I nod wordlessly and follow her down the stairs, reaching for my keys from the dish on the foyer table. “I’ll take you home.”

“No.” She looks from my keys to my face and bites her lip. “I already called for an Uber.”

I frown and glance at the front door where, not two hours ago, we shared our bodies with each other, peeled our souls back for each other. Will it only take a rumor for us to lose that again so quickly?

Her expression is implacable, and maybe I could persuade her, but it’s obvious she wants to be alone.

“Will you please call me when you know more?” she asks. “After you talk to your mom?”

“Will you promise that we won’t allow our parents’ drama, whatever this is, to come between us? Because I’m not losing you over some stupid shit, Kimba. Not again.”

“I just don’t know what to believe.” She looks at me, uncertainty in her eyes. “I don’t want to lose you either. I do know that.”

It’s a small comfort, but I take a few steps forward and press her soft body into the door. I bend to brush her bottom lip with my thumb, and then kiss her, gently at first, and then with increasing heat and intensity. The visceral attraction, the thing that magnetizes us, that has always drawn us together, doesn’t fail me now, and she’s pliant and kissing me with unchecked hunger within seconds. Her phone dings with an alert, and she pulls back, checks her cell, and grimaces. “My Uber’s here.”

I open the door for her and she rushes down the steps toward the waiting car. Before she gets in, she turns to me one last time. “Call your mom.”

So many times I probed this issue with my mother, seeking confirmation of my suspicions and hoping I was wrong, but she always managed to shut it down, play it off or freeze out my attempts. I watch the taillights of Kimba’s Uber die, swallowed by the night.

“Not this time, Mom,” I say. “This time there’s too much at stake.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Kimba

“This is ridiculous,” Kayla says from her seat at the kitchen table the next morning. “Daddy? Your source must be mistaken.”

I look at each of them, Mama, Kayla and Keith, and wish like hell I could spare them this ordeal. Mostly Mama, who has been largely silent since I broke the news to them at the emergency family meeting I called. She’s probably in shock.

“I wish he was wrong.” I thank Esmerelda for the toast and herbal tea she’s become so adept at preparing.

“I mean, Ruth Stern?” Keith asks, his face twisted disparagingly. “I don’t believe it. If Daddy was gonna cheat, it would be with somebody finer than Ruth Stern.”