Page 121 of Wild Blades

And my secret boyfriend.

“What did he do this time?” Marcus grumbles while rolling his eyes.

I hold my tongue and pull out a piece of paper from my jacket pocket to show him instead.

“Oh hell, is it bad?” he asks, sounding anxious.

I lower my voice so as not to be heard. “Is having a secret love child bad? I think so, yeah.” I hand him the printout of the DNA results document Lola sent me.

His skin turns ashen. “Where did you get this?” The paper in his hands begins shaking. “No one was supposed to find out.” Marcus sways on his feet and reaches out to hold onto the wall to steady himself.

A member of Marcus’s housekeeping team walks down the marble staircase. “We should talk somewhere a little more discreet, don’t you think?” He ushers me quickly into his home office.

Resting my back on the chair opposite Marcus as he sits behind the desk, I school my emotions when, in fact, the fires of hell are raging through my body, every cell within me ready to explode at any minute. Annoyed at Marcus for harboring such a gigantic secret for so long and worried how Wade will react to this news.

Elbows on the desk, head in his hands, he’s staring down at the DNA results. He’s shook.

Which is exactly what Wade will be when he discovers the truth about Zane being his half-brother.

“You’re lucky Gladiola, AKA Lola, trusted me with this and didn’t go straight to the press.” Lola doesn’t have a nasty bone in her body. She’s not after money, because it turns out she has lots of her own which she recently inherited from her father. And all she wants is to be Wade’s sister; to be a family because without her dad, who died only a few months ago, she has no one. It’s that simple. Wanting to fulfill her father’s last dying wish, she wants to apologize on behalf of her father too. I can’t imagine what carrying that secret around with him must have been like. I feel sorry for him. He lost out too. He lost his wife, who he loved, and had a son that turned out not to be his. How awful.

That saying Wade says is true; hurt people, hurt people.

I’m grateful Lola trusted me with this information. Together, we agreed to keep it under lock and key. For now.

To protect Wade. Until the time is right. Which is what Lola wants and I support her.

He’s only just finding his feet again. Learning to deal with his emotions and making incredible progress of coming to terms with Gretchen’s death. Throwing this at him now is not the right time.

And I will do everything in my power to prevent this life-changing information from coming out in the press. Not now, certainly not while Wade is flying high. The tides are changing for him and he’s about to have the best month he’s ever had since we started his publicity campaign.

It’s a private and delicate matter, which I want to keep that way until the time is right. It needs handling in the right way.

I take the lead on our conversation. “I believe you know Ritchie Ramsay?” Marcus’s jaw twitches as I drop his name. “Of course you know him. After all, he is Lola’s father, Miranda’s ex-husband, and your ex-business partner.” Fresh out of college, with the help of their fathers, they invested in a small chain of restaurants, which they grew together and went on to open a string of coffee shops and wine bars.

That was, until Ritchie discovered his best friend was having an affair with his wife, and Wade was Marcus’s, then kicked both her and Wade out on the street. With nowhere to go, she moved into her father’s house.

“Lola is Miranda’s daughter?” he asks, confused.

“Yes.”

I got a little more detail out of Lola before I came here. She doesn’t need to work, doesn’t need the money, she just wanted a position within the admin team to get closer to him. All she wants is a family. A brother. And to make her feel like she’s not alone. Although part of me wishes she had just told him who she was from the minute she found out, maybe she is what he needed. To show him he isn’t alone. He has a whole family.Which will come as a complete surprise to him. I’m not sure how he will take it.

“Ritchie told her everything?” Marcus mumbles, as if asking himself.

“Yes.” I’m blunt to the point of being rude. “He died a few months ago, and he told her before he passed away.”

“I never meant for this to happen.” Marcus is quieter than I’ve heard him.

“Did your dick just slip out of your pants and inside her panties by mistake?” I’m past the point of caring if I’m being unprofessional and crass.

“Itwasa mistake.”

“That you continued to make, over and over again. You met Wade at his grandfather’s house, didn’t you? I know this because he remembers a man who visited every week.” I put two and two together myself. “It was never a onetime thing. He saw you. Not once, not twice, but dozens of times. Lucky for you, you’re unrecognizable now. And it would seem he was too young to remember you.” His brown locks long gone have been replaced with silver strands, which I know because of the photos scattered on the unit behind his desk of him when he was much younger.

“Tell me, do you wear colored contacts for a reason? In fact, don’t answer that.” I already know the answer. The private family photos sitting proudly along the console table behind his desk confirm everything I need to know.

Wade inherited his father’s unique eye color, like the brilliant blue of the Caribbean Sea. If Marcus didn’t wear contacts to cover them, and if Wade were to see his personal photos in his home office, Wade would figure out who he was in a heartbeat.

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