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PART I

LET IT BE ME

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FROM THE BEGINNING

JUNE 2023 – PRESENT DAY

“The boy’s biological father is a match.” The doctor’s words ring in my ears, cancelling out all other sound. Inky black tunnels my vision as I blink once, twice. It clears only to swell like an inverted balloon, threatening to claim the whole of my vision. Threatening to pull me into the darkness like the way I’ve been pulled before, after a hit too hard on the ice.

Like I did then, I suck in breath now.

Biological father. Me?

Memories surge in my mind like a wave intent on destruction. Me, in the apartment I was meant to share with her—working back from Faye’s due date to what would be her conception date. It didn’t fit—the date Owen was meant to arrive.

But then he came early.

Hot prickles needle my spine.

My world spins.

I think I always knew, deep down. But like I am now, I’m at war with myself. As much as I’d wanted her then, I’d been so afraid that Owen could be mine.

So afraid that he wasn’t mine.

So afraid that it was easier to accept the betrayal than the possibilities that have haunted me for the last fourteen years.

The black battles for my vision. I think I stumble a step. Sterile walls spin. I see her face in the blur, red-rimmed eyes and still so fucking pretty. Her lips move, but I can’t hear her through the ringing in my ears.

I suck in another lungful of air. It’s not enough.

My hands raise and my world swims as my eyes hunt for the exit. I manage to murmur something between the hurt and the rage. I think—I think a tear escapes.

Fuck.

The June air is warm, but it feeds my desperate lungs in a way that the cold, dead air inside the hospital failed to do.

My hands find my knees as I gulp back breath after breath. Eventually, my vision returns enough that the world around me clears—and I feel her. Faye.

The love of my life.

My brother’s widow.

The mother of my child.

The mother of his…

“Why?” Of all the words that race inside my mind, it’s all I can manage to ask.

“Holt—”

I whip around to face her, my rage and hurt colliding with her grief and fear. Like always, she overpowers everything inside of me. Her grief smothers my hurt, her fear soothing the burn of my rage.

I demand low and dangerously, “Why, Faye?”

She shakes her head, pulling those puffy lips in between her teeth to release them brutalized. “I’m sorry, Holt. I’m so sorry.”