“What?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t.
“You can tell me.”
“The blade…”
She grabbed my arm. “I know.”
I arched my eyebrows.
“No one told me, Marj. I just know, okay? I’ve seen the scar when you have your suit on to go hot tubbing.”
“Only two others know,” I said.
“Bryce.”
“Yeah. And Melanie. She’s been helping me.”
“You can trust me. I haven’t told anyone. Not even Talon.”
“Please don’t tell Talon. If my brothers knew—”
“They’d move heaven and earth to help you,” she finished for me.
I smiled. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
“I know, but it’s the truth. They’d do anything for you. They adore you.”
“But—”
“He doesn’t blame you, Marj. He never did.”
No, Talon didn’t blame me.
“In fact,” she continued, “if it weren’t for you, Talon and I wouldn’t have met.”
I nodded again. That much was true, and Jade had changed Talon’s life. He was happy. He was complete. He was a father.
“…all because of you,” Jade w
as saying.
I choked back a sob. Crying was for girls.
“He’s happy,” Jade continued. “He wants you to be happy too.”
“I am,” I said. “I have everything, Jade. I have Bryce. I have you, Mel, my brothers. I am happy.”
“Marjorie”—she looked me straight in the eye—“happy people don’t carry razor blades around in their purse.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Bryce
“My half brother has been obsessed with the Steels for years,” Dominic said. “He was my mother’s son from her first marriage. He appeared when Alex and I were teens. Our mom had just died. Anyway, he had nowhere else to go, so my dad took him in, and he changed his last name to Booker.”
“Where had he been, if he wasn’t with your mom?”