Chapter 10
TEN
My tits are too nice for my life to be like this.
—Magnolia to Beau
MAGNOLIA
Was I really about to do this?
My stomach was doing somersaults, but I blundered out the words before I could stop myself.
He was really honest with me just now on how he felt, so it felt only right that he know the whole story before I let him get any deeper with us.
I had a huge secret.
One that might come out one day, and he needed to be prepared.
“Iris isn’t mine.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Iris was my sister’s child. Rose.” I ran my hands up and down my arms, trying to heat a chill that would never dissipate.
“Rose and I were best friends as well as sisters. One year apart. She and I were both adopted by our aunt and uncle after our parents died in a drunk driving accident,” I blurted.
“When she met her fiancé, he seemed like a great guy at first. Did all the right things. Was so nice and loving. Then he asked her to marry him. She said yes.”
“What happened?” he asked.
“He started to drink. He was abusive. And Rose and I…we were lost. Our aunt and uncle had just died in their own drunk driving accident. It’d been their fault, and we were trying to reconcile ourselves with being alone in this world.
Rose started to lean heavily on Cain while I focused solely on soccer.
We were both lost in our own grief, and we just… ”
He caught my hand and brought it up to his lips. “Keep going.”
“I don’t know when we both realized that her situation was dire. She’d been hurt so many times, and we just ignored it. I pretended like it wasn’t happening, meanwhile she kept the worst of it from me. Until the day she found out that she was pregnant with Iris.”
“Fuck, honey,” he rasped. “What happened?”
“She tried to run. And he wouldn’t let her.”
He inhaled sharply. “What did he do to her?”
“Beat her so badly that she couldn’t walk.
That was when she pressed charges against him.
This happened on the base, and things were swept under the rug.
But one thing that happened that was great for her was within a week of that incident, Cain was slotted for a deployment. Nine whole months without him.”
“Just enough time to hide her pregnancy,” he guessed.
“That’s right,” I said. “But we both knew that it wasn’t going to be enough to keep him away. And now there was a little girl in the picture.”
“So what happened?” he asked, his eyes intense.
“She moved to Texas with me. When she was born, Rose asked me to keep Iris,” I explained. “She told me that Iris was my daughter now. We could never tell anyone anything about the switch, either. Because if Cain found out that he had a child, he would kill her.”
“Who is this Cain person?” Beau sounded irate.
For me.
“He’s some super special tech billionaire that thinks he owns the world,” I explained. “Used to letting money solve his problems. But this time, Rose outsmarted him. She left Iris with me then…”
I didn’t say it.
I didn’t have to.
His eyes filled with understanding, and then he pulled me into his arms. “She hurt herself. To save her daughter.”
“I guess I’m just na?ve and didn’t realize what she would be doing,” I admitted.
“I thought that she would just go back to him. But after she killed herself, I got a letter in the mail. She explained it all. Why she said she had to do it. She said that he would never stop. It was either die now where she could control it or die when he deemed it done. When he could make it hurt.” I felt sick to my stomach.
“Plus, she was so scared that he would see the changes in her body after giving birth to Iris. She had her in secret. Hid the pregnancy for the whole nine months.”
He sat there, leaning against the counter, staring at me in stunned silence.
Then he asked, “How did you just pass off a kid as your own?”
“Off-season and lies. Lots and lots of lies,” I admitted.
“It worked out. No one questioned anything. They just commented on my genetics and hiding my pregnancy. Which was totally understandable by my teammates. They’d traded several other women over the years that had found themselves pregnant.
It was understandable that I would keep it quiet so it didn’t happen to me. ”
“You said you told your boyfriend at the time.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“I did,” I confirmed. “Well, he doesn’t know where the baby came from, but honestly, it wouldn’t take much to guess whose child it actually was.
I trust him enough not to tell anyone my secret, though.
If anything else, he wouldn’t betray me in that way.
And I know that he loved me. He just seriously didn’t want kids. ”
Beau grunted, surprising me with his next words. “Any man that’s a man at all would fight to keep you.”
My stomach somersaulted.
“Thanks,” I said quietly.
“Now,” he said. “Let’s get you to bed. If you’re set on playing in the morning, we’ll need to get you some shut-eye.”
I kind of hated that he didn’t suggest “hot, sweaty sex.”
But he was right.
Tomorrow was a big day for him.
“We’ll win,” I said quietly.
He blew out a frustrated breath. “I have a solution.”
I blinked. “For your sister?”
“I think so,” he admitted as he jerked his chin toward the long hallway again. “Come on, I’ll show you to your room.”
“What’s your solution?” I wondered as I kept pace with him.
He flipped on a light in the first bedroom right off the living room, and my lips twitched. “This is really sweet.”
“Lysander has a son. He really liked race cars,” he said.
“When I bought this house, he was barely two and demanded to decorate one of the rooms. Seeing as I didn’t care what it looked like, I let him.
