Page 141 of Dark Rival

Allie gasped and had to sit down on his stool. “He has three sons?”

“You just met the oldest,” Freddie snapped. “Then there are the two boys.”

She reeled.

“His wife had the twins two years ago,” Freddie added. “Mr. Monroe is nuts about those little boys.”

Her father had remarried after all. But what about her, Allie Monroe? Who was she—and was William Monroe her father or not?

IN THE NEW YORK CITY Public Library, Allie found exactly what she was looking for.

William Monroe had married the socialite heiress Laurel Cady-Benton two years ago. The moment Allie saw the pretty blonde’s picture, she sensed that she was a kind, centered woman and perfect for her father. In their wedding photos, she and her father were clearly in love.

He had never been married to her mother, Elizabeth.

There had never been a Monroe Heiress.

Allie looked at Aidan, shocked. “This is not my time,” she said. “I have to go back.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

TABBY AND SAM shared a two-bedroom loft in Tribeca. There was no doorman to ring her up and Allie pounded wildly on their door. It was 5:00 p.m. and if Tabby was still in the twenty-first century, she’d be home, school having let out at quarter past three. Allie was half expecting her to be there, because Guy had found her in 2008.

Aidan took her wrist. “Ye have to calm, Allie.”

“How can I calm? Apparently I was never born! What the hell does that mean?”

Aidan was as relaxed as she was not. “It means yer meant to go back to Blayde, to live with yer brother—the last place yer mother was seen.”

“My mother was last seen here—except, suddenly she doesn’t exist in this time, either!” Allie banged on the door again. Her mother must have fled the massacre and leapt directly to 1982, the year she’d met William Monroe, the year Allie had been born. But clearly that hadn’t been meant to be. “I almost feel as if I am going to go up in smoke at any moment.”

Aidan smiled. “Ye belong to the Brotherhood, lass. Ye willna vanish from time.”

Allie stared at him, thinking that he had to be right. Somehow, what her mother had done had been wrong. But if that was the case, what did it mean about her relationship with William Monroe? Had the Ancients taken his memory of her away so that he wouldn’t suffer when she went back? He was her father, wasn’t he?

The door opened, revealing Sam standing there in a tiny top and low-slung fleece shorts, her short hair soaking wet, most of her midriff bare. She looked annoyed—and then her eyes went wide in disbelief and relief. “Allie!” She embraced her hard.

“You know me!” Allie said hoarsely, choking in relief.

Sam glanced at Aidan and her eyes went wide and then narrowed. Aidan smiled the kind of smile that would instantly put most women on their backs, undressing her from head to toe, an easy enough task as Sam barely had any clothes on. Sam checked him out as quickly and as boldly, then dragged Allie inside. Aidan followed and she shut the door behind him.

Allie made introductions. “Is Tabby here?”

“She’s at a PTA meeting. We have been so worried!”

Allie just stared. So Tabby still existed—even though she’d eventually go to the past and live there. Or would she stay here?

“Allie!” Sam grabbed her. “We need to talk!”

“We can talk in front of Aidan,” Allie said.

Sam gave him a glance and then said, “The morning after the party, Tabby called you because you took off. And no one, no one, I mean frigging no one—” her voice rose shrilly, when Sam was as cool as Royce all of the time “—knew you! Not the housekeeper, not your father, not your brother. What the hell happened?”

“But you didn’t forget me,” Allie whispered.

“We’ve been freaked! We were afraid it was demons, and that Fate decided to make a few adjustments to the situation. But the gods never intervene when someone is murdered and you know it.”

“I’ve been in the fifteenth century, Sam. The CDA rumors are true.”