Letters, Lace, and Lies (Untouchable What If Edition #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

FRANKIE

It was like my brain short-circuited.

No, actually, it exploded. Or imploded. I couldn’t tell which because all I knew was that I couldn’t breathe.

“Eddie is your father.”

I stared at them—at him, still too shocked to say anything. My jaw might have unhinged. My heart was doing something weird, like stumbling through its own steps, unsure whether to race or stop completely.

“Excuse me?” I finally managed. My voice came out small. Croaky. Not mine.

Eddie—Mr. Standish, Archie’s dad—gave me this slow, tentative smile like he was testing how happy he was allowed to be. “I know this is a lot to take in, Frankie.”

“A lot?” My voice cracked. “Try insane.”

I took a step back, hitting the edge of the wall. My breath started to come faster and I couldn’t seem to stop it.

“I know we probably should have told you sooner—” Maddy started.

“Sooner?” I cut her off, every nerve in my body lighting up. “You think this is about timing?”

She blinked at me, clearly not expecting me to go straight for her throat. “Well, yes, sweetheart. Timing is—”

“No, Mom. No.” I shook my head, hard. “This is not about bad timing. This is about you lying to me my whole life.”

Her expression flickered, from patient to defensive then irritated in half a second. “I didn’t lie to you.”

“Didn’t lie?” My laugh was ugly. Bitter.

“What the hell would you call it, then? You never even told me who my dad was! I grew up thinking I was some big mistake, or worse—something you couldn’t even talk about.

And now you’re standing here, playing Stepford Smiles with Archie’s dad, telling me we’re some happy little family? ”

Eddie flinched at the name, but didn’t speak. Good. I didn’t have anything for him yet.

Mom stepped toward me, like she thought proximity would fix it or her stony stare would. “Frankie—”

“No. No, no, no.” I held up both hands like a shield. “You knew I was friends with Archie. You knew we were close. And you never said a damn thing.”

“You weren’t supposed to meet him—”

“Oh, my bad. I guess I should’ve stuck to your carefully managed life plan and never gone to public school, huh?”

“Frankie, please don’t twist this into something ugly—” The absolute ice sliding over the words chastised me. Was she for fucking real right now?

“Oh, trust me, it was already ugly. You just kept it covered in designer lies and poor hair dyes.”

Eddie took a step forward. “Frankie, I didn’t know. Not until recently. I would’ve—if I’d known—”

“You would’ve what?” I turned on him, fire in my chest. “You would’ve swooped in? Played dad of the year? I was in your house. So many times. I spent the night, and you never even looked at me like—like I was anything but Archie’s friend.”

He paled, like the words physically hit him. Good. Let them sting.

“I had no idea you were mine,” he said, and for a second, he looked so damn earnest that it almost made me sicker. “I didn’t even know Maddy had a baby after—”

“Don’t.” My voice dropped. “Don’t try to rewrite this into some sweet story where everything works out in the end. I already have a life, and guess what? It didn’t include this little reunion tour.”

Mom exhaled, loudly, like she was the one who needed to calm down.

“I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t your business.

” Then she took a deeper breath. Her green eyes, so like my own, were ice as she slid them toward Eddie then back to me.

The anger in her expression rippled as she tried to smooth it over.

“I didn’t want to hurt you, Frankie. You were happy. And I didn’t want to disrupt—”

That I didn’t just yell bullshit was more because Mom was a powder keg and I was already pushing it. She threatened violence with her eyes even if she fought to deny it with her posture. So I did what I could.

“No,” I snapped back. “You didn’t tell me because you didn’t want to disrupt your perfect little ecosystem. Your secrets. Your men. Your image.”

That hit. Her whole face hardened. Her fingers curled into her fist. “I did what I thought was right.”

“For you. Not for me.” That she hadn’t slapped me yet was a miracle. But I wasn’t backing down. This wasn’t a simple, did I want to eat in or out tonight, dilemma. There was nothing so easy or straightforward about this.

The silence between us stretched until it frayed. I could almost feel the crackle of her anger beginning to burn through her control.

Then, quietly, almost barely perceptible, the worst of it sank into my bones. “Archie’s my brother?” I turned back to Eddie, numbness creeping into my limbs. “Is that even—how?”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. You and Archie are half-siblings. We—we didn’t know when you two first met.”

“You let us become friends,” I said, the realization crashing in. “You let us get close. And you said nothing.”

Maddy opened her mouth to speak, but I beat her to it.

“Did you two even talk about this? Or were you just going to let me find out when one of you slipped up?”

“She wanted to wait,” Eddie admitted quietly. “I didn’t.”

I turned to Mom. “So you let me walk around this summer thinking Archie was—” I couldn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t want to. “All those times, all the nights I spent at their house, you didn’t think for a second that I had the right to know?”

Her lips tightened. “You didn’t spend the night with Archie. You were friends.”

“And you were always so sure that was all it was?” Because the guys had other ideas. Archie had made that clear… Archie had… had…

“I raised you to have standards, Francesca. And I trust that you did.”

My breath caught. “You don’t get to hide behind parenting when you barely parented at all. You trusted me? You trusted me so much you couldn’t even give me the truth about my own father?”

