“They’re twins, Shiloh and Samuel. Only…they’re called Emma and Edward now.”
She heard a small intake of breath, only a little surprised that it was her own. He had twins. Her heart did a slow tumble around her chest.
“They’re in their own government protection program.”
“They saw the murderer, too?”
He shook his head, that cloud cover of agony crossing over his eyes again, leaving him too choked up to answer. “They were in the next room. In their cribs.”
Oh, Lord. “And the victim was…your wife?”
“Yes. And her brother.”
Tessa put her hand to her mouth, a whimper escaping. “I’m sorry.”
“She was stabbed ten times”—he fought not to cry—“and left on the kitchen floor, where I found her, next to her brother, who was the target of the hit.”
Both hands to her mouth now, Tessa bit back her own sob. “Oh, no.”
It took a moment, but he got his composure, still not looking at her but down at the floor, blowing out slow breaths to keep from losing it.
“The twins,” he finally said, “were left alone, thank God. I found them…” He tried so hard to talk, but tears and a closed throat prevented it. “They were not yet six months old.”
She let out a soft cry, losing the fight not to let a tear fall. “Why don’t you have them?”
“Too easy to find a man living alone with twin children. The government insisted on sending them to…” He shuddered again.
“Canada,” she whispered, hearing the word in her head from the phone call.
“They’re in Ottawa,” he confirmed.
“How long since you’ve seen them?”
“They were taken two months after my wife was killed.”
Everything inside her melted and collapsed with grief for him. “Oh…Ian.”
“No.” He shook his head sharply. “Don’t call me that. Don’t let it slip.”
“But I thought that man on the phone said…” She tried to piece together exactly what she’d heard. “You can go get them now, right?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t called him back.” He glanced at the phone he’d set on the floor next to him. “Did he know he wasn’t talking to me?”
“No, I didn’t say anything when the phone rang. It had your name on the ID and I figured you were trying to track the phone down, so I touched the keypad and he started talking. Who is he?”
“Henry Brooker is my government liaison, one of the few people on earth who know who I am and where I am.”
This new fact warred for space with all the others, leaving a mess of more questions in her mind. “Where does everyone else think you are? Your family and friends?”
“Dead. I disappeared to Singapore when the kids went to Canada. I lived there under the name Sean Bern. But I got into some trouble and got thrown in jail. The word got out where and who I was.” He gave her a harsh look. “I tell you, it’s virtually impossible to stay invisible in this world. So, the powers that be at UK Protected Persons pulled some pretty tight strings and Sean Bern was ‘killed’ in a car accident, hopefully convincing the London gang that their target was now dead.”
The words sent another shudder through her and almost—
Oh, God, how could she forgive all those lies? How could she have been so trusting and naive and—
“Don’t.” He put his hand on her arm. “I can see what’s going through your mind. Don’t blame yourself.”
“I don’t, but…” She seized a hopeful thought. “He said they’re shut down. So it’s all over now, right?”
“Not exactly. The thing is this, Tessa: Even if every single member of that gang is caught and put behind bars, I can never, ever take the chance of coming out as Ian Browning or John Brown as long as the leaders are alive. They’ll let me have my children, though—maybe. I’ll have to go through some pretty tough hoops after three years; the kids have lives now. But, if I get them, I have to…” He tilted his head in apology. “I have to go somewhere and start all over again. Here, people know me and John Brown exists as a single man. But Henry thinks in a place like New Zealand—”
“New Zealand?”
He nodded. “I’d go to the moon to be with them,” he said softly.
She drew back, the power of his honesty like a physical force. This had all been for the love of children. She didn’t like it, didn’t want to accept it, but surely she understood that love. If not, then she was nothing but a hypocrite.
After a second, he gestured to the phone with a soft, ironic snort. “I’ve been waiting for that call for years, and, what do you know? I miss it.”
“But it came, nonetheless.”
He nodded. “I’m glad it did. Now I can fully explain to you that one of the hoops of fire I have to go through is to prove I’m in a completely stable situation, and that means I have a wife.”
At first that sounded preposterous, then she remembered the adoption hoops she and Billy had researched. So that was why he wanted the pretend marriage. “And that’s why you were going to try and convince me to marry you for real.”
“It’s more complicated than that. At first, the plan was to have you sign a document that would be legitimate, at least that’s what Henry wanted to do. But then I decided, I wanted…”
“…the wedding to be real. I heard you say that.” She tamped down the disappointment that came with the fact that what she’d heard and what he’d meant were two different things. “How were you going to do that?”
He reached for her. “I really
What did that mean? That he wanted to marry her or that he wanted to tell her the truth or…What did it matter? Tessa had fallen for it. She glanced behind her toward the bed, still tussled from their bodies, from a woman so willing to believe that anything could happen.
Humiliation burned in her chest, rising up, making her dizzy.
“Hey.” He took her chin and forced her to look at him. “I’d have told you if there was any possible way. I swear that’s true. I wouldn’t ever want to risk anyone else’s life, let alone mine or the kids’.”
She tried to turn but it was too late. He saw the tears. “I’m sorry, Tess.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” she said, her voice gruff.
But he gave her a look that said he wasn’t quite that dumb. “You saw right through me.”
“Not exactly, but I knew you were hiding something.”
“How did you know that?”
Reaching to his face, she touched his skin, shameless in how much she still loved the feel of it. “I hate to tell you, but your eyes are a dead giveaway. They have so much pain sometimes.”
He closed them, as if he could hide that pain. “I was very happy with Kate before the…before.”
Another sting hit her chest.
“I was content,” he continued, unaware that she felt anything, as he should be when he was the one confessing his personal hell.
“I can’t imagine how horrible that must have been,” she said.
He barely nodded. “As horrible as it is to find the woman you love murdered, the fact that they took Shi and Sam away from me is worse.” He hissed in a breath, more angry than hurt. “I’ve completely missed their first three years. Just…gone. I’ll never get them back. First steps, first words, first…everything.”
“But now you can get them,” she said, her head throbbing a little as she imagined how much worse it would be to have the child and lose it—two of them!—than never to have had one at all. “You have to get them, John.”
He looked at her, expectation and a question in his eyes.
“You guys!”
They both whipped around to find Zoe standing in the hall entrance, hands on hips, scowl on her face. “The ceremony rehearsal started fifteen minutes ago. Everyone is on the beach waiting for you two.”
They both stared at her, equally stunned by the intrusion.
