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I look up, and he’s watching me from across the room, an open, unabashed stare that admits but also challenges.So what?his face says. I know what you did, too. The diamonds Xander grew for me, what I was planning to do with them. But Willem’s crimes trump mine by a million, trillion miles.
The Prins family, coming full circle. The giant diamond that was once upon a time pilfered by Willem’s great-great-grandfather from a Praetorian mine and smuggled back to Holland, cut into pieces and stolen again a hundred-plus years later—poof—from the Prins vault. Only this time, for hundreds of millions of euros’ worth of insurance.
For a Prins, everything begins and ends, always, with the Cullinans.
“This is what’s going to happen,” Thomas says, scooping the three Cullinans into a palm. “I’ve already hired Sebastian’s team at Oaklins to give us an accurate valuation of the House. Fleur said a hundred million. I’m thinking that’s probably on the low end, but Sebastian will be able to tell us for sure. Normally, these things take three weeks, but Sebastian said he could do it in two. Oaklins is world class. They’ll give us a fair price.”
He pauses for their response, but it doesn’t come. The room falls into silence. The only sound is the muted clanging of the staff, bustling around in the kitchen.
Thomas lifts both hands in the air at his sides, turning to Fleur, “Congratulations, I guess. You and the twins will inherit the whole thing. Sem and I don’t want any part in it.”
Fleur pops off the couch. “You know he’s not even yours, right? Sem is not your son.”
Her words fall into the room like a grenade, sucking up all theair, and a surge of something sour rises in my chest like nausea. Every head in the place swings to me, all but Thomas’s. He stands there like a statue, glaring at his sister with such obvious hatred that the breath catches in my throat.
“It’s true!Tellhim, Willow.” She waves an arm in his direction, and champagne sloshes over the side of her glass and lands on the silk carpet with a splat. “Tell Thomas that Sem doesn’t belong to him.”
I stay quiet, because how do I explain that it’s true and it isn’t? Ithink about Thomas’s face when I told him about the pregnancy, the way he dropped to his knees and kissed my stomach, the way he immediately started making plans. No hesitation. No questioning if there was any possibility this baby couldn’t be his. I wasn’t certain a baby would give us enough steam to sustain a marriage, but Thomas was. From the very beginning, Thomas was sure enough for both of us.
So they don’t share some of the same DNA. Does that make their love for each other any less real? Does that make it impossible for them to be father and son? I look at Thomas, and I pray the answer is no.
“I had him tested,” Fleur says, not letting it go. “Sem is not a Prins. He doesn’t have so much as an ounce of Prins blood in him.”
Thomas barks a laugh, a thick, meaty sound. “Thank God. Iwish I could say the same.”
Thomas and I are quiet on the short drive home. I sit in the soft leather of his passenger’s seat and watch the familiar scenery flash by, the stately villas of the Apollolaan, the empty playground at Sem’s school, and the angry, icy waters of the canal, the shops and restaurants with their glowing windows and signs, the bikersweaving in and out of traffic, and the people out walking their dogs. Sometime in the past few hours, the rain and the clouds have blown off. The night is clear, the lights and the sky twinkling.
It’s true what I said earlier, that I don’t want to leave Amsterdam. No matter what Thomas does next, I want to stay here, to live here with Sem. I want our answer to the questionWhere are you from?to beAmsterdam. This place is home, and it’s not like I have a better one in the States to return to. I belong here, as does Sem.
In the driveway, Thomas rolls to a stop in his usual spot, and my mind tracks back to me standing in the bedroom window upstairs, watching him text Cécile through the sunroof. Only yesterday, which is something of a shock. It feels like a lifetime ago.
I twist on my seat to face him, taking in his handsome profile in the dark. “How long have you known?”
It’s the piece I’d missed before, back at his parents’ house. The fury on his face when he looked at his sister, the betrayal—it was all directed at her. None of it was for me. He didn’t even glance my way because he knew. Thomas already knew.
His hands are still gripping the wheel, but they’re more relaxed now, not strangling it like they were his knees the first time we talked about Sem tonight. As awful as things were at his parents’house, as shocking as Fleur’s bombshell was for me, Thomas had a different response: relief. Or maybe he’s like me, relieved that the awful secret is finally out in the open.
“Since Sem was a baby. And I didn’tknowknow. Unlike my horrible sister, I never had him tested.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because what was I going to say?Hey, this kid I’ve fallen head over heels in love with isn’t mine, so please don’t move with him to the other side of the planet.You have no idea, Willow. For the past four years, I’ve lived in absolute terror.”
Understanding settles over me slowly, then all at once, like watching a building implode and knowing it’s about to fall seconds before it hits the ground.
All this time, I thought Thomas didn’t have the balls to ask me for a divorce, that he was too chicken to say that awful word out loud, to put those wheels in motion.
But that’s not why.
It’s because he was terrified of the consequences. He was terrified that I was holding the secret of Sem’s paternity in my back pocket to use as a bargaining chip or worse, that I would be like the kids at Sem’s school and take my toys and go home, back to the States. That I would blurt out the truth and snatch away his parental rights out of anger or spite. I think of the way his voice broke when he begged me not to move Sem to the US. Thomas thought a divorce meant I’d be divorcing him of Sem.
“I’ve been terrified, too, FYI. Of you finding out and hating me for it, then disowning us both. I can live with your hatred of me, but I couldn’t bear Sem’s heartbreak, or to watch him suffer because he needs a medical treatment that I can’t afford on my own.”
“I would never let that happen.Never.I won’t abandon either of you. I love Sem more than anything, and I love you for making me a father. I just wish I could have loved you better.”
I reach across the console and take his hand. “See? You’re already Sem’s father in every way that counts, and a much better parent than any of ours have ever been. At some point, we’ll have to talk about how to handle this with Sem, but for now, just know that Sem loves you. He needs you in his life, and so do I.”
He lifts my hand to his lips and drops a kiss on my knuckles. “Thank you.”
“Sem wants a bunny for his birthday, by the way. A real one.”
“Then I guess we’re getting a bunny.”
Thomas says it so instantly, so effortlessly, thatweringing in myear, and that’s when I know we’ll be okay. Thomas and I will figure out how to share our son, how to make sure he is happy and healthy and loved. We will unwind the bonds that tie us together, all but the most important one, and we’ll be better parents for it. I take back what I said before, about Thomas and me not being a great love story. Ours is the greatest love story of all because it gave us Sem.
I think about him sleeping upstairs, his soft little sighs as his lungs rise and fall with breath, about Rayna in the guest room across the hall, still reeling from Xander and Lars and the lies I told that put her life in danger, about the amends I need to make and the truths I need to tell, to Rayna but also to Thomas. He deserves to know the truth. All of it.
I unwind my hand from his and tip my head at the house. “Come on. I want you to meet my new friend, Rayna.”
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