Chapter Fifty-One
Elise
The deck of cards lay between my palms like a live wire.
No one moved. The pennies still gleamed on the dark wood where Nora had poured them out earlier into playful copper piles that now felt obscene against the sudden weight pressing down on the room.
Dessert plates sat half-finished. Steam curled from the coffee mugs.
Of all the ways this dinner could have imploded, I had not anticipated illegal senior-center gambling leading to a dynastic reveal.
Gabe looked at me, searching for a memory that clearly wasn’t there. “Thomas Steele’s daughter,” he said quietly, almost fondly.
The ripple moved outward.
Bella set her fork down with careful precision. “Dad.”
Drew’s hand rested along the back of her chair, close enough to support her without interrupting. Evan shifted, trying to sit straighter, and winced. Nora leaned toward Evan, “Easy.”
Beth touched Gabe’s arm lightly. He glanced at her, and whatever he had been about to say remained unsaid.
Brady’s fingers laced with mine.
I tried to keep the rules intact. “Technically,” I said, voice thin, “I bought back in with a secret. Someone has to discard.”
No one reached for the deck.
Gabe’s jaw tightened. He glanced around, then back at me. “We were friends a long time ago. I haven’t thought about him in years. How is he?”
How is he?
Haven’t thought about him in years?
Despite how calm I was attempting to remain on the outside, there was a literal cascade of emotions going on inside me.
How? How could someone who had not only mattered to my father, but had also been part of his financial collapse, remember him fondly?
It didn’t make sense.
“Hang on,” Bella said slowly. “We’re talking about the correct Thomas Steele, right? The one Dad knew in college?”
“Yes,” Brady said firmly.
Bella and Drew exchanged a look.
Evan’s voice came out hoarse. “The timing is hard to ignore.”
Gabe seemed confused. “The world is a small place. I can’t believe, Brady, that you’re dating the daughter of someone I went to college with.”
Who had my father been to him? Just someone he went to school with?
“Oh, Brady.” Bella shook her head.
Brady leaned forward. “Whatever you’re thinking, Bella, know that I considered it first. I don’t know whether the old history matters, but Elise had nothing to do with what happened to Evan.”
“What am I missing?” Gabe asked.
Beth rubbed a hand over her forehead and seemed to be struggling to remain composed.
“Why are you here?” Drew demanded.
My chin rose. “Because I was there when Brady got the news about Evan, and I wanted to help.”
Brady stood. “You can believe whatever you want to, but that’s the truth.”
I rose to stand beside him. “It is.”
“Sit back down,” Gabe said firmly. “No one is suggesting there’s a problem with Elise being here. Why would there be?”
He didn’t know that Brady had come looking for my father.
But everyone else did. I saw it in their eyes.
I stared at the cards. At the pennies. At my half-eaten dessert.
None of this made sense to them, and I couldn’t blame them. It made no sense to me either. My father had built our whole lives around one betrayal: our home, our rules, our locked doors, all of it shaped by something that had only mattered to him.
I wanted to sit back down, rewind time, and not have shared who I was, but I couldn’t.
Brady’s hand closed around mine, but he didn’t appear to know whether we should stay or go either.
“I need air,” I declared, and bolted not only from the room but from the house.
The cool night hit my face, but it didn’t reset anything.
A minute later, the door opened. Brady stepped out and closed it quietly behind him. He came to stand beside me, close enough that our shoulders brushed, but he gave the silence room.
“I’m sorry,” I started. “I don’t know why I chose tonight—”
“I understand,” he said. “Secrets fester.”
I wrapped my arms around myself as the shaking started. “I should have waited until your brother felt stronger.”
“It wouldn’t have been better then. You were right to choose honesty.”
“They were starting to like me,” I said, the words breaking apart as they left me. “Now they’ll question everything. Why I came. Why I stayed. Whether any of it was real.”
“They’re allowed to question the timing. I would too. But they don’t get to question what you mean to me.”
He stepped behind me and wrapped his arms around my middle, bending so his cheek rested against mine.
