So Much Secrets
I forced a tight smile. "She’s with me. It’s...family business."
He hesitated a moment longer than necessary, clearly not thrilled, but eventually nodded. "Understood. If you need anything—"
"I'll let you know," I cut in quickly.
He stepped back, allowing the car through, but the suspicion in his eyes lingered.
As I drove up the long winding driveway toward the main house, my stomach churned uneasily.
Victoria sat stiffly in the passenger seat, clutching her purse so tightly her knuckles turned white. I stole a glance at her. She looked... overwhelmed. Her eyes darted everywhere—the manicured lawns, the sprawling garden, the towering house in the distance.
When I parked, she didn’t move right away. She just stared up at the mansion, mouth slightly open.
“This is... yours?” she asked, almost breathless.
I unbuckled my seatbelt. "It's Rowan's."
Her eyes flicked to me quickly, lighting up with something I couldn’t quite place. "So you’re back together?"
I closed my door harder than necessary. "We’re not back together," I said flatly. "We’re co-parenting. That’s it."
Victoria blinked, processing. "Co-parenting?"
I opened the front door, stepping inside and holding it open. "Yes. I have kids. Twins."
She paused halfway across the threshold, visibly stunned. "You... had children?"
I nodded once, leading her inside.
"When I left," I said quietly, not meeting her eyes, "I was pregnant."
Victoria’s mouth opened and closed. She stood there, dripping confusion and guilt all over the polished floors.
"And you're a surgeon now?" she asked in a half-whisper. "I heard... but I didn’t believe it. I thought..." Her voice faded, regret curling into her words. "I thought you wouldn’t survive on your own."
I said nothing, just motioned for her to sit on the velvet armchair near the window. She lowered herself into it slowly, still drinking in the grandeur around her the high ceilings, the grand staircase, the expensive furniture.
"You did better than any of us," she said quietly. "And we treated you like you were... nothing."
I turned away, busying myself in the kitchen to make tea. I needed a moment, space to breathe. Her words scraped against old wounds I thought I’d buried.
When I returned with the tea, Victoria was wiping her eyes again, staring around like she still couldn’t believe it.
I set the cup down in front of her. "You can start speaking now," I said coolly, crossing my arms over my chest.
She wrapped her hands around the tea, holding it for warmth rather than drinking it.
For a moment, she just stared at the rising steam, silent. Then finally, she spoke.
"You’re more like your mother than you know," Victoria said softly.
I stiffened. My mother—the woman I barely remembered, the woman whose absence had defined my childhood.
"You have her fire," she continued. "Her stubbornness. Her refusal to bow down, no matter how much they tried to break her."
"They?" I asked sharply. "Who is 'they'?"
Victoria’s eyes flickered, as if she realized she'd said too much. She took a shaky sip of her tea instead of answering.
"Speak plainly," I said, my voice rising. "Stop talking in riddles. I’m not a child anymore."
She set the cup down with trembling hands. "Your father..." She hesitated. "Your real father... he wasn't just some nobody, Remi. He ran everything from the shadows. Quietly. Powerfully."
I frowned. "Everything? What does that even mean?"
Victoria looked pained. "The companies. The estates. The deals behind closed doors. He never showed his face publicly, but everyone who mattered knew who was pulling the strings."
The room seemed to tilt slightly, the ground under my feet shifting.
"Why are you talking like this?" I demanded, my heart pounding harder. "Why can’t you just say it out loud?"
Victoria looked at me, tears shining in her eyes. "Because if I say it out loud... it makes it real. And once it's real, it can’t be undone."
I stared at her, my fists clenching. "You owe me the truth. After everything, you owe me that much."
Victoria let out a shaky breath, her voice breaking. "Your mother was supposed to marry into the Vaughns, did you know that? It was all arranged. Power marrying power. But she didn’t follow the plan."
I shook my head, trying to follow, trying to breathe.
"She met your father instead," Victoria whispered. "She fell in love with him. In secret. It was a betrayal. And when she got pregnant with you... the Vaughns turned on her. Brutally."
I sank into the chair opposite her, numb.
"You were supposed to be hidden," Victoria continued, voice hoarse. "Protected. But after she disappeared... we weren't allowed to even mention her name anymore. You were treated like an inconvenience. Like a stain."
My throat tightened painfully. "And you went along with it."
Her face crumpled. "I was young, scared... I didn't know how to fight them. I failed you, Remi. I failed her. After I heard about her death with her new husband, I knew that they had a hand and I…indirectly blamed your existence for it."
I stared at her, the weight of her words pressing down on my chest.
"And now you come back," I said bitterly, "and you expect me to what? Forgive you?"
"No," she said quickly, tears slipping down her face again. "I don't expect anything. I just needed you to know the truth. You deserve to know where you come from. Who you really are."
I pressed a hand to my forehead, trying to think, trying to breathe.
"You are so much stronger than they ever wanted you to be," Victoria said quietly. "And that scares them."
I dropped my hand, meeting her broken gaze with all the anger and hurt I’d carried for years.
"Good," I said flatly. "They should be scared."
Victoria gave a watery, broken smile, the first genuine one I'd ever seen from her.
"You’re your mother’s daughter," she whispered. "And maybe now, you’ll finish what she started.”
It was crazy how everything was unfolding.
Victoria kept talking, her voice low and cracking under the weight of everything she wasn’t saying. Every word felt half-formed, every sentence stopping just shy of real answers. Like there was this invisible wall she couldn’t or wouldn’t—push through.
"There's so much more," she whispered at one point, her hands trembling around the tea cup. "So much you don't know, Remi. About your father. About why—"
A loud crash echoed from upstairs, followed by a pair of giggles. I turned sharply toward the sound, my heart leaping.
Footsteps pounded down the staircase a second later, and then Larry and Laura appeared, both still in their pajamas, faces flushed from excitement.
"Mommy!" Laura squealed when she saw me, racing forward with her tiny arms outstretched.
Larry was right behind her, carrying what looked like a badly mangled toy airplane.
I knelt down instinctively,
catching Laura as she barreled into me. "Hey, hey," I laughed softly, smoothing her hair. "What are you two doing awake?"
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