“Who?”
She whispered:
“Sebastian.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Ethan had never mentioned it.
Not once.
“You’ve known this all these years?” I asked him.
“Yes.”
“And you never told me?”
“I was fifteen when Mom finally told me. I decided I didn’t want to know anything else.”
“Why?”
He looked toward Lily.
“Because I thought asking questions would somehow betray Dad.”
Sadie sat in the chair beside us.
“That was partly my fault.”
Ethan looked at her.
She continued.
“When Ethan was young, I was terrified that if he became curious about Sebastian, Levi would think he wasn’t enough.”
“That isn’t fair to either of them,” I said.
“I know that now.”
Ethan looked at me.
“I kept telling myself it didn’t matter. Levi raised me. Sebastian was just a name.”
Then he glanced at Lily again.
“But the second I saw that mark, it was like someone opened a door I had kept nailed shut for years.”
I finally understood.
“You weren’t looking at Lily because you doubted she was yours.”
“God, no.”
He reached for my hand.
“I looked at our daughter and saw a physical connection to a man I’ve never met.”
His voice broke.
“I didn’t know how to handle it.”
I looked down at Lily.
She was sleeping through all of it.
Completely unaware that one tiny mark had uncovered a secret buried for decades.
Then I looked at Ethan.
“No more secrets.”
He nodded immediately.
“No more.”
I turned to Sadie.
“And I think we need to know who Sebastian was.”
Ethan stiffened.
“No.”
