."
"You protected a name."
Dominic looked at Max, who was still holding Tessa’s photograph with both hands.
"I loved her," he said.
Isabella’s eyes filled, but her voice remained hard. "Then why did she die believing you had never loved her at all?"
Seth lowered his gaze.
That small movement told Isabella there was more. Much more.
She turned toward him. "And why do you have the same locket?"
Seth’s fingers closed over the chain beneath his shirt.
Dominic stepped forward. "Isabella, stop."
But she had already reached the question neither brother could bury again.
"What did Mason Hoffman make you promise?"
* * *
Dominic’s eyes remained fixed on the photograph of Tessa, but the room had vanished around him.
He was back in Mason Hoffman’s office, seven years earlier, with rain streaking the tall windows and his father’s voice cutting through the silence.
"You will leave Tessa Ramsey," Mason had said. "You will deny the child is yours, and you will marry the woman I have chosen."
Dominic had stared at him. "She is carrying my son."
"Then you will give that son a respectable home. Seth will marry Tessa, and the boy will be raised as a Winslow. No one outside this family will ever know what happened."
The memory still carried the smell of Mason’s leather chair and the bitter coffee he had left untouched on the desk.
"You cannot force me to abandon them," Dominic had said.
Mason had opened the folder between them. Inside were photographs of Tessa leaving work, Tessa entering her apartment, and Tessa walking alone beside the Tar River.
"I am not forcing you," Mason had replied. "I am reminding you what happens when a Moretti places desire above duty. Your brother loses the company.
Tessa loses her privacy. Your child grows up with the entire town discussing how he was conceived. You can save them all by making one sacrifice."
Dominic had believed him because Mason had spent a lifetime making threats sound like forecasts.
He had gone to Tessa that night and stood beneath her apartment window for nearly an hour before knocking. When she opened the door, she was smiling until she saw his face.
"What happened?" she asked.
Dominic had tried to speak, but the words seemed to belong to someone else.
"I cannot continue this," he finally said.
Tessa had gone still. "Continue what? Loving me?"
"Tessa—"
"Is there someone else?"
He had wanted to tell her everything. He had wanted to take her hand, drive away from Rocky Mount, and build a life in a place where Mason Hoffman’s name meant nothing.
Instead, he had said the cruelest lie he knew how to form.
"This was a mistake."
Tessa’s hand had moved protectively over her stomach. "Was the baby a mistake too?"
Dominic had looked away.
That was the moment she understood he would not fight for them.
"Get out," she had whispered.
He had left, carrying the sound of her crying with him and the promise he had once made beside the river breaking behind every step.
Back in the living room, Dominic pressed a hand against his mouth.
"I did not stop loving her," he said. "I stopped letting her see it."
Isabella’s expression hardened. "That distinction did not comfort her."
"I know."
"Did you see Max after he was born?"
Dominic looked at the boy. Max had lowered Tessa’s photograph but still held it close to his chest.
"Once," Dominic answered. "At the hospital. From the end of the corridor."
Seth’s face tightened. "Dominic—"
"I was there," Dominic continued.
"I heard him crying. I wanted to walk into that room and tell everyone he was mine. But Mason had already arranged everything. The records named Seth as the father. The family lawyer had prepared the papers."
Max looked up. "You saw me when I was a baby?"
Dominic’s voice nearly failed. "Yes."
"Why didn't you hold me?"
The question left him defenseless.
"Because I was a coward," Dominic said. "And because I believed staying away would keep you safe."
Isabella’s anger flickered beneath her grief. "You let Tessa die thinking you had chosen the Morettis over her."
"She never knew the full truth. Mason made certain of that."
"And after she died?"
Dominic looked toward the silver locket in Max’s hand.
"After Tessa died, I wanted to claim you," he said. "Every day. But Mason warned me that if I spoke, Seth would lose custody and you would become a public scandal.
So I watched from a distance while my son called another man Daddy."
Max’s eyes filled with tears. "Are you my father?"
Dominic could not hide behind silence anymore.
"Yes," he said.
The single word seemed to strike the room harder than Isabella’s accusation had.
Max turned toward Seth, bewildered. Seth closed his eyes, and his hand rose to the chain beneath his shirt.
Then Isabella stepped closer to him.
"Take it out," she said.
Seth did not move.
"Seth," Dominic warned.
"No," Isabella said. "He has answered one question. Now you will answer mine. Why do you have the same locket?"