I relaxed into him. “You sound so certain.”
“I am. They’ll have questions. We’ll give them the answers we’re comfortable with, but that’s all we owe them.”
“I don’t ever want to come between you and them.”
He hugged me closer. “My grandparents never approved of my mother, and neither did anyone in my father’s social circle.
I’m sure that was difficult for him, but he should have chosen her.
In the end, not standing up for her destroyed what they had.
And it brought nothing good to him. My grandparents remain horrible people.
And his social circle? They don’t care about him.
I think what happened to Evan finally opened my father’s eyes to what his poor decisions have cost him. ”
After a long pause, he added, “I’m not my father. I know I seem like an easygoing guy, but I’d never let anyone treat you the way my father allowed people to treat my mother. I’d rather walk away and start fresh than witness that a second time.”
The intensity of how much he meant those words shook through both of us.
He wasn’t promising to make everyone happy.
He was promising that their unhappiness would not make him abandon me.
Tears filled my eyes, but they were grateful tears.
“I’ll find out who hurt your family, Brady, and I’ll destroy them.”
“Easy, Tiger.” He chuckled in my ear. “And if any destroying happens, we’ll do it together. You’re not going to prison without me.”
That lightened the mood a little. “Why does someone as optimistic as you assume we’d get caught?”
“Good point.”
He kissed my cheek.
I turned in his arms and looked up at him. “I love you, Brady Holliston.”
“I love you too.”
He kissed me gently, sweetly, and long enough that I nearly forgot what had sent me scurrying outside.
“Ready to go back in?”
I nodded.
Like hiding, leaving wasn’t how I wanted to live.
By the time we returned, the table was cleared, but the family remained. Bella had redistributed the pennies into fresh piles. Nora looked up the moment the screen door clicked and slid a small stack of copper coins toward the empty spot beside her.
“Elise, sit here.”
“Gabe said he was tired and went home,” she added, her voice warm but not overly bright. “Beth left as well.”
I sat beside Nora. Brady remained standing next to my chair.
“If anyone has anything to say about why Elise is here, say it now.”
“Or don’t.” Evan gave a tired chuckle that turned into a wince. “Why don’t we play a few more hands of this game and call it a night? Elise, you’re always welcome here.”
Drew dealt the next hand without comment. Bella watched me for a beat, then gave a small nod.
“This family is never boring, that’s for sure,” she said.
Brady’s stance relaxed, and he took the seat on my other side.
“I can’t believe you asked if she was the daughter of the right Steele,” he said.
I pressed my lips together to hide a smile, then said, “All things considered, it was a valid question.”
“I know, right?” Bella said. “Did you hear about the other family he met?”
“Hear about them?” I added. “That was the birthday party we went to. It was for their son.”
“No.” Drew chuckled.
“I took her before I knew she was the real Thomas Steele’s daughter,” Brady said in his defense.
Nora leaned in, sounding both curious and amused. “So, you didn’t know at first?”
“I knew he was looking for my father, and I wanted to know why before I told him anything,” I admitted.
Evan shook his head, but he was grinning. “Only you, Brady.”
“Hey, I knew I was close. I just didn’t understand how close,” Brady said.
In the short silence that followed, I added, “Our fathers were friends in college, but they had a falling out. We don’t know exactly what happened, but it left my father broke. He rebuilt, but he never forgot the betrayal.”
Bella inhaled sharply.
The question none of them wanted to ask hung in the air.
“I asked myself the same questions you’re probably thinking,” I continued, “but I really don’t believe he had anything to do with this.
My father builds security systems. He is pretty much a recluse.
He’s impatient and hyper-focused on his work, often to the point where he is oblivious to how anyone feels, but he doesn’t lash out.
He’s more of a sulker than a warrior. I can’t see him doing this, and I don’t know what benefit he would find in it. ”
Brady’s hand sought mine.
The short silence that followed had me wondering if they believed me.
Then Drew dealt me in, and everyone simply picked up their cards.
My hands shook, but I stayed at the table.