Caitlin Crews - Unwrapping The Innocent's Secret

“Cecilia.”

And she hated herself, because his voice, her name, stopped her. He still had that power over her. She had the despairing notion he always would.

“I’m going now,” she said, glaring at the window up above her. “Whatever you wanted out of this sudden return is your business. But I don’t want it. I don’t want any part of it.”

“You said I couldn’t have him ,” he said. “Tell me who he is.”

She was staring up at the stained glass before her. And this was the moment of truth, wasn’t it? She had tried to call, of course. Once he had started appearing on the news, and in the magazines. She tried to do her duty by him. But she’d never made it past the main switchboard of his company. No matter who she spoke to, and no matter how they promised that someone would get back to her if her claim was found to be worthy, no one ever did.

Three years in, she’d stopped trying.

Since then she’d been certain that given the chance, she would, of course, come clean at the first opportunity.

But she hadn’t.

She’d excused the fact she hadn’t made the situation clear to his board members. She’d told herself that they didn’t deserve to know something Pascal didn’t already know himself. But deep down she’d believed that she would never see him again. That this moment would never come.

Now he was here. She had foolishly thrown Dante in his face straight off. Now he’d asked directly.

It was another opportunity to discover who she was, and once more Cecilia was faced with the lowering notion that it was not who she’d thought. Not at all. Because she wanted—more than anything—to lie. To say whatever was necessary to make him let her go. Forget about her. And never, ever, get anywhere near Dante.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She was too aware of her own pulse, pounding in places it normally didn’t. She swallowed, not surprised to find her throat was dry.

And then she made herself turn, because she had done harder things than this. Like sit up in a bed in the clinic, without a stitch of clothing on her body, and face Mother Superior directly. Then explain what on earth she was doing there. Or like when she’d started to show, and had been forced to leave the abbey—the only home she’d ever known—and find her own cottage to live in, just her and her growing belly and her eternal shame.

And neither of those things was all that difficult stood next to childbirth.

So she faced him. The man she had loved, hated and lost either way.

And she had no optimism whatsoever that what she was about to tell him would change that.

In fact, she suspected she was about to make it all much worse.

“ He is your son,” she said, her voice echoing in the otherwise empty church. “His name is Dante. He doesn’t know you exist. And no, before you ask, I have absolutely no intention of changing that.”

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