shared with a woman he claimed to care about and want in his life.

With a sudden terrible sense of déjà vu, she got to her feet. “I need to get out of here,” she said, pulling some cash from her purse and leaving it on the table. “That should be enough for my dinner.”

Bree regarded her with alarm. “Liz, what is it? Do you know what this is about?”

“Not a clue,” she said emphatically. “And that’s exactly the point.”

She was halfway down the block when Bree caught up with her. “You’re upset,” she said. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’m not fit for company right now,” Liz countered.

“Which is why you’ve got me. I’m not company. I’m a friend. You can vent to me or you can stay perfectly quiet and stew over whatever’s going on in that head of yours, but you will not be alone.”

Liz turned to her, ready to argue, but the stubborn set of Bree’s jaw suggested she’d be wasting her breath. “Okay, fine. Whatever.”

They were crossing the town green at a good clip when Aidan appeared out of nowhere.

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he told Liz. “We need to talk.”

“Too late,” she muttered. “Come on, Bree.”

Bree exchanged a long look with Aidan, then gave Liz’s arm a squeeze. “Listen to whatever the man has to say. Then you can carve his heart out if you want to.”

Liz gave her a wry look. “Yours, too, for abandoning me?”

Bree chuckled. “I hope you won’t, but yes. I think this is the right call.”

Never once glancing in Aidan’s direction, Liz kept right on walking. Though she doubted her strategy of silence would work, she was hoping he’d get the message and give up.

At the house, she turned on every light downstairs, greeted the dogs and cat, gave them each a treat, let them outside for a quick run in the yard, then poured herself a glass of tap water. Aidan waited patiently through all of it.

“Finished avoiding me yet?” he asked eventually as she stood at the sink, water in hand.

“I suppose,” she said, resigned. “You haven’t gone away yet.”

“I’m not going to,” he told her.

“So what’s the big news, Aidan?” she asked him pointedly, looking directly into his eyes. “And how many people heard it before me?”

“I don’t—”

She shook her head. “If you’re going to try to tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re wasting your breath. Mick and Jeff and their wives just came into the pub looking thunderstruck. We all heard that it has something to do with you and Thomas, so what is it? Are you going to work for his foundation? Maybe giving him some huge grant that’ll curry favor with all the O’Briens? What? Or are you going to keep denying there’s something weird going on?”

Aidan looked directly into her eyes, then spoke so quietly it was difficult to hear him.

“Not weird, Liz, just a shock. At least to the O’Briens,” he said. “Thomas O’Brien is my father.”

22

Aidan’s announcement hung in the air, leaving Liz with her jaw dropping.

“Your father?” she whispered when she could finally speak. “How?”

Aidan’s lips curved slightly. “The usual way, I imagine. Those aren’t details I particularly want to know.”

She frowned at his attempt to lighten a monumental revelation. “You know what I meant. Thomas and your mother were together? Did you know that when you came to Chesapeake Shores? Is that why you came?” Her eyes widened. “It all makes perfect sense now, the way you reacted to him at first.”

Rather than focusing on his momentous news and the emotions he must be feeling, she selfishly seized on the deal breaker for her. “You deceived all of us, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t deceive anyone,” he said. “At least that wasn’t my intention.”

“You didn’t share the truth with anyone, did you? It’s a pretty big secret to keep all to yourself, especially when it affects so many lives here in town.” She wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about him right this second. The news itself was almost secondary to the fact that this man for whom she had feelings had kept her in the dark about something so huge, something that went to the core of who he was. And how must the O’Briens be feeling, knowing he’d played them?

“Could we go for a walk, maybe, and talk about this?” Aidan pleaded. “Or at least sit down on the porch? I want to explain. It matters to me that you understand exactly what happened.”

“I know exactly what happened,” she said stubbornly. “From the moment we met you were keeping something from me.”

“Which I never denied,” he reminded her.

“No,” she said, relenting enough to admit the truth. “You didn’t. But this is huge, Aidan.”

He gave her a wry look. “Don’t you think I’m aware of that? Liz, be reasonable. Put yourself in my place. Would you tell someone you’ve just met something this personal, especially when the person most directly involved—Thomas—didn’t know? He had no idea I was his son, that I had any connection to him at all.”

“And after we stopped being strangers,” she asked quietly, “after you claimed to have feelings for me, what about then, Aidan? What’s your excuse for keeping silent then?”

She fought the tears clouding her vision. When she finally dared to meet Aidan’s gaze, he actually looked angry.

“I know what you’re doing, Liz. You’re lumping my silence in with the affair your husband kept from you. That’s hardly fair. I’ve admitted all along that there was something I wanted to share with you, but wasn’t at liberty to discuss. It was an extremely private matter between me and Thomas. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to tell him and turn his world upside down. What would be the point at this late date? I hardly need a daddy.”

She was momentarily stunned into silence by the bitterness she heard in his voice. He seized the chance to continue.

“Liz, when I came here, I dragged something that happened twenty-eight

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