Chapter 47

Chapter 46

Damian

The question landed like a physical blow.

“What exactly did you know about my father?”

I stared at Harper, watching her face carefully, the woman I’d built an entire life alongside now looking at me with something I hadn’t seen directed my way in years. Suspicion.

“Harper, what’s going on? Who did you talk to?”

“His name’s Daniel. My uncle.” Her voice trembled slightly, though her eyes remained fixed on mine, searching for something I wasn’t sure I could give her. “He said Richard knew my father. Before any of this. Before your family supposedly ruined my mother’s life.”

Something cold settled deep in my chest, old memories stirring uncomfortably, fragments I’d buried deliberately years ago beneath layers of business and distraction and, eventually, love.

“Damian.” Harper’s voice sharpened slightly, fear bleeding into frustration. “You’re not answering me.”

“I need you to trust me,” I said carefully, aware immediately how insufficient the words sounded even as I spoke them.

“That’s not an answer.”

Grace stirred in her stroller between us, sensing the tension despite her young age, small whimper building toward what threatened to become a full cry. Harper reached automatically to soothe her, though her eyes never left mine, waiting.

“Not here,” I said finally. “This isn’t a conversation for a parking lot.”

“Then where, Damian? Because right now I’m getting texts from strangers telling me not to trust my own husband.”

The admission landed heavier than I expected. “What texts?”

Harper hesitated, then turned her phone toward me, the message glowing accusingly on the screen. Don’t trust Damian with what I told you. He already knows more than he’s ever admitted.

My stomach tightened uncomfortably. I recognized the manipulation instantly, the careful phrasing designed specifically to plant doubt rather than clarity. But recognizing the tactic didn’t erase the uncomfortable truth buried somewhere beneath it.

“Harper, I promise you, whatever Daniel told you, there’s context you’re missing.”

“Then give me the context.”

I glanced around the crowded parking lot, aware suddenly of exactly how public this conversation had become, how visible our tension likely appeared to anyone watching closely. “Let’s go home. I’ll explain everything, I swear it. Just not standing here.”

Harper studied me for a long moment, uncertainty and hurt warring visibly behind her expression. Finally, reluctantly, she nodded. “Fine. But Damian, if I find out you’ve been hiding something this significant—”

“You won’t,” I said, though the words carried less certainty than I intended.

The drive home passed in tense, uncomfortable silence, Grace’s soft babbling from the backseat the only sound breaking the heavy quiet stretching between us. I gripped the steering wheel tightly, memories I’d successfully avoided confronting for years suddenly crowding urgently against carefully maintained composure.

Richard had known Harper’s father. That much was true, buried deep within family history I’d deliberately avoided examining too closely, some old business dealing decades before either Harper or I had been born, connected somehow to the same bitterness that had driven Evelyn’s lifelong resentment toward our family.

I’d learned fragments of the story years ago, during a rare unguarded moment when Richard had been drinking more than usual, mentioning something about a business partner, a betrayal, a man named James Vale who’d died under circumstances Richard had always described vaguely as “unfortunate.”

I’d never connected the pieces fully. Not until Harper’s last name registered months into our own complicated arrangement, and by then, admitting what little I actually knew felt like risking everything we’d carefully built together.

By the time we reached home, Grace had fallen asleep, leaving Harper and me alone in tense, expectant silence within the quiet study where so many important conversations between us had unfolded before.

“Talk,” Harper said simply, arms crossed, exhaustion and fear evident beneath her carefully controlled expression.

“Richard knew your father,” I said slowly, choosing each word with deliberate care. “Years before any of this. Before Evelyn, before the scandal that supposedly destroyed your mother’s reputation.”

“How well did he know him?”

“Business partners, I believe. Though the details always stayed vague whenever Richard mentioned it.”

“And you never told me this.”

“I didn’t know enough to tell you anything meaningful,” I said honestly. “Just fragments. A name mentioned once, years ago, during a conversation I barely remembered until your last name connected everything unexpectedly.”

Harper’s expression hardened slightly. “That’s convenient timing, Damian. Discovering ignorance exactly when it benefits you most.”

“Harper, I swear to you—”

“Don’t.” Her voice cracked slightly, exhaustion and betrayal bleeding through her earlier composure. “I need space. I need to actually think about this without you standing here, watching me process something you apparently already knew existed.”

“Harper, please—”

“I need space, Damian.” She turned, walking toward the door, pausing only briefly at the threshold. “I’m going to call Daniel. I need to hear the rest of whatever he knows, without you influencing what I’m allowed to learn.”

Before I could respond, she was gone, footsteps echoing down the hallway, leaving me alone in the study with nothing but uncomfortable memories and the sudden, terrifying realization that whatever secrets Richard had buried decades ago were about to resurface entirely beyond my control.

My phone buzzed unexpectedly, an unfamiliar number flashing across the screen.

I answered cautiously. “Hello?”

“Damian Blackwood.” The voice was calm, controlled, entirely unfamiliar. “We need to discuss exactly how much your father actually knew about James Vale’s death. Before your wife discovers the truth from someone considerably less forgiving than myself.”

Ice settled immediately through my veins.

“Who is this?”

“Someone who’s waited a very long time for the Blackwood family to finally answer for what happened. I suggest you listen very carefully to what I’m about to tell you.”

Chapter 47