CHAPTER 13 – THE REVELATION
Daisy
Iwake to the sound of my own pulse. For a moment, I can’t tell if I’m alive or dreaming—just white sheets, blue city, and the memory of a man’s hands everywhere.
I drift through the penthouse, the rooms all echo and glass, with that same old ache burning in my chest. The breakfast bar is empty, no Hunter, no bacon, only a hangover from too much wine and the faintest stick of his come on the inside of my thighs.
I don’t shower. I want to hold on to his scent, his nearness, until it’s all gone.
There’s a weird ache in my tummy though, and I’m not sure what it is. I feel unsettled and troubled, but I don’t know why.
I wander the main room for a while, touching the cold marble, staring at the skyline, pretending I have nothing better to do.
My body is running on two hours of sleep, skin prickling under Hunter’s borrowed shirt, but my mind won’t shut up.
The name I heard won’t leave me alone: Tara.
The woman whom he claims is his stepsister.
Over and over, like a splinter I can’t dig out.
I don’t want to go into the office, but of course I do, drawn like a magnet.
The study’s exactly as before: clean, curated, and warmly minimalist with wooden bookshelves and heavy oak furniture. The shelf of photos is the only real color, a parade of faces that don’t belong to me, and I know I should leave it alone. I don’t.
I pick up the photo from yesterday, staring at it like it has answers.
Hunter’s stepsister is blonde, wearing a swimsuit with a with red bows on the shoulders.
She’s young, with braces and a sprinkling of freckles on her cheeks, like she’s been in the sun too long.
Hunter’s beside her, shirtless, tanned, arm thrown around her shoulders.
They both look happy and alive, totally in the moment.
I stare at it for a long time, fingers clamped so tight my knuckles go white.
I put it down.
All at once, the air feels wrong. Too thin.
Too bright. I lean on the edge of the desk, breathing through my nose, and force myself to count every shelf in the room.
One, two, three, four. My heart is climbing up my throat.
My hands shake. There’s a sour taste at the back of my tongue, and I know it’s not the wine.
I close my eyes.
I see the blue bowl, the yellow kitchen. I see the angry man, the woman calling for someone in the yard, a girl with a mouth full of braces screaming at her father.
I open my eyes, and the only thing I see is that photo.
She looks just like me.
No. She looks like Daisy.
Or maybe—maybe she looks like Tara, and I’m the one who’s the echo.
I want to puke, or scream, or smash the glass, but I just stand there, nails digging into my palms, jaw set so tight I’m pretty sure it’ll crack.
I don’t hear Hunter come in, but I feel the air change as he enters, the way a room feels with electrical charge when a storm’s about to hit.
I turn, photo still in hand, and see him framed in the doorway—barefoot, dressed in gym clothes, hair slicked back and dripping. He stops, eyes locked on mine.
For a long minute, neither of us speaks.
I hold up the photo, my hand trembling so hard the frame rattles.
“Who is she?” I demand, louder than I meant.
Hunter blinks, once, twice. His face is stone.
“My stepsister,” he says. “Tara. I told you.”
The word hits me like a slap. I close my fingers around the frame, hard enough to crack the glass. My nails dig into the matting, pressing against the slick, perfect finish of a memory I’m supposed to have.
I don’t know what to say, so I say the first thing that comes to mind:
“She looks a lot like me.”
There’s a silence, then:
“Yeah,” he says. “I noticed.”
He’s not telling me something. I can tell by the way his eyes slide away, the way his jaw tightens.
A rush of anger flares, fast and hot. I stare daggers at him.
“But she’s more than your stepsister, isn’t she? This Tara person means more to you than that.”
Hunter’s face goes dead white. He opens his mouth, closes it.
I laugh, high and wild. “It’s bad, isn’t it? You know what this reminds me of? That Netflix documentary—the one about Jeffrey Epstein, the dude who groomed young girls and abused them. This woman isn’t your stepsister, is she? She’s someone else.”
“Daisy, stop,” he says, voice low.
“But am I wrong? Because this is sick. I mean, are you grooming me now? Did you keep those photos here just to show off your perversions?” The words tumble out, cruel and hurried, but I can’t stop myself. The more I say, the more I tumble into treacherous depths, but I can’t stop.
He crosses the room in three strides, grabs the frame, and holds it between us. “That’s not what this is. I’ve never groomed anyone, and this girl is my stepsister, Tara.”
“Then tell me what’s going on,” I hiss with fear and anger in my eyes.
“Because I can tell something’s off, Hunter.
