Page 250 of Damaged Mogul
He helps me up. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” I rub my sore elbow.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.” Another lie.
Why does he even care?
I eye him warily.
“Think about it, Lily. Would Nadine tell me where to find you if she didn’t trust me or thought I was a cheater?”
He has a good point, but I’m unwilling to be fooled that easily. “How can that woman be your sister?”
“Sara is my adopted sister.”
“But the woman?—”
“The woman with thetawnybrown skinisn’t a mixed-race beauty I’m head over heels for. In fact, she isn’t mixed race. Sara YeniferHollingsworth, born Sara YeniferGarcía, is from the Dominican Republic.”
My eyes widen.
“My parents adopted her when she was ten. Long story short, Mom’s church supported a few churches in DR. After a brutal hurricane, hundreds of kids became orphans. Sara was one of them. She’s six years older than me. And, yes, I love my sister and I have no problem telling her.”
I’m speechless.
“Fisher Edgington is a sneaky motherfucker. If he hired a PI, my bet is he hired one of the best in LA. It couldn’t have been that hard for the PI to figure out who thetawny brown skinnedwoman was. Sara never took her deadbeat husband’s name. Her hospital badge reads Dr. Hollingsworth.”
Whoa.
“Any PI worth his salt would’ve relayed that information. Fisher knew Sara was my sister. He used the opportunity to stir up shit so he could manipulate you. Guess what? It worked.”
Chapter 47
Gage
Nadine refused to take my money, but she was willing to close her shop for an hour. We went to a nearby café and talked. She figured if I had cut my business trip short, perhaps her best friend didn’t have all the facts.
She told me Fisher had me followed and I was caught on camera with atawny brown skin woman entering Van Nuys Airport. The same woman I had professed my love to.
That’s all I needed to hear.
I pulled out my phone and showed her last year’s Christmas family photo of my adopted sister with thetawny brown skin, my two white half-sisters, and me. When she picked up her jaw from the floor, she revealed where Lily was hiding. It was an hour and a half flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport to Bastia Poretta Airport, Corsica. And then, a half an hour from the airport to Nadine’s father’s vacation house. Lily wasn’t too far. If I’d had to fly to the other side of the planet in fucking economy class to track her down, I would’ve.
The moment Lily noticed my presence, I could see my dismissal written all over her beautiful face. No way was Ileaving this island without her hearing me out. I was a man on a mission to win my girl back.
After Lily stared at me, dumbfounded for a solid minute after I made it irrefutably clear the woman her father’s PI saw me with wasn’t my girlfriend or lover, she agreed to sit down and talk. Gérard disappeared to his quarters, leaving us alone in the living room, promising to return the second we were ready for dinner.
Lily told me all about her lunch with her father and his attempt at playing matchmaker. The hurt in her eyes when she told me about seeing the video clip of Sara and me stabbed me in thegut.
“Your father needs to show you some respect.”
“And until he does, I’m not talking to him,” she says. “I’m done bending backwards. I always end up with the same results, anyway.”
“Good on you for standing firm in your decision.”
“When I wouldn’t return his calls, he forwarded the video to remind me of the type of man you were. I received it when I woke up this morning.”
