“I know that in this day and age, it’s fashionable to minimalize…even romanticize adultery. Follow your heart and damned be the consequences. In truth, betrayal is a horrible, destructive beast…damaging everything in its path…those who betray…and those betrayed.”

He glanced at her, looked away.

“It absolutely destroys self-esteem…crushes and flattens it like asphalt under a steamroller. In my case, it was particularly hurtful…because I was two-timed by my identical twin. I don’t know what Dana’s motivation was. But I did know her problem with me couldn’t have been lack of a physical attraction. Because she traded me for my mirror image. So I was left to think that there had been something terribly wrong with me personally.”

“There was nothing wrong with you, Bram,” Rina said gently. “You were all kids. And kids do dumb things.”

“Of course. And I absolutely bear no ill will to Dana.”

He stood, again walking over to the open door.

“As far as Luke goes, I love my brother very much. I’d do anything for him. Forgiveness was never the problem. It’s the forgetting. Because try as I may to forget, I can still viscerally remember how much it hurt.”

Rina sighed. “You always talked about it in such a detached way. I never knew how much you were suffering.”

“I don’t even know why I told you about it in the first place. It must have just…slipped out during one of our marathon discussions. The hurt might have come and gone had the situation not been complicated by Dana’s pregnancy, which necessitated a confession to my folks.”

“What a mess!”

“A mess, a disaster, a fiasco, an ordeal…all of the above.” He raised his brows. “Up until then, I had always thought that, no matter what, I was safe from my father’s wrath. So there I was, too embarrassed to admit to anyone that I’d been screwed over by my own brother, ashamed that I wasn’t the kind of guy I thought I should have been, taking the blame for something I didn’t do. And there was my father…ready to throw me to the wolves.”

Bram let out a small laugh.

“Imagine what Dad would have done to Luke had he found out the truth. The doctor’s vituperative tongue gave me a lot of empathy for what my brothers had been going through.”

“Your father adored you.”

“Yes, in the end, I believe he did. And for all his faults, I adored him as well. But this is all beside the point.”

He licked his lips.