Page 73 of The Dom

How he managed to make the question so innocent sounding when he already knew the answer to that question, I didn’t know.

Her lips twisted as if she’d eaten something sour. “He’s home with our son, Trenton.”

“I hope to meet him the next time your family’s visiting.” Nate came back around the table and sat next to me.

Mom stood, a polite smile in place, which made me think that Nate had purposefully created a distraction to give her time to gather her composure. She’d given me little in the way of details about what had passed between her and her family when they’d disowned her, but considering how rattled they made her, it had to have been bad.

“Would you like something to drink?” she asked. “We’re having wine, but I have other beverages.”

“Sweet tea, of course,” Granny said. “And while you’re doing that, perhaps Ashlee can introduce us to your young gentleman friend.”

Finley nearly choked on his wine, and his face turned red as he coughed. Mom looked torn, but I waved her away. I could handle this.

“Granny, Gramps, Aunt Janette, this is Finley Kordell. He’s my…” My voice trailed off. Maybe I couldn’t handle it.

“Father,” Nate supplied the word as he rested his hand on my leg beneath the table. “He’s Ashlee’s father.”

The near-identical expressions of surprise on their faces almost made me laugh.

“How did that work?” Aunt Janette asked bluntly. “Did Bobbi finally get over her experimenting stage and you were the first guy she banged? Got her knocked up?”

Nate’s fingers tightened on my leg as if he knew I was seconds away from getting in my aunt’s face. I didn’t care how much I wanted an extended family. That comment was completely out of line.

“Mom used IVF.” I bit off each word. “Finley was the donor.”

“And you two just happened to run into each other?” Granny asked. “I thought there were all sorts of rules in place to keep that from happening.”

“There are, but I broke some of them,” I admitted.

“But I’m glad she did.” Finley had finally gotten his breath back. “She’s an amazing young woman.”

“So, you walked up to a stranger and announced that you were his daughter?” Aunt Janette asked.

“She met me through work,” Finley answered. “She’s a freelancer who works in our A&R department.”

“Our?” Gramps echoed. “You work with him?” He gestured toward Nate.

“I do,” Finley said. “We opened Manhattan Records together.”

That was when I saw it, the gleam of something in my grandparents’ eyes. My stomach dropped.

“That’s great that everything worked out for you.” Aunt Janette gave my shoulder a not-so-gentle shove. “You go to find your dad and come back with a rich dad and a rich boyfriend.”

“That’s not exactly how it happened,” Nate said stiffly.

Aunt Janette winked at me. “Of course not.”

“How did you two meet?” Granny asked.

At first, I thought she wanted to know about Nate and me, which sent me scrambling for a way to tell the story without including any of the embarrassing parts, but then I realized she was talking to Finley about Nate.

“You don’t look like you’re close enough in age for the two of you to have gone to college together,” she continued. “Did your families know each other?”

“We didn’t meet until we were adults,” Nate said, his fingers tightening on my leg again. “I was looking to build a record label, and he was interested in being a part of it.”

It wasn’t until he gave that brief explanation that I realized I didn’t know how the two of them even met. I made a mental note to ask at a later time, when we weren’t fielding questions from family members who were increasingly looking more like the people Mom had described to me my whole life.

“You didn’t come from money, then?” Gramps asked.

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