But now he’s nearly nine, and race cars aren’t his thing anymore.
Nor is hanging out with a teacher from his school. ‘All the kids make fun of him.’”
“I doubt that.” I grinned. “He’ll be pretty popular having you as an uncle.”
“As for my solution,” he said. “As of a couple of hours before the accident, the Cowgirls and the Condors have new owners.”
I gasped. “What?”
He explained his vision to me, telling me about his friend, Courtland. He also explained about his other friend, Charleigh, who also had some shares in the company.
“So when will the news be shared?” I wondered.
“My lawyers say it’ll take about twenty-four hours to hit the news,” he explained as he turned on the light for the en suite bathroom. “We’re probably going to be halfway through that game tomorrow when my sister finds out.”
“So your dad owns ten percent of the company now?” I asked as I took a seat on the edge of the bed. “How is he able to remain the owner?”
“I think it was just an obligatory title,” he explained. “He’s still the CEO. The board voted him in as such shortly after he’d switched the shares over after Sonja’s death.”
“Do you like your dad?” I found myself asking.
He leaned his broad shoulder against the door jamb and shrugged, his amber eyes darkening.
“At one time, I liked him. But since Sonja died…I haven’t exactly liked how he’s been acting.
It’s always him protecting Seraphina. After Sonja passed, he spent all of his time at the police station trying to get Seraphina bailed out of jail.
Didn’t help with Sonja’s funeral. Nothing. ”
“He should’ve left her there to rot,” I admitted.
“Exactly,” he growled. “But he didn’t. He lost a day and a half helping her. Literally hours left to live, and he chose the kid that helped shorten Sonja’s life.”
“It’s an impossible decision,” I agreed. “You’re supposed to always put your children first. In that situation…”
“I think I might’ve understood it better had Seraphina not fucked us over long before that,” he shifted on his feet.
“She literally was such a bad kid. Fighting. Getting herself kicked out of school so we were forced to move, too. Eventually, we found this new school, but instead of kicking her out and forcing us to move, they just swept her actions under the rug and my dad donated. She did drugs. She constantly wrecked her cars. Hell, I’m sure some of those times she was high or drunk.
She was pregnant by fifteen. Again at seventeen.
But she was so hard on her body that none of the pregnancies stuck.
Nothing woke her up. Not even Sonja’s death.
She was more worried about getting a new car when she got out of jail after she killed her than Sonja herself. She didn’t even go to the funeral.”
That sickened me.
“I can’t imagine treating my sister like that,” I said. “I pretty much stuck to her like glue. She could’ve been so mean and forced me to stay away, but she embraced the suck. Never cared when I was talking to her friends more than she did. Sonja deserved so much better. You all do.”
“She didn’t get much better after high school.
We all graduated back to back to back. Seraphina first. Then me.
Skipped a year since Sonja passed. Then Lysander.
” He shook his head. “She lived off of Dad’s money.
Didn’t care that she was the cause of our parents’ divorce. Hell, she still lives with him.”
“She sounds fun,” I found myself saying. “I’m sure glad that I missed her.”
His lips twitched. “You’ll get to see her tomorrow.
They cornered me in the parking lot after you left practice.
My sister pretty much admitted to having that ref throw the game.
After my call with the head ref, I met Court at a bar and pitched my solution to him.
He probably wouldn’t have gone for it had it not been for Charleigh. ”
“He likes her?” I wondered.
I watched the beautiful smile that lit up Beau’s face. “Court’s obsessed with her.”
“And let me guess, she doesn’t like him?” I teased.
“She’s a hard ass,” he admitted. “She joined the Marines, following my footsteps. She stayed for about half the time that I was there. Came home and started doing odd jobs. Never really found one that she loved. But when Court arrived in town, it was like I saw a spark come back to Charleigh’s life.
I haven’t seen that spark since she was pulled out of that wrecked car next to my sister. ”
I toed off my shoes. “It took me a while to place Court,” I found myself saying. “But I finally figured out who he was. Kind of hard not to notice one of the biggest men in the professional soccer world. I hadn’t realized that he’d changed his name, though.”
“Can you blame him?” he asked.
Court had gone to prison for killing someone in a car wreck.
At first, it was suspected that Court had been drunk. But it was later found out that he had a condition called “Auto Brewery Syndrome.” Skeptical, I’d looked it up only to find that it’s when your body converts sugars to ethanol. Which then raises your blood alcohol level.
“I’d been devastated to hear that one of my favorite players had killed someone drunk driving.
When it was later found that he had that condition, I’d been ecstatic.
I didn’t know how I could meet someone with his great character only to have him do something atrocious like what was done to my own parents. ”
“Court’s a really good guy.” Beau shoved off the door. “Good night, Magnolia.”
My breath hitched. “G’night, Beau.”