Chapter 15
WREN
A s I sit and wait at the café Mom loves to go to, I regret not making my order an Irish coffee. Hold the coffee.
I’m hoping Mom can shed some light on what the Ritchersons are hiding, but I have a very real fear that I’m looking for something to ruin this.
Darcy and I have been getting close. We instantly clicked—minus my protesting. But I’ve always respected him. From the way he carried himself to the way he didn’t give up on me. Getting me to let him in.
I should be thankful, but if I think about it too hard, what I really am is scared. I’m scared I’ll get attached. I’m scared I already am.
Is this me self-sabotaging? Finding a reason to cut off my new family before they can do it to me?
I never cared before. Warren was an asshole in my eyes, and my brothers were just people I didn’t know. I still don’t know them, but Darcy’s trying. He’s trying really hard.
I don’t know if Mom can give me the answers or if she can tell me something new when it comes to the situation, but Mom has wanted to tell me the story for years, and I haven’t wanted to hear any of it.
When I’d called her, she was away on a girls’ trip with one of her friends, so I’ve had days to stew over every single detail.
I was even tempted to read that piece-of-shit letter Warren left me that I’ve refused to open, but on that, I’ve held strong.
My resentment has always been toward him.
I thought it was the whole family, but with Darcy, and even Tobias a little bit, I can’t hate them.
Junior is another story, but I get the impression even Darcy can’t stand him.
He’s an entitled twatburger, so my disdain doesn’t come from family drama.
Even saying that though—family drama—it doesn’t click. They are my family. They’re my blood. But I just … there’s no connection with any of them. Not like there is with Darcy. And that might be too much of a connection.
As much as Remy was trying to reassure me that it’s common for siblings who don’t grow up together to confuse their bond, I’m trying to find other psychological reasons for it.
Like, Darcy is the alternate-reality me, and so, really, I’m attracted to the lifestyle I could have had. I want to fuck myself. Not my brother.
I shudder again and take a drink of my coffee as Mom walks in. She’s a free-loving but fiery woman. She’s loyal to a fault and will fight for you even if you’re in the wrong. Hence the reason why she still sticks up for the man who knocked her up and then left her.
“Bad coffee?” she asks. “You look like you sucked a lemon.”
“Nothing to do with the coffee.” I stand from the table to kiss her cheek like the good boy that I am. “I ordered yours.” I pass it over as we sit opposite each other. “How was your trip?”
“Amazing. Facials, massages, drinking wine. I want to go back.”
“Sounds like a party.”
“It is. But what’s up with you? You sounded distraught on the phone.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“Am I?”
I tell myself to ask. To get answers. But I can’t find the words, so I avert my eyes and sip my coffee some more.
“Is this about your brothers?”
It sounds so foreign and weird coming from her mouth still. “Can you … not call them that? It’s obvious two of them want nothing to do with me, and the other one …” The other is indescribable.
“Darcy?” She’s either perceptive or could tell the same thing I did when I first met them. Darcy’s the odd one out.
“Yeah.”
Now it’s her turn to glance away.
“What? What is it?” I ask.
“He doesn’t look like you other three.” There’s something in her tone. Something … hopeful? Wistful? It makes my suspicions grow.
“What do you know?”
“What do you mean what do I know?”
“I think … I think Darcy has a secret, and I want to know what it is, but I don’t think I can figure it out unless you tell me exactly what happened all those years ago. How you, Warren, and Darcy’s mom ended up in a mess of a love triangle.”
“It wasn’t much of a triangle, if you ask me. He didn’t love her. He wasn’t even …” She stops herself.
“Wasn’t even what?”
“You’re going to say I’m a fool.”
“I have decided this is a nonjudgment zone.”
“Since when?”
“Since …” I adjust the collar of my shirt. “Since I’ve decided to give the Ritchersons a chance to show me what I missed growing up. If anything.”
