by Ivy Layne
She blinked back her tears and looked at Gage with such icy disdain I wanted to kiss her until she melted. “Personally, I think he’s a jerk. But his younger sister seemed very nice and there’s two more I haven’t met. You should at least give them a chance.”
Chase squeezed her hand before he let go. “You’re a better person than me, Vivi.”
“I’m really not,” she muttered under her breath.
Gage muttered back, “Trust me, we’re aware of that.”
I bit back a laugh as Violet dropped her hand beside her knee, out of her brother’s sight, and shot Gage the finger.
Time to get this meeting back on track.
“Look, we’re not going to figure this out today. We need to talk about the company. We both got screwed on this deal and if we could sign CD4 Analytics back to you, we’d consider it.”
“But you’ve already torn it apart and absorbed it,” Chase finished.
“Basically. That doesn’t mean we can’t work something out. You still have a meeting scheduled with Gage in an hour. Why don’t you come back to the office with us, and you two can sit down and talk over the options.”
Through gritted teeth, Chase said, “Fine.”
“In the meantime, I need to ask you what you know about your adoption.”
“What do you mean?” Chase asked, his familiar blue eyes going guarded, alert. He shifted an inch away from Violet.
“Obviously, you know something, since you knew you were my brother before I told you,” Gage said, watching Chase carefully. “We need to know how you found out, and if you have any paperwork, anything in writing.”
“Why?” Chase demanded. “You have a DNA test. Why would you need paperwork?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, not sure how much to tell him. The Sinclair’s problems were their own, and until we knew the full scope of their father’s misdeeds, we didn’t need to spread gossip. I settled for, “Your adoption was the first in a series of private and expensive adoptions that we’re not sure were legal. We’re trying to track down as many as we can to make sure they were all above board. Any clues as to who might have been involved would be helpful.”
Chase crossed his arms over his chest and sat back. “That’s not my problem.”
“Chase!” Violet said, clearly surprised by her brother’s attitude. She swatted him across the chest with the back of her hand and shot him a look I recognized from my own interfering sister.
“Vivi, leave it alone,” Chase ordered. “All of this happened a long time ago. Digging it up now won’t do anyone any good.”
“You don’t know that,” she said. “If they think some of the adoptions weren’t legitimate, there could be parents out there missing their children. If you can help—”
“I can’t.” Chase surged to his feet and paced into the kitchen. Grabbing a glass and a bottle of bourbon, he poured himself a healthy slug and tossed it back. “I can’t help.”
“How can you be sure?” Gage pressed. “How did you find out you were adopted?”
Chase poured another finger of bourbon in the class and stared down at it. “I found the file. In the basement. It had her first initial and her last name. It took me a while, but I finally dug up the hospital where she gave birth, figured out who she was.”
“If you didn’t want to find your family, why go to all that trouble?” I asked, curious.
“I don’t know,” Chase admitted, and I believed him. Behind his anger, his determination to shut us out, there was a lost kid, pissed at the world and alone except for his sister. “I just needed to know. And once I did—” He shrugged his shoulder with a jerk and swirled the bourbon in his glass. “It just didn’t seem important anymore. She was dead. The last thing you’d want was a bastard your mom got rid of in the first place.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gage grit his teeth and I knew he wanted to stand up for his mother, to insist she hadn’t thrown Chase away. Except none of us knew exactly why she’d been so determined to give him up. And not just give him up, but hide him.
Had she known what William was? It seemed hard to imagine since he’d remained friends with our parents for years after their failed romance in college. Had she worried that a child would interfere with her dream of finishing medical school and being a doctor?
Anyone who might have known what she was thinking was dead. I couldn’t offer Chase reassurances about his mother. All we had was the family we were now, a family that wanted to know him.
“You don’t owe us anything,” I said, “but if you have a copy of that file, or you know how we can get one, it would give us a place to start.”
“Did you take it with you?” Violet asked, staring across the room at Chase with worried lavender eyes. “If it’s still at home—”
“I didn’t take it,” Chase said, cutting her off. “They probably wouldn’t have noticed if I did, but I just copied mine, and left the rest alone.”
“The rest?” Violet asked. “What else was there?”
Chase set his glass down with a thud, the blood draining from his face so quickly I wondered if he was about to pass out. In a choked voice he said, “Nothing. There wasn’t anything else. Just medical bills.”
Violet’s eyes narrowed and slowly, she shook her head. “What else did you find, Chase?”
I got a bad feeling in my stomach as I looked between the siblings. Chase couldn’t meet Violet’s eyes. He sent a longing glance at the bottle of bourbon beside him but didn’t pick it up. I knew Violet too well to think she was going to let this go.
I had the absurd urge to grab her arm and drag her from the condo before she badgered the truth out of her brother. If the look on his face was anything to go by, the truth was going to hurt.
“Chase. Just tell me. Was it about you? Me? Something about Mom and Dad?”
She rose to her feet and took a step toward Chase, but at the flash of panic on his face, I stood and grabbed her arm. I tried to pull her close, but she shook me off.