Seth looked at Max, then at the object in the boy’s hand. His shoulders sagged beneath the weight of years spent pretending the truth could remain buried.
Slowly, he drew the second locket from beneath his shirt.
It was identical to the one Max held: the same worn silver, the same narrow hinge, the same words engraved across the back.
Our Secret.
Max stared at both lockets. "Why are there two?"
Seth swallowed. "Because your father and I made a promise."
Isabella’s voice trembled with disbelief. "Your father? You mean Dominic?"
"Yes."
Dominic stepped toward him. "Seth, you do not have to explain this in front of Max."
"I have been saying that for seven years," Seth replied. "It has not made the lie less real."
He opened the locket in his palm. Inside was a tiny photograph of Tessa, folded so many times that the edges had softened.
Isabella’s breath caught. "You kept her picture?"
"I loved her too," Seth said. "Not the way Dominic did, but enough to understand that she had been robbed of her life."
"You married her under false pretenses," Isabella said. "You raised her son while pretending he was yours."
"I raised him because I loved him."
"And because Mason Hoffman ordered you to."
Seth’s silence answered before his mouth did.
Max looked between the brothers. "Did Daddy know you were my real father?"
Seth knelt in front of him, his face stricken. "I knew Dominic was your biological father. I knew from before you were born."
Max pulled back. "But you said I was your son."
"You are my son," Seth said. "That part was never a lie. I held you when you were sick. I learned how you liked your pancakes. I stayed awake when you were afraid of storms. None of that was pretend."
"But the rest was?"
Seth had no answer that could spare him.
Dominic reached for Max, then stopped before touching him. "Seth agreed to raise you because Mason threatened to destroy everyone connected to us."
Isabella faced him sharply. "Do not make his betrayal sound noble."
"It was not noble," Seth said. "It was frightened.
We were both frightened."
He turned to Dominic, anger finally breaking through his grief.
"You gave me this locket the night you left Tessa," Seth said. "You told me it was a symbol of the burden we would carry together. You said that if Max ever asked, we would tell him when he was old enough to understand."
Dominic’s face tightened. "I thought we would have a choice."
"We never had a choice. Mason had already made it for us."
Isabella took the locket from Seth’s hand without asking. On its inner lid, beneath Tessa’s photograph, a date had been engraved.
The date was the day Max was born.
Her fingers began to shake.
"There is something else," she said.
Seth looked toward the hallway, where the arriving relatives had begun to gather beyond the doorway.
"Yes," he answered.
"You need to know who ordered every part of this."
And before anyone could speak again, Mason Hoffman’s cane struck the floor from the other side of the room.
* * *
Mason Hoffman entered the living room with one hand resting on his black cane, his silver hair combed neatly back and his expression untouched by the chaos before him.
"What an ugly scene," he said. "A family gathering should not be reduced to accusations and tears."
Seth stepped in front of Max. "You knew this day would come."
Mason’s eyes settled on the two lockets. For the first time, a crack appeared in his composure.
It vanished almost immediately.
"I know nothing about childish jewelry," he replied.
"You ordered it," Seth said.
The room seemed to contract around those four words.
Dominic stared at his father. "Tell them."
Mason turned his head slowly.
"You are in no position to demand anything from me."
"I am your son," Dominic said. "And he is mine."
Max gripped Tessa’s photograph against his chest. He looked from Dominic to Mason, trying to understand how the old man at the center of the room could make every adult afraid.
Isabella lifted the locket with Tessa’s photograph inside. "This bears the date Max was born. Seth says you arranged the records, the marriage, and the entire lie."
"Seth has always been weak under pressure," Mason said. "He confuses obedience with victimhood."
Seth’s face tightened. "You told me Dominic would ruin Tessa’s life if he stayed with her. You told me the company would collapse, that the board would remove us, and that Max would be dragged through every newspaper in Rocky Mount."
"You were young," Mason replied. "You needed guidance."
"You threatened to cut me off from the family," Dominic said.
"You threatened Tessa’s employment. You said you would make sure she could not raise her own child."
Mason’s gaze hardened. "I protected this family from disgrace."
"You destroyed one," Isabella said.
Her voice did not rise, but it carried through the room with greater force than a shout.
Mason looked at her as though she were an inconvenient stranger. "You are Tessa Ramsey’s sister. The resentful one."
"The one who remembered her after you buried her name beneath your reputation."
