The Heavens

ANNA

I’d missed lunch by the time we dressed and curled up on the couch together. Although the family room had the same old-time look as the rest of the mansion, there was a television disguised as a picture frame hanging above the fireplace.

Gavin encouraged me to pick a movie while he put together his “famous” chicken piccata.

I was surprised to find he had very few streaming services, and those he did have seemed geared toward kids.

It didn’t bother me since I didn’t watch very much TV, and when I did, it was usually just in the background while I cleaned my apartment.

The superhero flick I’d selected had just finished the opening credits when Gavin came in, balancing two plates.

“Interesting choice.” He grinned. “I pegged you for a rom-com girl.”

“Hardly.” I grimaced. “Give me action and adventure any day. Plus, the options are geared toward a younger crowd.”

“Honestly, I think my nieces are the only ones who even know how to use the remote,” he admitted, settling on the couch.

I gratefully took the steaming plate of chicken and pasta he held out and dug in.

“Oh my god,” I groaned after my first bite. “This is incredible.”

“You like it?” he asked, but I could already hear the triumph in his voice.

I nodded emphatically. “Who taught you to cook?”

“My mom.” He shrugged. “When I was young, I wanted to be a chef, and she always let me help out.”

“It’s a little strange to think of you as a child,” I pondered aloud.

“Oh yeah?” he said with his mouth full of noodles.

I fought to keep a straight face. “I sort of always assumed the people from your home planet just dropped you off at business school one day.”

“Now I’m an alien,” he mused, narrowing his eyes. “Very funny.”

He reached out to pinch my thigh playfully, and I giggled. His eyes scanned over me, and I could practically feel the heat in his gaze.

“And I suppose you just fell straight from the heavens?” he murmured.

My face fell, and I looked away. “Not quite.”

After a moment of awkward silence, he sensed my sudden change in demeanor and shifted so that he was a little closer.

“Not with a body like that,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s enough to make a priest blush.”

I couldn’t help but grin at him when I saw him try to adjust his shorts. It was an empowering feeling to know that I had that effect on him.

I knew that I was pretty. I’d been told as much since I was a child, but it was a different feeling to know that a man like Gavin desired me the same way that I wanted him.

Still, there was something I needed to face sooner rather than later.

“I’d like to read the article, please,” I told him.

His face grew serious. “I’m going to say it one more time, Annalise: no good can come from it.”

“Then why did you read it?” I challenged. “Or tell me about it, for that matter?”

He ran a rough hand through his hair. “Because I didn’t want you to find it on your own.”

“I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”

“That doesn’t mean you should have to read what they said—”

He clamped his lips shut and looked away.

“What who said?” I asked slowly.

He leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes.

“My dad and stepmom?”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Please, just let it go.”

“Give me your phone,” I demanded.

He peeled his eyes open and rolled his head to look at me. “Fine.”

He reached into his pocket, punched in his passcode, and handed me his cell phone. I was surprised he didn’t seem to feel the need to watch over my shoulder or pull up the article himself.

Instead, he leaned against the back of the sofa with his arms crossed and stared at the ceiling.

It was easy enough to find, considering it was trending on nearly every news site. Front and center was a photo of Chelsea ~freaking~ Marks covering her mouth, tears streaming down her cheeks.

The ex of a beautiful celebrity crying publicly over an engagement might be newsworthy. Coupled with the quotes from my own family, it was absolutely captivating.

I swallowed my anger, and I scanned over the quotes from my once-loving father and his wife.

As usual, it seemed my stepmother did most of the talking while my dad sat back passively.

The only direct statement from him was that we had both struggled greatly after my mom passed away, and it caused a rift between us.

On the other hand, his wife called me ungrateful, spoiled, and troubled.

It wasn’t anything that they hadn’t said to my face at one time or another.

Now, they just had a larger audience and a scorned lover to paint me as a homewrecker.

None of that is what made me gasp.

Rather, it was a photo at the very end.

It was my dad, my stepbrothers, and my stepmom holding a little girl with blonde hair and rosy cheeks.

The caption said she was my half-sister.

Gavin wrapped an arm around me, and I blinked back tears.

“It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks,” he said gently. “I—”

“I have a little sister,” I blurted out. “She’s three.”

He stared at me, clearly unsure of what to say.

“You didn’t know?”

I shook my head and swallowed the lump in my throat. “Apparently, I wasn’t worth telling.”

“Annalise—”

“No, it’s fine,” I said hurriedly. “Because clearly, they are happier without me. I mean, just listen to what she says here: ‘It’s difficult to say what a man like Mr. Powell would see in Anna. Other than her obvious assets, of course. She was a difficult child to have in our home.’”

I didn’t realize I’d started crying until Gavin wiped my tears away with his thumb.

“I was sixteen. My mom had died two months prior, and my dad brought home a woman closer in age to me than him.” I shook my head.

“Even then, I tried to get along with her. I tried so fucking hard because I was terrified of losing my dad if I didn’t. We didn’t have an extended family we were close with.

“All of my grandparents were already gone. He was all I had, and he turned to a new woman who hated me. She made it clear from the jump that there wouldn’t be a place for me. The best I could do was keep my head down.”

“She was intimidated by you.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter anymore.”

“It matters to me,” he said. “Is that why you came to New York?”

I nodded. “I planned to go to NYU. I had a scholarship, but it only covered my tuition.

My dad sat me down and told me there was no money for my room and board about a month before senior year.

“I knew he and my mom had set up a college fund for me when I was young, but he refused to tell me what happened to it.

I applied for loans, but all of them required my dad to cosign, and his wife wouldn’t let him.

“It was pretty obvious I couldn’t stay there, so I got a job my last year of high school and saved everything.

The day after graduation, I got on a Greyhound.”

He looked at me, dumbfounded. “At eighteen, you rode a bus to New York City?”

“Yeah.”

“Weren’t you scared? You didn’t have a job or anything.”

I stared out the large windows that bracketed the fireplace.

The sun had just started to set, and the land was painted in a breathtaking golden glow.

“I was more scared of staying there,” I told him. “If I didn’t leave, I knew I would break.

I guess running is sort of my go-to.”

I was trying for a joke, but Gavin’s expression remained stony.

“Did your dad ever tell you why?” he asked.

“Just that he needed her,” I sighed. “Clearly, more than he cared about me.”

Gavin put his plate to the side before taking mine as well.

Then, he picked me up and settled me on his lap.

When his arms wrapped around me and he placed a kiss on the top of my head, the last of my resolve broke.

The sobs I’d been trying to hold back racked my body, and I burrowed into his chest.

“He should’ve cared more, Annalise,” he murmured against my hair. “You deserved better.”

I cried harder at his words.

For years, I’d refused to talk about my family because a deep, dark part of myself thought maybe I wasn’t good enough.

I’d worked so hard to make it on my own because I never wanted anyone to see that I was as unworthy as my dad made me feel.