Page 114 of The Beast's Heart

I’m not sure whether I believe that, but even if I did, “That isn’t… Geoff I’m certain that isn’t allowed with fosters.”

For a second I think Geoff has frozen. But no, he was just staring at me. Then he laughs, low and dark. “You mean he still hasn’t told you?”

My stomach drops, like I’ve missed a step. “Told me what?”

He shakes his head. “You have to be the only adult on that godforsaken estate who doesn’t know.”

“What don’t I know?”

Geoff levels a look at me, as if he’s considering his next step, and it takes a beat for him to decide to answer. “The only person who has any authority to decide how the kids’ pictures are used is The Beast.”

The air is suddenly very thin. There’s only one reason that would be the case. Still, I need confirmation. “Why?”

“Is it true?”

Adam is standing in the garden where I left him, admiring a bush of rhododendrons. He looks up sharply at my tone, but I can no more control that than control the frantic beating of my heart. It feels like the bottom has dropped out of my world.

“Jonathan, what?—”

“Is it true? Did you adopt the children?”

The confusion melts from Adam’s face and he straightens to his full height, expression drawn. Only then do I accept it.

I dash at my eyes. Adam reaches for me but I pull away. “You’ve been lying to them. You’ve been lying to me. What kind of— what kind of heartless—” I almost say beast but bite my tongue, drawing a deep breath instead, trying to get myself under control. “You’ve made those children live with uncertainty, with fear, with the dread that they have to return to the system. You’ve made them go through that. Why? So they look pitiful in the headlines? So you could get your rich sponsors to feel sorry for them?” I sink to my haunches in the dew-damp grass. “I feel sick.”

“I was going to tell you,” Adam says.

“I don’t fucking care. I don’t care that you keptmein the dark.” Which is a lie. Of course I do. I force myself to look up at him. His eyes are filled with remorse and I swallow hard. “I thought… I can’t believe I thought… I thought I meant something to you. I feel like such a fool.”

“Jonathan.” He sinks down beside me. “You do. You mean everything to me.”

“No! You don’t get to say that.” I bury my head in my hands. “You don’t get to say that when you’ve made me live with this. You have no idea how painful it’s been to fall in love with them knowing I’d have to say goodbye, knowing that I’d have to send them back— back to that. God, how could you do this?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” There’s pure venom in my words and I see Adam startle at it, as if I’m the six-foot-six giant.

“It was never the plan. I was going to foster them. Then their visas were denied and I looked at everything and thought, why not?”

“Why not! You— you just decided to adopt four children on a whim?”

“It wasn’t a whim.” For the first time, his volume rises. “I didn’t want to send them back into a system I knew was broken!” He drops his voice again. “I— I— know what they’ve been through. I didn’t want to give them back.”

“So you kept it from them?”

“I had to! This project is about promotingfoster care. How would it look if it turned out I wasn’t even fostering?”

“It doesn’t matter how it looks!”

“Yes, it does.” He reaches out to touch my shoulder, but I wrench away. “Belle, it does. It was for the good of the whole foundation, for the good of the work we’re doing. I was going to tell them, after this campaign, after the auction. Of course I wasgoing to tell them. But if I told them before, if they let it slip, it could ruin everything.”

“And that’s why you kept it from me, I suppose? Because you couldn’t trust me not toruin everything?”

His features are pure distress. “No, Jonathan. I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t figure out how. I meant to tell you tonight.”

I bark a hollow laugh. “Right.”

“Please believe that the last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt you.”

---