I want to know why I wake up every day and see your face before I even remember my own name.
I want to know why I can’t stop thinking about you, about us, even though everything about this is so—” I choke, swallow the word “wrong.”
He looks at me, blue eyes cracked wide, and for a second I see something behind them—fear, maybe, or just grief.
He sets the photo down.
“You want the truth?” he says, his voice shaking.
I nod. I can’t breathe, but I nod.
He scrapes both hands through his hair, then rubs his palms over his face, as if he can wipe the years off in one go.
When he looks at me, he’s not the CEO anymore. He’s just a man.
“That girl in the photo,” he says, “is you, Daisy. Your real name is Tara Monroe. You’re my stepsister.”
The world folds in on itself, the room tilting, then righting.
I stare at him, mouth open, waiting for the punchline.
He doesn’t blink.
“That’s not possible,” I say, the words dry and papery.
But it is. I look at the photo again. I see the freckles, the chipped tooth, the hair that refuses to stay in place. The girl in the frame is me, from years ago, before I ever called myself Daisy.
I step back, hit the edge of the desk, and almost fall.
“You’re lying,” I whisper.
He shakes his head, slow, deliberate.
“No, I’m not. You’re Tara Monroe. Our parents are married to each other.”
“I would remember,” I say.
He reaches for me, but I flinch away.
“Your brain won’t let you,” he says, voice soft, like he’s talking to a wild animal. “You were in a car accident, and you lost your memory. But I know that you’re my stepsister, Tara. I’ve always known.”
I can’t feel my legs. I slide down the wall, landing hard on the carpet. My head is ringing. There’s a taste in my mouth, coppery, metallic, and I realize I’ve bitten my lip.
I try to speak, but nothing comes out.
Hunter kneels in front of me, arms held wide, not touching.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and his voice cracks in the middle.
I start to cry, and this time I don’t try to stop.
He doesn’t move. He just kneels there, eyes brimming, waiting for me to hit him or scream or run.
But I do none of those things.
I just sob, the sound tearing itself from somewhere deep, somewhere so lost I didn’t know it was still alive.
When it’s over, I wipe my face with my wrist, then look up at him.
“You’ve always known,” I say, voice raw.
He nods.
“All this time?”
He swallows. “The night I found you on the street. I recognized you the second I picked you up off the sidewalk.”
My hands ball into fists. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”
He shakes his head, and I see the shame in it, the way he can’t even look at me now.
“I couldn’t,” he says.
The anger rises again, hot and white, burning through the grief.
“You let me believe you had no idea,” I hiss. “You let me—” I break off, words tangled with tears.
He closes his eyes. “I was selfish. I wanted to keep you, Daisy. It was an opportunity.”
I want to hit him, to break something, but all I do is shiver, cold and empty, the knowledge of what I am settling into my bones.
I am Tara Monroe.
I am Hunter’s stepsister.
He’s always known my true identity.
And I am in love with him.
The room is so quiet I can hear my own heart breaking.
But somewhere, in the part of me that’s still alive, I want to know everything.
I want to know who I was. Who I am.
I look at the photo, then at him, and I know this is just the beginning.
I don’t remember standing up, but now I’m pacing the length of the study, tripping over the Persian rug, hands buried in my hair.
The world is upside-down: every time I look at a photo, it’s like a punch to the stomach, my face staring back at me from a life I don’t remember.
I am sobbing but also laughing, this bitter, cracked thing.
I swipe a stack of paper off the desk and watch it flutter to the floor, then press my fists to my eyes so hard the world goes black and stars.
The headache is a red knife. My heart jackhammers. I want to run, to claw through the walls, to shatter every frame in the room and then crawl inside the empty space.
“Daisy—” Hunter’s voice, behind me, too gentle. “Tara—”
“Don’t call me that,” I shriek. My throat is raw, voice ripped from the inside out. “Don’t. You don’t get to.”
He holds up both hands, as if I’m a bomb about to go off. Maybe I am.
“Please,” he says. “Just let me explain.”
I whirl, fists clenched. “Explain what, Hunter? That I’m your stepsister? That you’ve been fucking me for weeks and never once told me?” The words are a shriek, echoing in the glass and the steel. I want to hurt him, to make him bleed the way I am.
He flinches. “We haven’t—”
“No? What do you call it, then? What is this?” I rip open the neck of my shirt, exposing the hickeys on my collarbone, the faint marks of his teeth on my shoulder. “Is this normal for step-siblings? Is this what families do?”
His face goes pale. “It’s not— I never—”