“I did what I thought was best—”

“For you,” I shouted. “That’s all this ever is! What’s best for you. God, you’re so selfish.”

Maddy’s eyes flashed and her hand struck, the slap cracked against my face. The heat burned all the way to my bones. Tears filled my eyes at the sting. The pain couldn’t compete with the vicious wound she’d left on my heart.

Anger, cold and vicious, filled her voice. “Don’t speak to me that way.”

“Or what?” I shot back, not remotely cowed. It wasn’t the first time she’d hit me. “You’ll disappear for another three weeks with some lie about a ‘conference’? You’ll show up later with a smile and pretend like nothing happened, again?”

Eddie stepped in then, finally trying to bridge the canyon. “Please,” he said gently, putting his hands up. “Let’s all just breathe, okay? This is—this is a lot for all of us. But Frankie, I want to know you. If you’ll let me.”

His voice broke.

That caught me off guard.

But I couldn’t say anything. My throat was tight, rage and sorrow clawing at each other. I wasn’t ready to look at him. I wasn’t ready to look at either of them. Everything inside me felt like it had been flipped, set on fire, then kicked down a flight of stairs.

My fingers twitched toward my phone.

I didn’t want to be here.

Not with them.

Not after this.

“I need to go,” I said, already heading for the door.

“You’re not going anywhere until—” Mom’s grip closed on my biceps and her nails bit in as she yanked me around. The urge to punch her filled me with a kind of purpose and raw fury I had never experienced before.

I whirled and met her furious gaze. “Try and stop me.” I wanted her to try and hit me again. Do it, I practically dared as we glared at each other.

“Maddy,” Eddie said in a gentle voice. “Maybe we should…”

It was bizarre to watch the emotions that danced over her face, blazing rage to something far more sly to something softer and then tears pooled into her eyes. There was the barest flicker of a joyless smile turning up her lips.

She let out a choked sob, releasing me as she turned into Eddie and he wrapped his arms around her almost automatically. Not once did Eddie look away from me. His eyes were Archie’s looking at me from a face that would be Archie’s when he reached that age.

My stomach bottomed out and bile burned in the back of my throat. But Eddie didn’t try to stop me. He just watched me, his expression soft and hollow, like he already knew he couldn’t fix it.

Good. Because he couldn’t.

Neither of them could.

And at that moment, all I could think was this: If Archie is my brother...

I wanted to throw up. Archie was attracted to me. He made that clear. He was—

Don’t go there. I ordered myself to not do it but I couldn’t help it. Had I been dancing around dating my brother? What if we had…?

“Frankie,” Eddie said finally, like saying my name caused him actual pain. He was still holding my mother, but his attention remained fixed on me. “I know this is a lot. Don’t—don’t go.”

Don’t?

Was he insane?

“Frankie,” Eddie tried again, “I want to get to know you. Really. That’s why I’m here.”

His voice was gentle, almost pleading. That made it so much worse.

Because for one, awful moment—I wanted to believe him.

I wanted to believe I had a dad who wanted me. Who chose to show up, even if it was late. Who was excited to get to know me.

Yet, none of it erased the fact that my mom had lied. For years. That she'd stolen any chance I might have had to know him.

It didn't erase the fact that I could have kissed Archie.

Or how he used to wink when I walked into a room. Or how he’d held me when we played mini-golf that last time. Or how he’d insisted that “this is a date…” Or the voice in the back of my head that had started to ask what if?

That voice was screaming now. Dying.

Everything tilted sideways.

“What if I’d kissed Archie?” I demanded, too stunned to keep it in. “What if I’d kissed my brother?”

Eddie paled. Mom went rigid.

“Oh my god,” I whispered, clutching my stomach.

“No, sweetheart—Archie doesn’t know,” Eddie said quickly. “Neither of you knew.”

“But you knew,” I said to my mother. “You’ve always known. And you let me. You didn’t say anything—”

“It’s not like that—”

“It is exactly like that.”

I stepped back again, the whole room too small, too loud, too sharp around the edges.

“I don’t even know who you are anymore. You’re not the person I thought you were. And I’m not who I thought I was either. You didn’t just lie about you. You lied about me.”

“Francesca—”

God, I hated my name. I hated it even more how it sounded when she said it like that. Like I was being an idiot and she needed to reprimand my behavior.

“I need to go.”

“Wait—” Eddie was stepping away from Mom but I dodged his outstretched arm.

I was already halfway down the hall, grabbing my shoes with shaking hands. I didn’t even know where I was going—just that I couldn’t stay there. Couldn’t look at them. Couldn’t hear the next carefully constructed excuse or justification.

The cats were all hiding and I wished I could be them, dive under the bed and stay there until all the idiots in the apartment left. I didn’t have that freedom though. “I’ll be back,” I whispered the promise to them.

Grasping the keys off my desk in shaking fingers, I bolted out of my room and down the hall. I bypassed them again, mentally clapping my hands over my ears to block any more lies. Through the kitchen to the backdoor, then I slammed out. The rattle of it shaking the glass in the door.

The morning sun hit like a slap, but I didn’t stop. Not until I was down the steps and in the street, heart thundering, lungs burning, thoughts spinning like a tornado tearing through everything I thought I knew.

I needed to get away.

I needed to breathe.

I needed this to not be real.