Page 32 of Lessons in Power

Emilia’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What are you going to do?”

“Can a boy not just bring his dearest, darling twin a sugary confection in celebration of the beauteousness that is Monday?”

“No,” all four of us answered at the same time.

“Perhaps I am overwrought with filial guilt,” Asher suggested. “For I have betrayed my family by standing in this election with that rogue Henry Marquette.”

“Perhaps,” Emilia countered, “you blew something up and want me to be the one to break it to Mom and Dad?”

Asher winked at her. “That is possibly not entirely false.”

“Do I want to know what you blew up?” Emilia asked him with a long-suffering sigh.

“That would depend on how attached you were to the stone gargoyle that used to sit on our front porch.”

I snorted and snagged a donut.

Asher took that as an invitation to plop down beside me. “How goes the campaign?”

We didn’t get the chance to answer.

“Better than some people’s, I’d wager.” John Thomas strolled over but didn’t sit down. He probably enjoyed towering over us, looking down. “I just heard the most unsettling rumor,” he said, relishing the words.

Until that moment, I’d forgotten about John Thomas’s promise that Henry was going to be his next target. With everything that had happened, I’d forgotten to ask Ivy if it was possible that Congressman Wilcox might know what she’d covered up for the Marquette family.

I’d forgotten to ask her if there was any way that the congressman’s son might know the truth about Henry’s father, too.

“Now would be a good time for you to leave,” Asher said. His voice was cheerful enough, but I could hear a thread of warning underneath.

“I just wouldn’t feel right walking away,” John Thomas countered. “The least I can do is warn you about what I heard.” He gave every appearance of sincerity, except for the slight uptick of his lips. “Addiction is a disease. I had no idea Henry’s father hadgone through such aroughtime prior to his death. In and out of rehab—”

Asher stood up. “Don’t,” he gritted out. “Talk. About. Henry’s. Father.”

Asher was a person who was constantly in motion—always laughing, always smiling.

He wasn’t smiling now.

“I’m not talking about Henry’s father.” John Thomas stared Asher down. “I’m just telling you what other people are saying.”

Addiction. Rehab.

John Thomas doesn’t know that Henry’s father killed himself.That should have come as a relief.He doesn’t know that Ivy covered it up.

But apparently, that wasn’t the Marquette family’s only secret.

“Asher.” Emilia’s voice cut into my thoughts. “Don’t.”

Don’t waste your breath. Don’t let him get a rise out of you.

Emilia’s warning drew John Thomas’s attention. The congressman’s son leaned down and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. Emilia stiffened under his touch. Her breath went shallow.

“Don’t touch her,” Asher said, his voice razor sharp. He had seriously considered jumping off a building to save his twin even an ounce of scrutiny. The desire to protect her ran deep.

“Didn’t your sister ever tell you?” John Thomas met Asher’s eyes as he rubbed Emilia’s hair back and forth between his fingers. “I was her first.”

Emilia shuddered. One moment Asher was beside me and the next John Thomas was on the ground and Asher was on top of him.

“If she told you she didn’t want it,” John Thomas whispered, “she lied.”