The Secret’s Out

After dinner, Kieran went upstairs to the study to talk with his father. I was huddled on the sofa, sipping tea. Selena, one of Kieran’s cousins, slapped her thigh. ‘OMG!’ ‘What? What?’ Willa, another of Kieran’s legion of cousins, turned her head. ‘Listen to this.’ Selena read from her phone screen with the mock plummy accent of a news anchor. ‘It is revealed that the daughter of one of Lisbern’s most respected business leaders is not, in fact, his biological daughter at all. She was adopted.’ I almost dropped the teacup. Cold dread rose in my belly. I wanted to flee, but my legs felt leaden. ‘Her biological mother was a village woman, deceased,’ Selena continued. ‘As for her birth father, there are five candidates. Yeah, you heard that right, five, one short of half a dozen.’ ‘No fricking way!’ Willa snatched Selena’s phone. ‘Let me see.’ The air in the room stilled. Everyone was looking at Willa, but soon, their eyes would be boring a hole in me. ‘Holy shit! Gang rape? Seriously?’ W