Dominic felt the old fear stir, but it no longer controlled him. For seven years, he had believed Mason’s power came from the certainty that everyone would obey him. Now he saw the truth: Mason’s power had survived because each person he controlled believed they were alone.
He stepped beside Isabella.
"You made me abandon Tessa," Dominic said.
"You made Seth marry her so the town would believe Max was his child. Then you forced me to marry a woman I did not love, so no one would question why I remained near the family business."
Max looked up sharply. "You were married?"
Dominic lowered his eyes. "Yes. It was another part of the arrangement."
Seth’s voice broke through the silence. "Mason told us that if either of us spoke, he would take Max away. He had lawyers prepared. He had people at the hospital. He had already decided what everyone would believe before Max was born."
Mason struck the floor once with his cane. "Enough. You will not turn my discipline into a crime because you have grown sentimental."
"It was not discipline," Seth said. "It was control."
A door opened behind them.
Several members of the Moretti family stood in the hallway, drawn by the raised voices.
Among them were Mason’s longtime attorney, two cousins who managed the family’s businesses, and Dominic’s estranged wife, who had arrived for dinner and now watched him with stunned disbelief.
Mason straightened. "Go back to the dining room. This does not concern you."
No one moved.
Isabella turned toward them. "It concerns every person who trusted this man with their livelihood, their inheritance, or their name."
Dominic’s attorney, Martin Hale, stepped forward uncertainly. "What exactly are you alleging?"
Dominic took the locket from Max only after the boy nodded. He held it up beside Seth’s identical one.
"That Max Brandt is my biological son," he said. "That Seth raised him under a false paternity arrangement. That Mason Hoffman ordered the deception and threatened all of us into silence."
A murmur moved through the hall.
Max’s face went pale, and Seth immediately knelt beside him.
"You are still my son," Seth said.
"Nothing Mason ordered can change what I have given you."
Dominic knelt on Max’s other side. "And I am your father. I should have told you sooner. I should have stood beside your mother. But I will not hide from you again."
Max looked between them. "Did Mom know you loved her?"
Dominic’s chest ached. "She knew once. Then I let fear make me cruel."
Isabella stepped closer, holding Tessa’s photograph where the family could see it.
"Her name was Tessa Ramsey," she said. "She died believing Dominic had abandoned her and that the Moretti family considered her unworthy. She was not a scandal. She was a woman who was manipulated, isolated, and denied the truth about her own child."
Mason’s attorney shook his head. "This is an emotional accusation. There must be documentation."
"There is," Isabella answered.
She opened her yellow clutch and removed copies of hospital records, letters Tessa had written, and a folder bearing Mason’s private seal.
Seth had given it to her earlier that afternoon from a locked cabinet in his study.
Dominic recognized his father’s handwriting on the first page.
A list of instructions. Names. Dates. Payments to the attorney who altered the family records. A note ordering Seth to marry Tessa or lose access to the family trust.
The room fell silent as Martin Hale read the pages.
Then he looked at Mason. "You signed these?"
Mason’s mouth tightened. "Those papers prove nothing without context."
"They prove everything," Dominic said.
His estranged wife removed her wedding ring and placed it on the table near the silverware. "You told me Dominic had never loved anyone before me. You said he was devoted to the family and simply incapable of affection."
Dominic flinched. "I am sorry. You deserved the truth too."
She looked at Mason, not him.
"How many lives did you rearrange so this family could appear perfect?"
No one answered.
One of the cousins, who had spent fifteen years working under Mason, slowly set down his phone. "The board needs to know about this."
"The board will do what I tell it to do," Mason snapped.
"Not anymore," Martin Hale said.
Mason turned on him. "Be careful."
The attorney’s expression had changed. He placed the documents on the table and removed his glasses.
"I have represented the Moretti family for thirty-two years," he said. "I will not represent the concealment of a child’s parentage or the coercion used to create it. Effective immediately, I am withdrawing from every matter connected to you personally."
Mason’s cane trembled in his hand.
Isabella felt no triumph. Only a deep, exhausted grief for the years that could not be returned.
"You wanted the family to stand together," she said.
"Now they are standing together against what you did."
Mason looked toward Dominic. "You would destroy your own inheritance for this?"
Dominic glanced at Max, who had moved closer to Seth but kept one hand extended toward him.
"You taught me that a name was worth any sacrifice," Dominic replied. "You were wrong."
