Chapter 58

They stand like that for a moment, his hands on her waist, she leaning back against him – just an instant, really, before she pushes away and loops her horse’s reins over his head, using them as a lead.

Fay smiles innocently at Kent, silently thanking him for the lift, and the two head back towards the stables.

“Last night,” Kent says quietly after a moment, his hands again in his pockets. “Before...everything...”

Fay looks up at him, a little wary. Clearly, she doesn’t want to talk about it. Still, he presses on. “Did you enjoy it? Meeting your family?”

“Oh,” she says, surprised. Then she laughs a little. “Honestly, I kind of forgot about that part of the night. Well, yeah,” she says, looking forward again.

“It’s surprising, really. I never knew I had such a big family.”

Kent nods as they enter the barn. “It’s pretty standard for us,” he says. “We, in this world, we tend to come from large families. I don’t know what a family gathering looks like with less than eighty people.”

“Wow,” she says. “So do you have lots of siblings?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m a rare lonely child – my mother could only have me.” When she frowns up at him, he adds, delicately, “complications at my birth.”

“Oh,” she says, frowning as she leads Heathcliff into his stall. Kent follows her. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Fay adds softly.

“It’s all right,” he says shrugging. “My parents were each one of six. I grew up with lots of cousins who felt like siblings.”

Fay laughs at that. “Yes, apparently, I have lots of those too. I met a few last night – second cousins, even.”

“Yes,” Kent says, leaning against the post by the stall door and watching her. “You’ll have so many of those that you’ll lose track of them. Until they need something,” he adds, a little ruefully.

“Oh!” Fay says, remembering something as she loosens Heathcliff’s girth and slides the saddle from his back.

. “I heard something funny last night,” she continues, carrying the saddle over to hang it over the stall door. “I was talking to my second cousins over at the bar, they called me “baby Fay,’ just like Fiona does, and they said that they have a sister named Fiona. Is that for real? Has she been my cousin all along, and you just never told me?”

Kent blinks at her for a moment, standing perfectly still. Then his mouth falls open slightly as his brain begins to whir, processing – thinking through –

His face falls, then, into a dark expression. “Leave the horse,” he says, grabbing Fay by the arm. She drops the reins in shock, her face going pale.

Fall For My Ex's Mafia Father Chapter 0057 “Wait, what happened?” she asks, confused as he pulls her out of the stall. “I can’t leave Heathcliff like this - ”

“The grooms will handle it,” Kent growls, pulling her towards the front of the stables, snapping at a groom as they pass and pointing back towards Heathcliff’s stall. The groom instantly understands, heading towards the back.

“Kent!” Fay says, still shocked. “What’s happening?!”

But he doesn’t answer as he hauls her to the car, dropping her arm and climbing into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind him.

Kent doesn’t say a word to me the entire ride home.

I twist my hands in my lap, looking over at him a few times, noting that his face is growing increasingly angry with every passing mile. I shrink back in my seat, wondering what the hell I said – what I could have done wrong –

I trace his anger back – when had it started? I guess when I mentioned my cousins, the conversation about Fiona –

But that’s just a coincidence – it has to be – there’s absolutely no way that Kent wouldn’t have thoroughly background checked every person he lets into his life –

If he didn’t know...

I worry about it the whole way home, but I’m too scared to say anything. What would it do, anyway?

After we pull into the garage, Kent quickly climbs out of the car and slams his door, not saying a word to me as he storms into the house, past one of the guards that came to the door to greet us and report. The guard – Jerome, I see – stares after Kent in shock and then turns to me with a curious expression.