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“Your food look okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just…not sure why you decided you want to marry me. You listed your logical reasons, but what about feelings, Evan? Are you going to care about me? Will you be okay with whatever feelings I might have for you? I know you don’t want ‘entanglements,’ but how do you expect to live with someone for the rest of your life and not be connected more than mentally and sexually?”

Once again, Nia asks great questions. I consider as I fork in a bite of steak. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t care. I won’t love again, but I promise I’ll always do my best to make you happy.”

She’s quiet for a long moment. “So you loved Becca?”

“Of course I did.”

After all, if I hadn’t, I could never have been married to her happily. But…Becca didn’t inspire the kind of passion in me that Nia does. I didn’t ever think I would lose my mind if I had to go another day without being inside Becca. She didn’t linger in my thoughts—until she was gone.

“Did you ever tell her you loved her?”

“Sure.” I don’t remember a specific instance, but I must have. “Not often, but neither of us required verbal reassurance. Maybe we weren’t a typical couple, but we were secure in our marriage and knew we were together until death parted us.”

I just never expected that would be so soon. Or that she’d take our child with her.

Nia presses her lips together as if she doesn’t like something about my answer. “What about your foster parents? Tell me what they were like.”

Where is she going with this? “I had a lot of them over the years, some pretty rough. But I always had computers and the Internet to help me escape. I got by. Then Diana came along when I was twelve, and I finally had a good place to finish out my time in foster care.”

“Did she ever tell you she loved you?”

Why does Nia seem so hung up on love?

“Not in so many words. Diana is a free spirit. She raised me for money, and I never let myself forget that. But she taught me a lot about respecting the Earth, about healthy eating, and about art. She taught me how to laugh. She never had to speak words for me to know I mattered.”

Nia nods as she swallows a bite. “Do you remember much about your mom, since she died when you were so little?”

“Not really. I have a vague recollection of her ruffling my hair as I sat on her lap beside the Christmas tree. That was a few months before she passed. The only other thing I remember is the way she always put her arms around me, kissed my cheeks, and called me her little man. I wonder sometimes how different my life would have turned out if she’d lived.”

“Maybe not as much as you think. You’re brilliant, ambitious, and hardworking. Nothing was going to change the fact you were destined for success.” She nibbles her lip as if she’s debating the wisdom of whatever is rolling through her head. “Tell me about finally meeting your biological father. You didn’t say much after you returned from Harlow’s wedding in June.”

“Not much to say.” Barclay Reed was there with his wife, Linda. Looking into the face of the man who contributed half of my DNA and realizing he’s not only a stranger but an asshole rocked me. “We talked for three minutes. He seemed far more interested in selling me on ‘investment opportunities’ than learning about his grown son as a human being.”

By the time I walked away from him, I felt nothing but contempt.

“Did he even try to explain why he never took you in?”

“No. He didn’t have to. Harlow and I were born three days apart. I’m sure the last thing he wanted was for his wife to know he’d knocked up his secretary at roughly the same time he’d impregnated her. And I doubt she wanted to raise his bastard.”

Nia grimaces. “But you were a kid when your mom died, and he cut you loose to save his own ass.”

He did. “Well, I think Karma got the last word since, according to Maxon and Griff, he might well be going to prison.”

She knows this part of the story, so she’s not surprised, just snide. “It sounds like you didn’t miss much by not growing up with him.”

“According to my half siblings, I should consider myself lucky. I don’t know about that. But at least they seem fantastic, so something good came from the whole mess.” I sip my wine. “That’s enough about me. What about you and your father? You’ve never said much about him.”

“I don’t know much. While I was growing up, he met his financial responsibilities. He even put me through college. But we’ve never met.” None of that is news to me, but when she pauses, I have a feeling she’s about to tell me something big. “I don’t even know his name.”

My jaw drops. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. When I was a kid, my mom always said she’d tell me when I was old enough to understand. But when I got older, she admitted she couldn’t answer my questions because the two of them had reached a settlement, which included her signing an NDA.”

“And this nondisclosure indicated she couldn’t tell his own daughter his identity?”

“Apparently so.”