PROLOGUE #2
“Scar had it right. Cheaters never prosper,” I announced.
“No, they just end up on a missing persons flyer, never to be seen again,” Dad agreed.
“Scar didn’t say that, dumbass,” Loyal said as he rolled his eyes. “That was Zazu, and he was talking about cheetahs.”
“That’s what I said,” I argued, just to be an ass.
I knew very well that it was the bird who said it and could even remember what scene from the Lion King we were talking about, but it was way too much fun to irritate the twins - or at least the one who was here right now, and the best way to do that was to misquote a movie or a song.
“How did we go from hot men to kids movies?” Dahlia asked.
“And why aren’t we eating yet?” Chevy asked.
“We’re waiting on Harley,” Mom announced. “Has anyone heard from him? I tried to call him a few times earlier, and he didn’t answer. I think he turned off his phone.”
Loyal frowned before he said, “The last time I talked to him he was meeting a friend for a drink, so we might as well eat.”
“It’s barely noon!”
I saw Dad sigh before he said, “I’ll help you get dinner on the table, babe.”
Mom was still frowning as she and Dad walked into the kitchen, but I waited until they were out of earshot to ask Loyal, “What the fuck? He’s day-drinking instead of coming to dinner?”
“I guess,” Loyal said with a shrug.
“What the fuck is going on with him?” Scarlet asked.
“Who knows?” Loyal replied. “Come on. Let’s go help get everything set out. I’m starving.”
As everyone went into the kitchen, I pulled out my phone and called Harley. It rang three times and then went to voicemail, so I knew he had just ignored my call.
Asshole.
◆◆◆
CASSIA
“Do you remember how Regina and Ivan used to talk about having a hall pass?” Iliana asked out of the blue.
I chuckled before I said, “Yeah. When we went to see that concert, she swore she was going to punch her ticket, as if she would have a chance with a rockstar. Why would she want that anyway? Meaningless sex backstage just to say you did it and then have no one believe you if you told them?”
“Right,” Iliana agreed. “But Regina wasn’t the type to pass that up if she was given the opportunity.”
Ivy chattered in her own little language as she pushed at my arm. When I looked down at her, she was holding a plastic hamburger out, so I took it and made growling noises as I pretended to eat it before I gave it back to her. As she took it from my hand, she grinned before she said, “Yum yum!”
“So good,” I agreed with exaggerated enthusiasm. As Ivy walked back over to her play kitchen, I told her, “You’re a great cook, Ivy-Bug.”
“Have you ever wondered how Ivy ended up with blue eyes when you and Ivan have such dark brown ones?”
“It’s probably some hidden gene or something. I have no idea.” I tried to remember the color of my biological mother’s eyes, but shook off the images that flashed through my mind. I wasn’t sure so I suggested, “Maybe our parents had blue eyes.”
“Did you know that dimples are hereditary?”
I looked up in confusion and asked, “They are?”
“I googled it.”
“Well, if the internet says they’re hereditary, then of course it’s true,” I told her sarcastically.
“I was so surprised that I talked to my professor, and he said that it could be a dominant trait from one parent.”
“Ivy’s a genetic anomaly then, because neither of her parents had dimples.”
“Just like neither had blue eyes.”
“What’s got you so focused on Ivy’s inherited genetic traits? You’re really getting into that class you’re taking, aren’t you?”
“Do you remember that night after the concert when we got separated from Regina and couldn’t find her for over an hour?”
I sighed before I said, “That woman could get lost in a cardboard box.”
“Or in the maze of hallways backstage at the venue.”
“You think she snuck into the back to try to see the band?” I asked with a laugh. “Don’t they have security to make sure that doesn’t happen?”
“You’d think so,” Iliana allowed, “But she could talk her way out of any mess even though she couldn’t find her way out of a wet paper bag.”
“Do you think Regina cheated on Ivan?” I asked.
Iliana didn’t answer my question. Instead, she told me, “When I took Ivy for her check-up last week, I asked the doctor if he knew her blood type.”
“You could have just asked me. I know her blood type.”
“It’s O positive,” Iliana announced.
“Yes, it is. It was on some of the paperwork I had to give the court when we were going through all of that bullshit.”
Iliana knew how irritated I got when I thought of the hoops I had to jump through to get custody of my niece after my brother’s death, so she quickly changed the subject, but didn’t stop her odd line of questioning. “Do you know what Ivan’s blood type was?”
“Ivan was my twin, Iliana.”
“What’s your blood type?” Iliana asked.
“It’s A positive.”
“What was Regina’s?”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Do you know?”
“I have no idea, but she thought it was important. Do you remember that time at the dinner table when she said she and Ivan were meant to be together because she could donate blood to him if he ever needed it?”
My sister-in-law hadn’t been my favorite person in the world, but my brother loved her with his whole heart and soul, so I’d done my best to befriend her even though in any other situation we would have found nothing in common.
Our parents never said an unkind word about Regina, but I knew they were as unimpressed as I was, although they were happy that Ivan was so in love and beside themselves with joy when Regina announced her pregnancy.
However, even with their age gap, Iliana and Regina had gotten along very well.
I knew they exchanged secrets and shared inside jokes just like Ivan and I had before his death.
“Regina was AB positive,” Iliana informed me. She suddenly changed the subject and said, “The day after the concert, Regina told me where she was when she disappeared the night before.”
“Let me guess. She was having a wild orgy with three musicians and a sound guy. You know half the shit that woman said was a lie, Iliana. I’m not sure she knew how to tell the whole truth, and only on rare occasions did she tell even part of it.”
