He told them everything but the truth. That Presley wanted to end her pregnancy six months in. She’d wanted nothing to do with the two “beasts” that were trying to kill her from the inside. She’d tried to take pills to get rid of them, and when they were born she wouldn’t hold them, she wouldn’t eat, and her hallucinations got worse. Dangerous.
During one of her few lucid moments, she’d signed custody over to him, and even smiled when he told her that he’d named the twins after her. Penny and Wesley for Presley. But that was the last time she smiled when he mentioned their children.
He’d never told anyone. Not Stephen, not his parents. No one knew the mother of his children was being hidden in a long-term care facility a half hour away.
No one except for Bellamy and, because of Bellamy, his cousin Solomon.
Seamus had been terrified last year when Burke, the man trying to buy Stephen’s loyalty or take him down, had located Little Sean’s mother and tried to use her against the family. He’d been sure Presley would come up then, that he’d see a newspaper headline about the senator’s twin brother hiding the mother of his children away in a loony bin. That he’d lose all his kids at once. But it never happened, thank God.
His mother would have come to visit if she knew. Maybe she would even convince him to bring the children. Maybe seeing them would help Presley…
He looked down at her as she fiddled with her braids and hummed softly under her breath. No. They were too young to go through this, to understand it, and his mother had enough to worry about. This was a lifetime commitment, and it wasn’t fair to put that on anyone else. He couldn’t let Presley hurt herself, but he’d never let her have the chance to hurt his children.
They reminded him of her sometimes. Before she got sick. Penny’s dramatics and boundless energy, how sensitive Wes was—that reminded him that Presley was their mother. But they had his eyes and his heart. His family to watch over them and make them feel loved and safe. They were his children.
Seamus stayed for another hour and listened to her talk about flowers and the doting mother in the other room who didn’t exist. He listened, but he was thinking about Bellamy. He and Presley had something in common. They’d both wanted him without his children. Presley because she was sick, Bellamy because… Well, Seamus still wasn’t sure.
You didn’t give him a chance.
As he was getting up to leave Presley’s eyes pooled with tears. “Who is she?”
“She?” He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear the way he knew she liked.
“I wanted you to fall in love with me, but you never did. I did everything for you, made myself sick because of you, and now you’re keeping me here against my will so you can be with her.”
“There is no other woman in my life,” he assured her, cursing himself when his response sent her into a rage.
“There is. I know you. I can see it in your eyes, Seamus. You can’t lie to me, you bastard. You’re in love. I’ll kill her, I swear I will. Like I killed those babies you wanted more than me. And I’ll do it over and over. I’ll make sure they—”
“Presley? I think it’s time for your medicine,” Camille interrupted brightly, as if she hadn’t been threatening to murder her own children.
At the nurse’s voice, the screaming stopped and Presley looked over her shoulder with a playful smile. It always shocked him how quickly her rages could turn off and on. “Will it come with pudding? I’m starving, you know. I think I had a month-long dream all about different flavors of pudding. Roll me inside, Seamus. We’ll make her give us a treat.”
He decided to leave while she was happy and distracted, but Camille caught up with him at the door. “Are you okay?”
He felt sick to his stomach, the way he always did after a visit here. “I set her off again. I didn’t mean to.” He didn’t know how to not talk about his children. Especially with their mother.
Camille took his hand and squeezed it between both of hers. “You’re a good man, Seamus. And such a good father that I think you keep hoping—despite six years of proof—that she’s going to love those angels as much as you do. But her sickness isn’t the kind that goes away. You know that.”
“I do.”
“I hope you also remember that it isn’t your fault. If she hadn’t focused on you it would have been someone else. Someone who wouldn’t have been as compassionate. And that would have been a shame, because little lights like Penny and Wes make the world a better place.”