Page 120 of Loverboy
“Thank you, thank you!” Gunnar gives everyone a wave. “We’re here all week.”
“Stop,” I giggle, admiring my hand. “This dinner is even more exciting than I thought it would be.”
“That’s every day with you, sweetheart,” he says. “Especially the days when you bring home pie.”
And I kick his good leg under the table.
* * *
The food is probably wonderful. I’m not sure I even bother to taste it. I’m too happy.
Gunnar asks me what kind of wedding I want, and I tell him asmallone. “Planning a wedding is a drag. Planning a honeymoon, though? That’s something I can get behind.”
“Fair enough. Then that’s what I want, too.”
It takes me all the way to the dessert course to remember that Gunnar had three things to discuss.
“Okay, yes,” he says when I prompt him. “I really don’t want to kill the mood. But I also don’t want any secrets between us. So I have to tell you that I learned a few new things about Saroya.”
“Oh,” I say softly. She disappeared the morning after Gunnar’s injury, which was also the morning after she and Spalding had a huge fight. Nobody has seen her since, and there were no more strange incidents at the pie shop. But a few months ago, Gunnar asked me if he could look into her some more, and I’d said yes.
“Posy, you’re not going to like what I found. It has to do with your dad.”
“Oh.” I gulp. My dad and I have been getting along better lately, too. “All right. What is it?”
“Saroya’s mother didn’t come to work at Paxton’s until 1998. But in 1996, your father started paying her a monthly check. It came out of an account your father has in Grand Cayman.”
“A secret bank account?” I roll my eyes. “Was he hiding money from my mother?”
“Probably.”
“Okay. That’s not that surprising. But why was he paying…” I think about it for a second. “Oh hell. How old is Saroya?”
“She was born in 1996.”
My stomach drops. “Oh my God. You think—” I can’t even say it out loud. “She’s his...”
Nope. Still can’t say it.
“She might be his child,” Gunnar says gently. “Though DNA tests weren’t as common back then. It isn’t a certainty.”
“But he paid her,” I repeat. “So he thinks she is.”
“Yeah, probably,” Gunnar says quietly. “The checks stopped after Saroya turned eighteen.”
“But she wanted more.” My head is spinning. “My dad is rich. She thinks she got a bad deal. And she came afterme?”
Is there any other way to explain this?
“She’s angry. She wants what other people have,” Gunnar says simply. “We all do, right? She just hasn’t handled it very well.”
“I’ll say,” I snort. “She might be my—” I can’t say it.
“Half-sister,” Gunnar supplies for me.
“But she didn’t tell me that. She still tried to ruin me. It’s like a Greek tragedy.”
“Euripides would be impressed,” he agrees.