“She didn’t have an orgy with all of them, but she did have a quickie with the bass player.”
“Sure she did,” I scoffed.
“I don’t think she was lying about that, Cassia.”
“You’re telling me that she cheated on my brother? What am I supposed to do with that information now? It’s not like I can wake him up and tell him his wife was a whore.”
Ivy walked back to the table and handed me a plastic apple and a cup. I pretended to sip from the cup, loudly slurping as she watched me with a smile, before I made crunching sounds as I took a bite of the fake apple.
“Yum yum yum yum!” Ivy sang as she left again.
I set the apple and cup on the table before I looked over at Iliana and asked, “Where are you going with this?”
“I’ve got a video I want you to see,” Iliana said as she slid her phone across the table toward me. “Just push play.”
I decided to humor her. Five seconds in, I commented, “I love how they used that transition between the frames of . . .”
“Stop nitpicking and watch the damn thing like a normal person,” Iliana chided.
I wrinkled my nose at her before I looked back down at the screen. Considering my profession, it was hard to watch videos online without critiquing them. But just to get her off my back, I tried harder than usual.
It was a new song by the band our sister-in-law had loved so much.
As I listened to the lyrics about family, I started to get misty-eyed.
Considering that Ivan and I had been adopted as young children and then brought to America to live with our new parents, I had an affinity for stories that had anything to do with adoption or chosen families.
I blinked back the tears a specific lyric brought to my eyes and focused again.
As usual, it was hard to concentrate on anything other than the technical aspects and the work I knew had been put into such a project.
It helped that the video was so well put together, even though I saw a few transitions and other . . .
I paused the video and then scrolled back a few seconds before I touched the screen to start it again. The second the frame came into focus, showing a photo of two children, I touched the screen again to pause the video so I could take a closer look.
I took a screenshot and then opened that picture so I could zoom in and see their faces and then lifted my head to stare at Iliana in shock. Ivy appeared at my elbow again with another plastic treat, and all I could do was stare at her.
“Yum yum yum!” Ivy growled with a frown as she thumped my arm with a plastic banana.
Without thinking, I took it, and her face transformed with the appearance of her gorgeous smile that I loved so much. It made her blue eyes twinkle, and the dimples in each cheek deepen considerably, giving her cherubic face even more character.
“Yum yum,” I whispered as I pretended to take a bite. I glanced at the phone again and then back at Ivy before I said, “Thank you, sweet girl!”
She grinned again and started chattering incoherently as she turned to walk away. When I looked at Iliana, I found her watching me.
“You see it, don’t you?” I put the phone on the table and covered my mouth with my hands. “She looks just like the little girl in the picture, and she’s got a very strong resemblance to the boy, too, don’t you think?”
I let my hands drop to my lap and insisted, “No. It can’t be what you’re . . . You always hear stories about people finding their doppelgangers. Besides, whoever those kids are probably grew up to look completely different. Do we even know who they . . .”
“That picture is of Scarlet and Memphis Forrester when they were kids.”
“No!” I scoffed as I shook my head.
“Look at her, Cassia. Obviously, she doesn’t look like me, but the two of you don’t have any physical traits in common when you should since she is supposed to be your twin’s child.”
“That doesn’t mean a damn thing, Iliana!”
“She doesn’t even look like Ivan or Regina. She looks like those kids from the picture in the video.”
“That doesn’t mean she’s not Ivan’s daughter.”
“Ivy was born thirty-nine weeks after we went to that concert.” When I just stared at her, Iliana continued, “A full-term pregnancy is forty weeks.”
“I know that!” I looked over and saw that Ivy had given up on her foray in the kitchen and had chosen something else to play with.
I swallowed hard when she picked up the pink guitar I’d given her on her first birthday.
I couldn’t help but smile when Ivy started bobbing her head in time with the music coming from the instrument and then looked over at Iliana when she laughed.
“Looks like an appreciation for music is in her blood, doesn’t it?”
“That’s not even funny, Iliana!”
“It’s probably in her O positive blood, which couldn’t have come from her A and AB positive parents.”
“What am I supposed to do with this information?” I asked angrily. “Call up some famous musician and say, ‘Hey, the married woman you banged backstage a few years ago is dead now, but she left you a kid!’ Seriously?”
“Ivy isn’t an orphan, Cassia.”
“I’m her mother now. Whether we have the same DNA or not, she’s my baby. You know just as well as I do that blood type and all that other bullshit isn’t what makes people a family.”
“I know that, but think of how many times you’ve wondered if there are people out there somewhere that look like you.”
“There was at least one person who looked like me, and he’s gone now. Whether she was biologically his or not, Ivy is all I have left of Ivan,” I whispered frantically.
“Do you know how badly I want to find out who my parents were?” Iliana asked sadly.
I let my head fall forward and stared at the table as my eyes filled with tears.
I knew exactly how she felt because I had always wondered where my parents ended up after that horrible day.
Everything was a blur of motion and pain, and every time I thought of the last time I saw my mother, I could feel the earth shaking beneath my feet as the surrounding air seemed to vibrate with almost more noise than my ears could take.
“We’ve thought for months now that Ivy lost both of her parents, but did she really?” Iliana asked.
“I’m her mother now,” I insisted.
“You are. You’re the only mother she remembers. But she has a father out there, Cassia. Just like we do.”
“No, Iliana. That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it really, though?”