My mom looks hurt.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I loved my childhood, and I love you and Remy. Aunt Marcy, Uncle Hal, Grandpa when he was alive … You were all the family I needed. But with Warren’s death, that resentment I had is dimming, and I’m curious.”
“You don’t want to hear my crazy conspiracy theories.”
One corner of my lips rises. “Conspiracy? Now I’m definitely intrigued. Does it involve alien abduction at all?”
She laughs. “No.”
“Okay, less interested, but I still want to hear it.”
The seconds tick by, my heart rate picking up. I think I already know what she’s going to say before she says it. That Warren wasn’t cheating. On her, on Darcy’s mom—whoever he was with first. And that maybe, just maybe, the Ritchersons announced Darcy’s birth before he was actually born.
It would explain so much.
“Your fa—Warren …” she starts, knowing how I hate him being referred to as my father.
Anyone can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad.
“He … he promised me he wasn’t sleeping with her.
When we got together, he told me about his arranged marriage.
That we couldn’t be any more than a summer fling.
But he assured me I was the only girl he had eyes for. ”
“And you believed him?”
She throws up her hands. “See? Judgment. I was young. He was convincing. The night he told me it would be our last night because his marriage had been moved up, that’s the night we conceived you.”
I wince.
“Judgment,” she sings.
“No judgment. I just don’t want to know about you getting it on with some guy.”
“Anyway, they got married, announced their pregnancy not long after that.”
Here it comes. The baby math. If Warren truly was only with my mom, and then he got Darcy’s mom pregnant … I would’ve been born first.
“Unless Darcy was premature,” Mom continues, “that means that she was already pregnant.”
There’s a legit record scratch in my head.
She was already pregnant.
My mouth gapes because even though I know there’s some big secret, I didn’t even consider something this big. Probably because of the Ritchersons’ obsession with bloodline.
“And maybe it’s naive thinking on my part because I want to believe the man I fell in love with that summer was truthful and honest, but what if they weren’t intimate while he and I were?”
Holy shit. No. No way. “Darcy wouldn’t be Warren Ritcherson’s son.”
As soon as it’s out there, it makes even more sense than my theory, which sounds stupid now in this new light.
“You’d be his first heir,” Mom says. “You’d be entitled to everything.”
Truthfully, I’m not even focusing on that because the company means nothing to me. I don’t want to be in Darcy’s position, no matter how much it paid me.
But if this is true … if Darcy isn’t my biological father’s child … That would mean he’s not my brother.
Mom reaches across the table and places her hand on mine. “You look too excited for that, and I hate to burst your bubble, but that theory doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m not excited. It’s an interesting theory. Like you said, Darcy looks nothing like the rest of us.” How did I not suspect it sooner?
When I brought up that he’s physically so different, he tensed.
Wait. If this is true, does Darcy know about it?
“The biggest problem with that theory is that Warren’s family would never have let him marry her, let alone give the company to an illegitimate heir. There’d be safeguards in place, and if Warren didn’t want to marry her, that would have been his easy out.”
I slump back because she’s right. The Ritchersons are all about the bloodline and all that other bullshit.
If he really didn’t want Darcy’s mom, why go to all this trouble for her?
Why would Warren not only raise another man’s baby but give that guy’s kid his company?
The only way for him to be in the dark in that situation would be if he lied to Mom and they were already sleeping together.
And if they were, why wouldn’t Darcy be his?
The brief flicker of excitement—of something like relief—dies.
There’s no way.
My search for answers has only brought more questions.
* * *
With Darcy gone, learning the business is nowhere near as fun. Tobias has stopped being dickish, at least. He still says he doesn’t accept me, but it’s with a smile now, and I’m assuming it’s a mocking smile and not an “I’m going to kill you” smile.
Without Junior around, Toby doesn’t have a puppet master telling him what to do.
Still, I miss Darcy.
I miss him more than I should.
I don’t want to say more than a brother because that would be admitting to thinking about Mom’s theory way more than would be considered healthy.
