Page 47 of Wild Heart

“Mason Bennett,” Olivia said. “Is your father.”

He staggered back like he’d been struck. “No. That’s… no. I’ve worked with him. We’ve spent hours together. He never said…”

“He doesn’t know.” The words barely made it past her lips.

Davey’s eyes were wild. “What do you mean he doesn’t know?”

“It was one night,” Olivia said, the tears finally falling. “One terrible, messy night after a rescue went wrong. Mason had lost a child. A daughter. And the woman he loved had left him. He was broken. We were friends. Close. That night, I cooked him dinner. We drank too much. We talked about pain and endings, and we... we made a mistake.”

Davey stood stone-still.

“The next morning, we were ashamed,” Olivia continued. “We both knew it wasn’t love. Just loneliness. Just grief. He was always in trouble. Started drinking. Sleeping around. And he left town soon after. By the time I knew I was pregnant, he was already gone. I had no idea how to contact him and never thought I’d see him again. Then I met Clark, but he left, too. Then, out of the blue when you were five, Mason came back and I’d grown so used to it being just the two of us, I... I decided not to tell him.”

“Why?” Davey’s voice was hoarse, raw. “Why wouldn’t you tell him?”

“Because I was afraid,” she said. “Afraid he’d ruin it. Afraid he’d resent you. Afraid he’d come back and then leave again and break your heart worse than never knowing him at all.”

“So, you made that decision for both of us,” he said, his voice shaking. “You decided I didn’t get to know my father.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” she whispered. “I thought if I could just give you a stable life, a happy one, that it wouldn’t matter.”

“But it does matter,” he said. “It matters more than anything.”

Olivia reached for him, but he pulled away.

“I trusted you,” he said. “I believed you had your reasons. But this? This was my life. My family. My right to know.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“And now what?” he said. “What do you expect me to do? Pretend it doesn’t matter? Pretend Mason being my father doesn’t change everything?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’ve lived with this secret for so long I stopped imagining what it would be like if it came out.”

He stared at her. “Does he still not know?”

“No,” she said. “Not yet.”

“Unbelievable,” Davey muttered. “You’ve lied to us both.”

“I was going to tell him.” She said, pleading. “I was building up to it. I didn’t know how to begin then it was too late.”

Davey’s voice cracked. “You don’t begin, Mom. You just speak. You just say it.”

“I was scared.”

“You should have been brave.”

She reached out one more time. “Please, Davey. Just wait. Let me tell Mason and Natalie myself. Let me explain in my own way.”

But he shook his head. Stepped back.

“I don’t owe you that,” he said. “Not anymore.”

“Davey…”

He turned, almost running down the porch steps, boots crunching on gravel. The sun had disappeared entirely now, leaving the sky deep purple and bruised with dusk.

“I hate you,” he said without looking back. “I don’t care why you did it. You still did.”

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