For the first time, Mason seemed unable to command the room.
By the following week, the Moretti family board had suspended Mason Hoffman from every executive position and opened an independent review of the family trust, business records, and altered birth documents. His invitations disappeared, his allies stopped returning calls, and the charitable foundation that had once carried his name removed it from the building.
No one struck him or dragged him away.
They simply stopped obeying him.
That was the punishment Mason had never imagined: becoming powerless while surrounded by the evidence of his former influence.
When the legal proceedings began, Dominic gave a sworn statement. Seth gave one too. Isabella submitted Tessa’s letters, the lockets, and the folder bearing Mason’s instructions.
The truth reached Rocky Mount quietly at first, then all at once.
People who had once repeated Mason’s version of events began speaking Tessa’s name. Former employees remembered how she had been pushed out of her job. Neighbors recalled Dominic’s sudden disappearance from her life and Seth’s hurried marriage.
The story no longer belonged to Mason Hoffman.
It belonged to the people he had silenced.
Three months later, in the county courthouse, Dominic stood beside Max while a judge amended the boy’s legal records to recognize him as Max Brandt’s biological father. Seth remained on Max’s other side, his hand resting gently on the boy’s shoulder.
The judge asked Dominic whether he understood the responsibility he was accepting.
"I do," Dominic said. "And I accept it without conditions."
Outside, reporters waited near the courthouse steps, but Dominic did not hide behind lawyers or tinted windows. He faced them with Max’s hand in his own.
"My son is Max Brandt," he said. "His mother was Tessa Ramsey. For too long, fear and family power kept the truth from him. That ends today."
Isabella stood nearby, tears bright in her eyes.
Max looked at Dominic. "Do I have to call you Dad now?"
Dominic managed a small, unsteady smile. "Only when you want to."
Seth crouched beside him. "And you can still call me Daddy."
Max considered both men carefully. Then he reached for each of their hands.
"I think I want both," he said.
Seth closed his eyes, relief passing over his face like sunlight through clouds.
Dominic felt something inside him loosen, something that had been clenched since the night he left Tessa’s apartment.
Isabella approached Max and touched his hair.
"Your mother would have been proud of you," she said.
"Did she like the beach?" Max asked.
"She loved it. Especially when the water was cold."
"Then we should go sometime."
Isabella looked at Dominic and Seth. For the first time, the suggestion did not feel like a promise made over a grave. It felt like the beginning of a life Tessa had been denied.
Behind them, Mason Hoffman emerged from the courthouse with no family beside him. His legal troubles were only beginning, but his authority had already ended.
He paused when he saw the three of them holding Max’s hands.
Dominic met his gaze.
Mason waited for fear, obedience, or regret.
He found none.
Max squeezed Dominic’s fingers and looked toward the bright afternoon sky over Rocky Mount.
"Can we go home now?"
Dominic looked at Seth, then at Isabella.
"Yes," he said. "We can go home."
But as they walked down the courthouse steps, Isabella noticed one final envelope tucked beneath the papers in her clutch, sealed with Tessa’s name and dated the week before her death.
* * *
Five years later, the Moretti house no longer felt like a courtroom.
Dominic Moretti and Seth Winslow shared school pickups, holidays, and the difficult conversations that came with raising Max Brandt together. Their family remained complicated, but it was no longer built on silence.
“Dad, Seth says I can get a dog,” Max announced one Saturday.
Seth smiled. “I said we could discuss it.”
Dominic raised an eyebrow. “That is not the same thing.”
“It will be,” Max said. “Once Isabella Mitchell agrees.”
From the porch, Isabella laughed. “I am your aunt, not your accomplice.”
Max ran to her and hugged her waist.
“You’re both.”
She held him tightly, still carrying grief for Tessa Ramsey, but no longer carrying it alone.
Later, Dominic found Max at the old river overlook, turning the silver locket between his fingers. The matching one rested in Dominic’s palm.
“Do you still keep it?” Max asked.
“Always.”
“Because it’s sad?”
“Because it reminds me to be honest.”
Max considered that, then slipped his hand into Dominic’s. “Mom would like that.”
Dominic looked toward the water, where evening light moved across the current.
“She would,” he said.
Behind them, Seth called, “Come on. Dinner’s ready.”
Max tugged Dominic forward. “We’re coming.”
The truth had wounded them, but it had also given them a foundation strong enough to carry love without hiding it.