“Yes. I tried.” Her mom looked at her with an expression in her hazel eyes that broke Amber’s heart. “I had to investigate him. I couldn’t just hand you over to some stranger, even if he was your biological father.”
The words that followed did not match the man being so kind and compassionate right now. Her mom painted a picture of George Wentworth as an unforgiving, merciless business shark and terrible father—cold, emotionally distant and uninterested in his remaining daughter.
Helen looked at Mr. Wentworth…Amber’s dad…as if she couldn’t quite believe he was the man she was describing and then back to Amber. “You were such a loving little girl and affectionate. You would have shriveled up and died under that kind of care. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t give you back. And he never changed. I kept tabs and watched his daughter Eleanor be sent to boarding school when she was barely eight years old.”
Helen’s eyes filled with tears as she met Eleanor’s gaze. “It hurt so much to see you treated like that. I loved your sister with all my heart and you by proxy. I couldn’t change your life, but I couldn’t let your father do the same thing to Amber.”
“I understand,” Amber’s twin said as if she really meant it. “I’m glad my sister escaped having a childhood like mine. I’m glad you were there to love her.”
Amber couldn’t accept that and didn’t see how Eleanor could. “But she needed me. If you’d given me back, we would have had each other.”
“I thought of that and I just couldn’t sacrifice your happiness for hers.” Her mom buried her face in her hands and started to sob. “I’m sorry.”
The man she now knew was her dad moved to sit on the other side of the woman who she had always believed was her mom. He pulled her into his arms and just held her. Amber couldn’t help loving him right then. No matter what kind of father he’d been to Eleanor, he was being exactly what both she and her mom needed right now.
“If my biological father was such a horrible man why isn’t he threatening prison and yelling at her?” Amber asked Eleanor, trying to reconcile the past with the present.
“He almost died a couple of weeks ago and it changed him. I think he really loves me finally and I know he’s going to love you.”
The words shredded something in Amber’s heart. Her sister was still unsure of her dad’s love. That had to hurt so much. “But, Mom?” she couldn’t help asking.
“Nothing is going to happen to your mom. Dad doesn’t want to hurt her and neither do I. I only want to know you. I’d like to know her, too, if she’ll let me. She was a good mom to you. She took care of you and after hearing her story, I’m convinced she didn’t do anything with malice.”
“Are you for real?” Amber asked, impressed to death by the loving compassion in this woman everyone claimed was her sister. “Nobody reacts like that to something like this.”
Sandor laughed, hugging his fiancée. “Ellie is a special woman.”
Ellie? She liked that better than Eleanor…it was warmer. And she was happy someone seemed to have that special of a relationship with her sister. Amber had taken her mom’s love as a given her whole life. She couldn’t imagine growing up the way Ellie had.
“I’m glad.” Her control cracked for a second and her chin wobbled, but she got it under control. “I don’t want my mom hurt,” she reiterated.
“She won’t be,” her dad said with conviction she thought she could trust. “She did better by my daughter than I did. I stopped looking for you after only a year. I have no excuse for that. I was a rotten father to your sister, but she loved me in spite of it.”
“There are worse fathers than you were, much worse,” Ellie said and Amber wanted to hug her.
She couldn’t, though…they hadn’t been raised as sisters. They had nothing but genes and a past they had to come to terms with between them. She was really glad Sandor was there to hold her sister the way she couldn’t.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” George said, “but when I remember the times your eyes so like your mother’s begged me to show a spark of affection and then I didn’t…I’ll never forgive myself.”
“You hugged me sometimes.”
Oh, man, those words just broke Amber’s heart all over again. The thing that hurt the most right in that moment was that she had spent a lifetime apart from this woman. Her sister. Not her mom’s lies…they were understandable. Not being apart from her dad…she wasn’t missing anything there, according to everyone else. But not being there for Ellie, that hurt.
Her dad looked like the words broke his heart, too. “I bet you remember every single time because those times were so rare.”
“You really were a bastard,” Amber breathed.
He flinched. “Yes. I was and I thank God Ellie never gave up on me. I’ve seen the error of my ways. I want to make up for them. I think we can build a family now. All of us, if you’re willing.”
“I won’t leave my mom out.”
“Like Ellie, I would appreciate the chance to get to know her, too.”
At that her mom pulled out of his arms, wiping her face. She looked ravaged, but at peace and just a little bemused. “I’ve been so terrified for years. I can’t believe things are happening this way.”
“They wouldn’t have…a few weeks ago.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t find me