“Chase, just tell me. Whatever it is, it can’t be that important if you’ve been sitting on it all this time.”
Not exactly true, I thought. He’d known who his mother was for years, and he’d kept his mouth shut about that. Whatever he didn’t want to tell Violet, I knew it wasn’t just a big deal, it was catastrophic.
“Vivi,” Chase said in a low, soothing tone. “Can’t you just trust me? Haven’t I always looked out for you?”
“Always,” Violet agreed. “But that doesn’t mean you can lie to me. It was about me, wasn’t it? Whatever you found, it was about me. Why won’t you tell me?”
Her last words came out in a hoarse whisper. My chest burned at the site of a single tear trailing down her cheek.
“She lied about the IVF,” Chase said, so low I could barely hear him.
Violet took a step closer and said, “What?”
“She lied about the IVF. She pretended she was getting fertility treatments and we went away. When we came back, she had you.”
I saw Violet start to crumple before her knees gave way. I slid my arm around her waist to hold her up, taking her weight. Her face was ashen, her eyes wide with shock.
“Why? Why would she lie? Why would she bother to fake a pregnancy? It doesn’t make sense.”
Chase’s laugh was short and caustic. “You know how they are. Appearances are everything. No one knew I was adopted. When she still couldn’t get pregnant, she decided faking was the next best thing. Dad made up a temporary transfer overseas and they told everyone she was pregnant when they left.”
Violet shook her head, her shining hair swinging in a wide arc as she stared at the floor and tried to make sense of this new information. I pulled her close, pressing her into my chest and said quietly, “It doesn’t matter, sweetheart. She’s still your mother. Chase is still your brother.”
Violet’s hand found mine and she squeezed hard, once. So quietly, only I could hear she said, “I know that. And I don’t care if I share
blood with them or not.” A laugh escaped her chest, high-pitched and almost hysterical. “I think I’d almost rather I didn’t.”
“Then what?” I said in her ear. She was trembling in my arms, her breath shallow, her pulse racing, her eyes wet with tears. If she didn’t care about being adopted, then why was she teetering on the edge of a breakdown?
My Violet didn’t fall apart.
My Violet turned to ice. She didn’t shatter.
Holding tight to my hand, she turned to look at her brother. “How could you lie to me about something like this?” She choked on the words as they caught in her throat. “All this time and you knew. All this time you’ve been lying to me.”
Chase’s voice was anguished. “Vivi, no, it wasn’t like that. You were so young when I found out. You were only nine. I couldn’t tell you.”
“You’ve had nineteen years,” she said as tears flowed down her cheeks. “What about when you picked me up after I left home? We spent days talking about how awful they were, and never in all of that did it occur to you to tell me the truth? I wasn’t a child anymore. Not then. Or any day after. And still, you lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie, I just didn’t tell you,” Chase said, weakly. I resisted the urge to shake my head. Not a good excuse.
Violet agreed because she shrieked, “Not telling me is lying.”
“I thought it was best—”
“That’s not for you to decide. You don’t get to choose what’s best for me. You don’t get to hide who I am because you think I can’t handle it. That’s not your decision.”
Violet yanked her arm from mine and scrubbed the tears from her face with the heels of her palms. Chase moved forward, and she threw up a hand. “Stop. Don’t touch me. Don’t come near me. Just go away.” Her voice caught on the last word and she swallowed hard. “I hate you right now,” she whispered just before she bolted for the front door.
Chase reeled back. Violet snatched her purse from the table beside the door and shoved her keys in the pocket of her jeans.
Thinking fast, I tossed my own car key in Gage’s lap and followed her out, saying to Chase, “Give her time.”
I caught up with Violet in the stairwell. Deftly plucking the keys from her pocket, I took her arm and led her from the stairs to the elevator bank. It was a measure of how miserable she was that she didn’t fight me, and when the elevator doors closed she let me pull her into my arms. Pressing her cheek to my chest, she held on to my waist, her body shuddering with sobs.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Aiden
Violet didn’t resist when I opened the passenger door of her blue Volkswagen Beetle and ushered her inside. She buckled her seatbelt, closed the door, and leaned her head against the window, the glass fogging from her breath and the tears still streaming down her cheeks.
I didn’t even think about it. I pulled out of her parking garage and pointed her little car straight at Winters House. My chest hurt worse every time her breath hitched. I knew what it was to feel betrayed by your own family. And I knew what it was to be on Chase’s side of things, making decisions and keeping secrets to protect the ones you loved.
I couldn’t fix what was wrong. That was between Violet and Chase. I knew she’d forgive him, eventually. They were too close, and she loved him too much to hold a grudge forever. On the other hand… I’d seen Violet play the avenging angel. She’d infiltrated my company in the name of justice. If she was mad enough at Chase, I was afraid to guess what she might do.
The garage was empty when we pulled in. Even Sophie’s car was missing. Sophie had originally joined our household as a live-in nurse for our great-aunt Amelia. She was married to Gage now, but she took her job seriously, and she loved Amelia, despite my great aunt’s crotchety, troublemaking ways.
