like ours.
Rowan stepped farther inside.
“Phoebe.”
“He’s my father.”
Silence.
Not ordinary surprise.
Something deeper.
The kind of silence that rearranged everything that had come before it.
Rowan opened his mouth but said nothing.
I could almost see him recalculating five years of marriage.
“My father’s surname is Sterling,” I said. “My mother’s surname was Vale. I used hers after she died.”
“You told me your father was retired.”
“I told you he had stepped back from day-to-day operations.”
“You said he traveled.”
“He does.”
“You said he was
