For a minute, she seems really disgusted as she stands there staring at the two of us, and it confuses me until her face lights up with a smile.

“Well, I’ll let you two get back to it while I find a bottle of bleach to dump in my eyes.”

Caroline turns to leave the room but pauses, looking back at Cole. “Mom and Dad are going to be home later today. Just a heads-up.”

I feel Cole’s body tense against mine as silent communication flows back and forth between the siblings.

“Anything you want to clue me in on before they get here?” Cole asks.

Caroline glances at me before her eyes go back to Cole. I always thought Caroline was clueless about the things that happened around her, but maybe I was wrong. She looks guilty and I instantly feel bad for her. She’s in a tough situation. It’s not like she’s had time for a heart-to-heart with Cole, but if she knows something and didn’t tell him right away, it’s going to kill him. My own guilt rushes through me, but the things I’ve kept from him are honestly just suspicions. It’s not like I have any proof. How could I possibly tell him what I suspect when I’m not even sure myself? I don’t want to be responsible for pulling him away from his family even if I believe with everything inside of me that they did something wrong, something immoral and evil that can never be erased. It’s my word against theirs and, even though I know Cole trusts me and knows I wouldn’t lie to him, he’s a man who believes facts. Hard evidence and solid proof are the only things that he can count on and I can’t give him either one of those. I know that he would go against everything he believes in to side with me, but how can I put him in that situation? I need the proof, and I need it fast.

“You’ll be happy to know we’re mending our relationship. I think maybe it’s time you do the same,” Caroline tells him.

I don’t have to look at Cole’s face to know there’s shock all over it. Caroline and Vivien have never gotten along, so hearing something like that come out of her mouth is a little alarming and doesn’t sit right.

“Just call me after you talk to her, okay? Promise me? You’ll come to me first, right?” Caroline begs him, her voice taking on that of a petulant child instead of a grown adult.

Her words irritate me because, before anyone else, Cole should come to me. I get that she’s his sister, but this is our problem, not hers. Even if Vivien is going to admit what she did and Caroline knows all about it, Cole and I need to work that out with Vivien, not with her. I know Cole. He won’t blame her for this, even if she withheld information from him. He knows that she loves him and anything she did was only to protect him, unlike his mother.

Cole nods his head at Caroline, but doesn’t reply. She smiles at both of us and quickly leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

After we hear the front door close, Cole lets out a huge sigh. “I want you to come with me when I talk to my parents.”

I move out of his arms and turn to face him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

He puts his hands on either side of my face and stares into my eyes. “Listen to me. No matter what, it’s you and I. Nothing else matters. Nothing she says to me is going to make any difference.”

Accept for the fact that she just might tell you she gave me money to have an abortion. And she’ll ruin any inkling of good you thought she had in her when she admits that I didn’t just lose your baby, he was taken from me.

Maybe this is finally it. Maybe that woman has finally had enough of the lies and the secrets. Her husband might be losing his mind and her daughter obviously knows something, so what she’s done HAS to come out at some point. Maybe Vivien finally realizes that her son is a Navy SEAL and he can ferret out the truth no matter what happens. Even if she tries to lie her way out of this, Cole is smarter than that and she knows it. I only wish he didn’t have to be hurt to get to the truth.

I was honest with him about the pregnancy, just not about everything that followed. My skin pebbles with goose bumps just thinking about reliving that nightmare again. Knowing what I went through while he was thousands of miles away would only hurt him more. The guilt would eat him alive and I couldn’t do that to him. I can’t do that to him. He doesn’t need to know the gritty details. He doesn’t need to know how I screamed and cried for him with each wave of pain that wracked my body. He doesn’t need to know that I almost died. Correction—that I did die. I felt nothing but peace, free of my pain and heartbreak for thirty whole seconds before I was shocked back to life and forced to relive the horror again and again, every single day since that moment.

He’ll find out the truth about his family today, it will hurt him and there’s nothing I can do to make it better.

“I can’t be in the same room with her, Cole. I just can’t. I’m sorry,” I tell him softly, resting my hands on top of his against my face. “She took something from me that I can never get back and I can’t forgive her for that.”

He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against mine. I wish I could tell him more. I wish I could tell him how much I despise that woman. How many times I wished her dead, but I can’t. He needs to find out the truth straight from her, it’s the only way. I can’t let my opinion of her sway his feelings. If I told him about all of my suspicions right now, it would cloud his judgment and he would never speak to her again. As much as I would love nothing better than that, she is his mother and he needs to do this on his own. He needs to see what kind of woman she really is for himself and the only way for that to happen is to let him speak to her without me there as a distraction.