Sasha’s eyes grew damp, and she reached for his hand, wrapping her smaller one around his. “I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged. “I’m not sure I deserve your condolences. He considered me a disappointment, and he wasn’t much of a father anyway. I became a Marine because I refused to follow in his footsteps the way Linc had. I needed to be my own man. And I refused to ever become the cheater and spineless bastard he’d been.”

She cocked her head to one side, curiosity in her pretty blue eyes.

When it came to his father, the irony was that, at the time Xander had enlisted, they hadn’t known the worst of Kenneth’s actions. “My father cheated on my mother,” he told Sasha. “Not just once but over and over again.”

She let out a surprised gasp. “I never knew. I realize I never met him but you always said he was working.”

“Because I didn’t like talking about him. I still don’t.” He cleared his throat and ran a hand over his short beard, thinking about the man who’d been emotionally distant and often absent, and his mother who’d… accepted.

“Mom turned a blind eye. And after Dad died, Linc found a checking account, which eventually led to discovering we had a sister,” he said, recalling the day Linc had told him.

Sasha sighed. “I wondered what Aurora’s story was. I didn’t want to intrude on personal family history by asking.”

“It’s okay. It feels good to get it out now.” Which surprised him. “Both my father and her mother essentially let her grow up in foster care. He didn’t want to admit to the affair by acknowledging her, and she didn’t want to raise a child. She’d damn well cashed the paychecks meant for her care, though,” he said bitterly.

“That’s awful.” Sasha’s soft gaze met his again. “I guess that explains why it was so easy for you to believe the worst of me—that I’d been cheating on you with my co-star.”

He sat up, eased her onto the bed, and straddled her hips, his hands on either side of her head. Shifting, he settled his hips into the cradle of her thighs. She let out a moan and his cock hardened between them.

He forced himself to focus. “Probably. But like you, I’ve grown up since then. I’d like to think I’d know better now.”

Though he couldn’t deny that the instinct to believe the worst might always be there. He would just force himself to think more rationally now.