“No!” I screamed again, not caring that my gown was a tiny slip of a thing, fluttering in the chilly night wind. But everyone ignored me. My parents stood stone-faced as my brothers were led away, refusing to meet my gaze, their eyes fixed stolidly to the floor. Desperate, I rushed down the stairs, thinking to throw myself at my brothers’ retreating backs.
But Landon turned, his steely blue-eyed gaze bringing me to a screeching halt. His warning glance was more than enough to stop me cold in my tracks.
“Officer,” said Cole politely. “If you’d be so kind as to let us have a word alone with our sister.”
An intimidating looking woman, burly with a clipboard in her hand, smirked at his request.
“Not likely, given that your parents are turning you in for incest and rape of your sister,” she said flatly.
“They didn’t rape me!” I shrieked before being cut off by another warning glare from Landon.
“Well then perhaps you’d be so kind as to allow my sister to visit us at the county lock-up tomorrow morning,” he said cordially.
“You won’t be at County, you’ll be at State,” she stated in a business-like tone. “County’s for juvies, and you and your brother will be tried as adults.”
But suddenly I knew what Cole was doing. He was telling me how I could find them tomorrow. And I’d go to them, with my heart in my hands … because they’re the fathers of my baby.
CHAPTER ONE
Morgan
Six months earlier …
I quietly opened the screen door to the house, putting my backpack on the marble counter. As usual, there was no noise whatsoever. My parents traveled a lot because my stepdad was CEO of a pharmaceutical company, and my mom accompanied him on most business trips.#p#分页标题#e#
“You’re fine, right Morgan?” Linda asked vaguely, just before leaving last time. “You don’t need us for anything?”
“Yeah, mom, I’m okay,” I said, with just the tiniest tinge of sarcasm in my voice. Never mind that my first art show was coming up. She’d missed everything in the past couple years of my life, ever since she met Mr. Kingsley.
Don’t get me wrong, Gerald’s made a big difference in our lives. My biological dad died when I was two, leaving my mom with few resources and a daughter to raise. We’d barely been scraping by – her hours as a secretary were just enough to put food on the table, with nothing left over for extras. But we’d been happy … so I thought.
Slowly, my mom started stepping out, going to dating events and mixers. She was still young then, maybe 25 or so, and I guess hanging out with a baby all day wasn’t her idea of fun. Pretty soon, she was seeing some high-powered dudes, one of whom happened to be Gerald Kingsley, CEO of Stryker Tech.
After she met Gerald, things took off really quickly. We went from sharing a one-bedroom apartment in a rundown part of town, to moving into his huge mansion by the sea, complete with housekeeper, gardener, and security cameras. There was a even guard house at the entrance to keep my billionaire stepdad safe from the common people.
It’d been wonderful at first. I was ecstatic that now I’d be able to attend a creative arts school in the city. The tuition had been way out of reach for my mom, but Gerald made a contribution to the school, and I was welcomed as a mid-semester transfer. Plus, Gerald had redecorated one of the rooms in his mansion as a studio, and bought me all sorts of paints, watercolors, oils and canvases. I’d spent that first week in pure bliss, delighted with my abundance of creative tools.
But Gerald and Linda started taking less interest in me as the weeks went by. I already had a private wing in the house, and my mom, who had at least sort-of paid attention to me in the past, was now consumed by a whirlwind of social events, part of her duties as Gerald’s wife. And so I was basically … alone. I got up most mornings, poured myself some cereal, and trudged off to school. When I got back, the house was usually empty unless Gerald and Linda were hosting a cocktail party for one of their various causes.
I’d gotten used to the solitude. As an artist, I told myself that the quiet was good for me to concentrate on my art with no distractions, and besides, I had plenty of friends at school. No need for mom to stress out.
Until one day, I let myself in the screen door and could hear the TV blasting in the living area. This was weird. Again, I have my own wing of the house, so usually it was just me and the cleaning staff. When Consuela was here, there might be some Spanish music playing, but certainly not the raucous beat that was pulsing, unbearably loud.