I might even be at the point of letting myself believe it so it doesn’t feel as dirty and gross when I think about that last day we spent together or the close bond we’ve been building.
I try to keep my thoughts rational. Try to talk through psychological science about familial bonds versus attraction—abandonment issues versus wanting to be closer to him.
No matter how hard I try to keep things appropriate, it’s like my brain has a mind of its own. Even if it’s my brain telling my brain not to think about it.
It doesn’t even make sense anymore.
Fucking hell, I’m a mess.
I need to talk to him.
When I get home from another day of poking Tobias with taunts of “Careful, you said something nice” every single time he said something remotely civil, I do some quick math and figure it’ll be the middle of the night in London.
I wanted to try to talk to him today, but I didn’t get a minute of peace.
I can see how easy it would be to fall into Darcy’s trap of always working. The workload never eases.
I send a text to Darcy’s UK number, knowing he’ll most likely still be awake but double-checking first. I’m polite like that.
Wren:
You awake?
Darcy:
It’s 2am. What do you think?
Wren:
You’re still at work, aren’t you?
Darcy:
Yep.
Wren:
Can I call you?
Instead of getting an answer, my phone rings.
“What’s up?” he rushes when I answer.
“There’s no emergency, calm down.”
“Oh, thank god. I had visions of you and Toby in the hospital after knifing each other.”
“Pfft. Like that little thing could take me. Besides, you Ritchersons don’t seem like the stabbing kind. You know, unless it’s in the back.”
“You’re a Ritcherson.”
“Nope. I’m still a Porter. Have no desire to change that anytime soon.” I love how we can jump into conversation like time hasn’t passed, but it doesn’t take away any of those lingering thoughts about him escaping to London to get away from me.
I didn’t realize how strong my abandonment issues really were until he was gone. Somewhere in my rationalizing, I’ve put Darcy in the same box as our father.
It’s no wonder I’m a mess over him.
“What’s with the call at 2:00 a.m.?”
I can’t exactly say I miss him, can I? I tell myself to stop trying to psychoanalyze every goddamn confusing feeling I have and be myself. My snarky, deflective self. “It’s 6:00 p.m. here. It’s you who shouldn’t be awake.”
“Yet, you knew I would be.”
“If you didn’t have me forcing you to take time off to live, you’d never leave the office.”
“I was doing fine before you came into my life, I’ll have you know.”
“Sure. Let’s go with that.”
We’re both smiling—I can tell by the tone in his voice.
“When are you heading home?” I ask, trying to hide my desperation.
“Soon. I’m finishing up a report on?—”
“I mean, when are you coming back to Seattle?”
There’s a silent beat, and I can imagine him leaning back in his chair and putting his feet on his desk. “Miss me, brother?”
Yes . “Nope. I just really can’t take another day of Tobias droning on and on and on. He slips in and out of his British accent so much I’m starting to think it’s fake. None of you are British at all, are you?”
“You got us,” he deadpans. “We’re also not really rich. We’re broke. Oops, bye, billions of dollars.”
Hang on. “Wait, is that your secret? Are the Ritchersons hemorrhaging money all over the place? Are you … broke?”
“What? What are you even talking about? I told you there’s no secret.”
Then why is he so damn defensive every time it’s brought up? Why, after I asked questions, did he flee to the UK?
What is he hiding?
“If you don’t come home soon, I might have to fly over there and drag you back kicking and screaming,” I say, changing the touchy subject. Hounding him to tell me isn’t going to work. I’ll have to drag it out of him another way. Or find shit out on my own.
“You don’t have a passport. I checked.”
“Why did you check?” To make sure I couldn’t follow, maybe?
I hate that my first reaction to him is insecurity. I hate that in some fucked-up way, I’m using him as a substitute to deal with those unresolved daddy abandonment issues.
“I was going to see if you could come with me.”
I want to believe him—it’s a perfectly good explanation. But then why does it feel like a lie?