Beast stares at me and takes another puff of his cigar. “Hmm.”
“Why are you so interested in her parents?”
He doesn’t reply immediately; instead, looks up to the ceiling. Then he pulls the Cuban close to his lips and exhales. “She reminds me of someone I was close with. Very close.” He looks dreamily at the rising cigar smoke.
“Your wife?” I ask gingerly.
Beast has never spoken to us about his family. But years ago, Roxanne told us that his wife walked out of this home with their daughter. It’s hard for me to comprehend why someone would leave Beast. Even now, when he’s close to sixty, his presence turns the heads of both men and women alike.
“Her eyes,” he says. “Exactly like my wife’s. Exactly like Chloe’s.” Again, he’s lost in his own world of memories.
“Your daughter?”
He nods, lighting another cigar. “You know, point one percent of the population have the OCA2 or P protein mutation.” A weak, sad smile pulls on his lips.
I’ve never seen Beast like this—lost—and I don’t think I’d like a repeat of this rare moment.
“What are the chances?” he continues. “For a second, I thought she was Chloe.”
“And?” I ask warily. Rose’s early childhood is still in question.
Could she be Beast’s daughter? My heart hammers in my chest.
“Chloe was blonde, and her features were more like mine—more German.”
I release my breath silently. Rose and Beast have no similarity in their looks.
He opens his wallet and shows me a picture of a girl around three or four years old. Dressed in a red skirt and white blouse, she looks nothing like my couch girl. Rose has a small button nose, while this girl has a long, pointed nose like Beast. But the eyes…they’re the exact same color.
“Yeah. She isn’t Rose,” I say in relief.
“Yep.” His voice is clipped as he puts the photograph back into his wallet.
“Did Roxy ever work as a nurse or at a children’s center?” I change the topic, trying to lighten the stressful environment.
“No, I don’t think so. She worked at a restaurant before joining me. Why?”
“Rose had a minor episode when she saw Roxanne. She thought she had seen her somewhere before but couldn’t remember. Zane thinks it’s probably due to the stress of this meeting.”
“Doesn’t she have a photographic memory?” Beast’s question resonates with the one in my mind.
I nod. “But before last year, Rose had never stepped foot in St. Peppers.” I shake my head, trying not to make a big deal of something that’s most likely just Rose’s nerves. “Maybe Zane’s right.”
Beast nods. “Roxanne has never lived anywhere else.” He picks up his cigar from the ashtray and takes a long drag. “Her whole family is based in St. Peppers, but I don’t think anyone is alive anymore. She inherited some land close to your father’s property.”
My father’s property. The only good memory of my childhood. It’s the house we lived in before my father passed away. A few years ago, I bought the house, along with the land where my father grew his famous rose garden for my mother. Now, the entire place has been converted into a small B&B, run by one of Beast’s ex-army friends and his wife.
Zach pokes his head through the door. “Are you two done?”
I nod as my brother struts into the room. He perches on the edge of Beast’s study table and moves around the stone paperweight and wooden pen stand, which were hand painted by Roxanne.
Beast huffs and puffs in annoyance, but Zach pays no regard, plucking a cigar from the open wooden box and lighting it up.
I raise an eyebrow at my brother. “I thought you quit smoking.”
“This isn’t smoking. This is sampling the finest Cuban.”
He winks at Beast, who covertly smiles, and if I’m not wrong, he looks proud of my little brother’s knowledge.