“Does Sean know?”
I nod. “From the start.”
“He loved her like she was his.”
“He did.” I look at Leia, who is smiling but concentrating to make sure she does everything right, while Wren is relaxed and laughing. They’re so opposite.
“But Bennett doesn’t see it?” Levi asks, pulling my thoughts away from Sean.
“He hasn’t met her.”
“Yet.”
I wrap my arms around myself as if that’s going to shelter me. “It seemed like the right thing at the time.” My voice is small, pained.
“I’m not judging,” Levi says, a bit softer now. “But you can’t keep this secret now that you’re back, and you brought her with you.”
I close my eyes for a second, fighting the lump in my throat. “You think I don’t want to tell him?” My voice cracks. “You think I haven’t rehearsed it a million times over? I’ve come close so many times, but?—”
Levi looks at me, his jaw tight. “So why haven’t you?”
I stare at my feet and inhale a deep breath. “Because it changes everything. Because once it’s out, I can’t take it back. And I don’t know if I’m ready to take away the small amount of peace I’ve managed to give her since we came back.”
He doesn’t say anything for a while. “He deserves to know, Laney.”
“And what about Leia?” I say, my voice shaking now. “Does she deserve to have her life flipped upside down again? To know that the man she thought was her dad, the one in jail, isn’t and that her new best friend’s dad is? What would that do to her?”
Levi jumps off the table. “Your life already blew up like someone threw a grenade at it. You have to start over anyway. Why not get all the lies and bullshit out of the way and start with a clean slate?”
“You weren’t there when Sean was arrested. When I had to pack up her life almost overnight. When she cried because she didn’t get to say goodbye to her father or her friends. I told her we were going somewhere safe. That’s what this town was supposed to be for her, a fresh start.”
“You can’t have secrets and a fresh start, Laney,” he says gently. “The two can’t coexist. You know that. You just found out that you were lied to for seven years. Made to believe your life was something it wasn’t. Why would you do the same to her? To him? Tell them and be free from it all.”
“You make it sound so easy.” Tears fill my eyes.
“She deserves the truth. So does he.”
Leia’s laughter rings through the warm air, sweet and wild and full of everything I’m trying so hard to protect.
I nod, the tears falling freely now.
“It’s going to be messy as hell,” he says. “But you’ll come out better for it. You all will.”
I force a smile and get up from the table.
He pulls me into a hug, as if it’s his promise to be there with me.
“I’ll tell him,” I whisper.
“Sooner the better.”
I nod again, but I know the truth.
Saying it and doing it are two very different things.
Chapter Eighteen
Sean,
