Madeline met her gaze, and despite everything, Sloane felt the love her stepmother had always shown her.
“You need an explanation.” Madeline’s voice cracked, but she didn’t pause. “Your mother and I were best friends. I would have done anything for her. You know that. In fact, I did. I married your father so I could raise you the way your mother would have wanted.”
Sloane squeezed her stepmother’s hand. “You couldn’t have done any more.” Except tell her the truth, Sloane thought, but this conversation was difficult and even Madeline seemed to need reassurance. “You never made me feel like you loved me any less than Eden and Dawne. I love you for that.”
Madeline blinked back tears. “I love you too. And I love your father. Although, I didn’t fall in love with him until long after we’d married.”
Sloane smiled. She already knew the story of Michael and Madeline’s marriage. They often told people how they’d come to love one another as they jointly raised Sloane. But that didn’t explain the rest of the missing pieces. “How was lying best for me?”
Madeline raised steepled fingers to her lips and paused in thought. “Your mother was born and raised in Yorkshire Falls. It’s about twenty minutes from our home in Newtonville. She had been in college and was home on summer break when she fell in love with a man named Samson Humphrey.”
So that was his last name. Her head hurt and she inhaled slowly, trying to ease the pain with no success.
“What happened between my mother and … Samson?” She forced herself to say the name, as if speaking would help her accept the painful truth.
Madeline shook her head. “It’s a long story. But Jacqueline’s father, your grandfather, was a politician who thought his blood was bluer than it really was. He didn’t think Samson was good enough for his daughter, and worried about him hindering his career.”
“Because Grandfather Jack was a senator too.” She didn’t know the older man because he’d died when she was a child.
Madeline nodded. “Your grandfather did some digging and came up with some dirt on Samson’s family and used it to bribe the man into staying away from your mother.”
Sloane shook her head in disbelief, trying to absorb all this information that had been hidden from her for years.
“Presumably, Samson felt he had no choice.”
“Or he was weak,” Sloane muttered.
“Not if your mother loved him, honey. And she did. So there must have been something good in him.” Madeline met Sloane’s gaze.
The older woman’s eyes shimmered with tears and emotion. Sadness? Regret? Guilt? Sloane couldn’t be certain.
“Of course he was a good man,” Madeline insisted in a forceful tone. “After all, look at all the good in you.”
Sloane swallowed hard. She wasn’t about to think about herself now. If she did, she’d fall apart, and she wanted to hear the end of this story first.
“And another thing”—Madeline blotted her eyes with the back of her hand before continuing—“your mother was devastated when he broke things off. She loved him so much. And when she realized she was pregnant, she packed to go back to Samson.”
Sloane leaned forward in her seat, the story playing out as if it were someone else’s history being discussed, not her own. “What happened?”
“Your grandfather didn’t care. He admitted he’d bribed Samson to get rid of him. Jacqueline believed in him enough to know Samson hadn’t dumped her because he was greedy. When her father threatened to destroy Samson’s family if she returned to him, she was defeated. Just as Samson had obviously been.” Madeline raised her hands in the air, then dropped them again, her frustration evident.
“This is unreal.”
“I know. And to this day, I don’t know the secret he held over Samson. Your grandfather took it to his grave, but it was enough to make your mother stay. To protect your father. Your real father, I mean.”
Sloane’s head was spinning. Recognizing the dizziness and aura she associated with a migraine, she rose and walked to the courtesy bar set up in the corner and poured herself a diet Coke. “Can I get you anything?” she asked Madeline.
“No. I’d rather just get this all out. Though your father will kill me for doing it when he’s not here.”
Sloane understood the guilt in her stepmother’s voice. She knew her parents never lied to one another. They’d set a great example for their children. Until now. “Did he ever plan on telling me?” She returned to the sofa, taking a huge sip of cola before sitting down.
“He wanted to. So did I. But he just didn’t know how.”
Madeline’s urgent voice begged Sloane to believe, but the evidence was too damning. “The man knows how to micromanage the smallest detail of a campaign, but he couldn’t look me in the eye and tell me he’s not my father?”
Madeline stared down at her hands. “He loves you. He didn’t want to lose you or your trust, and neither did I. Do you want to know how Michael came into the picture?”
Apparently, Madeline was smart enough not to ask how much of Sloane they’d lost now that she’d learned the truth. A good thing, since Sloane wouldn’t know how to answer. “Tell me,” she forced out.
“Michael, your father—and he thinks of himself that way—was in love with your mother. They were family friends, friends bred through politics. Michael’s father and your grandfather were colleagues. It wasn’t a hardship when the two senators arranged a marriage between him and your mother. You would have a name and Michael would have your grandfather’s influential backing during his start in politics.”
“A political bargain,” Sloane said in disgust.
“But you were never thought of that way. Your mother loved you, your father—Michael—loved you both. He would have married your mother without the bargaining chip. That was your grandfather’s doing.” Madeline sighed. “I know this sounds sordid—”
“Because it is sordid.” Sloane placed her glass on the table and rose to pace the room. “I can’t believe this.”
“Which is why we could never bring ourselves to tell you.”
Sloane sighed, then turned to her stepmother, but Madeline spoke first.
“What else did Robert say?” A hint of fear crept into her voice.
Sloane’s right temple throbbed. She paused to take two ibuprofen she kept in her bag. Then she rubbed her forehead and focused on last night’s overheard conversation. “Robert asked if Samson had proof and Frank said he didn’t need any. That Michael verified his claim.”
Madeline sighed. “What else?”
Sloane closed her eyes and tried to remember more. Frank had said Samson was a threat to Michael’s campaign, but her father refused to act in his own best interest and do something about Samson. And Frank hadn’t wanted Michael to hear what they had planned.
Because they obviously intended to eliminate the threat.
Sloane sat up in her seat, her heart pounding hard in her chest. Frank wanted to eliminate Samson. Before he went public with the news of her parentage? Sloane wondered. Was that what Frank meant by Samson being a threat to the campaign? He didn’t want the public to know that Senator Michael Carlisle had lied to his daughter for almost thirty years. Because then they would think the senator would be capable of lying to them. It was the only thing that made sense.