Page 206 of Enthrall Shadows
My jaw tightened. “I hope you weren’t this shitty with Shay.”
“Worse.”
“Do you find this funny?”
He frowned. “You wanted me to be your brother. Want me to flip to therapist mode?”
“Again, fuck you.”
“Your anger is coming out. This is good.”
I stared at the ceiling, frustrated with him, with life and with everything in between. “I keep thinking about Lilly’s visit at the office.”
“Who is she again?”
I clenched my jaw. “Okay, therapist mode it is.”
Cameron sat back and crossed one long leg over the other. “Lilly came to see you on behalf of her mom to tell you what really happened out there in Chile all those years ago.”
That jolted me, and I tried to discern whether they had spoken.
Yesterday, he’d seen Lilly arrive at my office, but he had left soon afterwards.
He read my concern. “We haven’t spoken. They’re going for your sympathy. An expected next tactic after the first attempt to get you on their side failed.”
“How do you do that?”
“It’s a curse and a blessing.” He exhaled. “Go on.”
“I’m being manipulated.”
“What did Lilly say?”
“She asked me to see things from her mom’s perspective.”
“Do you believe Reese regrets the way she treated you at the preserve?”
“Maybe. Anyway, Lilly told me the real reason her mom decided to disappear off the face of the earth.” I tried to swallow the lump in my throat.
I’d become that young man suffering the loss all over again, the same grief capturing me in its hellish thrall.
Cameron got up and walked over to the side table. He brought me back a glass of water and I took it from him, downing the liquid and quenching my thirst.
“What did Lilly say?” whispered Cameron.
I let out a long breath. “Months after arriving in Chile, Reese attended one of their staff parties. She drank too many pisco sours—too much brandy.”
“Ah, potent stuff.”
I gave a nod. He knew where this was going.
“Reese woke up in this guy’s bed the next day. She knew him, he was a local volunteer. There had been some light flirting between them. She says it was consensual, but she regretted it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Cameron. “For you and for her.”
I sighed. “Reese found out she was pregnant a month later.”
“That baby is Lilly?” said Cameron.