When the weather was good, Sophie and Amelia liked to walk at the Arboretum and then go to our friend Annabelle’s coffee shop in the Virginia Highlands to have one of Annabelle’s sugar-free hot cocoas.
Amelia’s diabetes-friendly diet was a source of contention between her and Sophie. Amelia snuck sweets, and Sophie ferreted them out and confiscated them. Annabelle had developed the hot cocoa recipe for Amelia, and Amelia took advantage as often as she could. They would probably be gone for hours.
Mrs. W, our housekeeper since my childhood, and Abel, our cook, might be home, but they were both discreet enough to give us space if they thought we needed it. I rounded the front of the Beetle and opened Violet’s door. She sat there, slumped, seatbelt still buckled, staring blindly between her feet.
“Come on sweetheart,” I said, leaning over and unfastening her belt. Docile, she allowed me to pull her from the car and slide my arm around her waist. I guided her through the mud room, past the family room and kitchen where she’d had the misfortune to meet my family the night before, past the dining room, to the two-story entry hall. She barely looked around, just wiped under her eyes with the back of her hand and let me lead her up the staircase to the second floor.
The upper level of Winters House was smaller than the main floor. It housed only two bedroom suites, Gage’s and mine. Both suites had a sitting room, bedroom, dressing room, and bath. Gage’s wasn’t small, but mine, as the master suite, was bigger than most homes. Before so much of my family had moved back, it felt cavernous. Now I was grateful for the space and privacy.
Violet didn’t truly take in her surroundings until I sat her on the edge of the bed and leaned down to tug off her shoes. Dropping my suit coat over an armchair, I urged her back onto the bed and joined her, pulling her into my arms and tucking her head against my shoulder.
“Sorry,” she whispered into my shirt. “I’ll stop in a minute.”
“You don’t have to stop,” I said into her hair. “Cry if you want to. I’d be pissed as hell if I were you. And hurt.”
“I hate crying,” she said, her voice wobbly. “It makes me all snotty.” She gave a wet sniffle. I sat up a little and leaned across her to grab a tissue off the bedside table. Violet took care of her runny nose, then settled back against me, her breath still jagged, tears still leaking from her eyes, soaking into my dress shirt.
I rubbed her back and searched for something to say. I came up empty. I didn’t have anything comforting to offer. She wouldn’t want to hear what I was thinking.
I understood Chase. I’d done plenty of fucked up things in the name of protecting my family. I’d screwed up Annalise’s relationship with Riley when she was in college. Screwed it up so badly it took them over a decade to find one another again. She’d forgiven me, partly because it was as much Riley’s fault as it was mine, but I’d still fucked up.
And it hadn’t been that long ago that Charlie had stopped speaking to me because I’d fired her. Maybe it had been for the best, but it was still an asshole move, and I knew it at the time. It hadn’t stopped me then and probably wouldn’t stop me now.
I knew all about making hard decisions to protect your family. Chase had known about us all these years and hadn’t made a single attempt to get in touch.
He’d looked after his little sister. He’d taken her in when her parents cut her off, gave her a place to live, a job. Loved her. Supported her. Yeah, he’d fucked up not telling her she was adopted. Violet had a right to know.
Still, I knew why he kept his mouth shut. He hadn’t wanted to see that look in her eyes the moment she realized that everything she knew about her family was a lie.
Violet’s breath evened out and I looked down to see her eyes closed, her pale lashes fanned across her flushed cheeks, spiky with tears. My phone beeped. I pulled it from my pocket to check the screen. Gage.
Where are you?
Tapping with one finger I wrote back, Home.
With Violet?
Y
That was a cluster fuck. We rescheduled the meeting for tomorrow. Want you there. She’s staying at W H?
Y
No comment from Gage. I wasn’t sure Violet would be willing to stay. If she was un
comfortable being at Winters House, I’d check us back into the Intercontinental. Or see if Jacob had an empty unit in his building. I knew she wasn’t going back to Chase’s condo anytime soon.
Making a decision, I eased away from Violet and got off the bed. She didn’t move when I unsnapped her jeans and slid them down her legs. When I reached beneath her T-shirt to unfasten her bra and tugged the straps down her arms, she only sighed and turned into the pillow.
We hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, and she was emotionally exhausted. I pulled the covers over her body, drew the curtains and wrote a short note. Setting it on the pillow beside her, next to her phone, I left the room, shutting the door behind me.
I found Mrs. W in her office by the kitchen, looking down at a notepad and chewing on the end of the pencil. Her hair in a bun, her dark dress without a wrinkle, she was almost identical to the young woman who’d joined our staff at eighteen, not long before my aunt and uncle died. There were a few threads of gray in her dark hair and faint creases in the skin around her eyes and mouth, but otherwise, Helen Williamson defied the passing of the years. With our parents dead, she was the closest thing we had to a mother, and every single one of us adored her.
Except for Aunt Amelia. Those two had been sworn enemies for decades, at least until Amelia’s penchant for pulling pranks had crossed the line a few weeks ago. It turns out that when you hide a bullion cube in a shower head, the person who stands beneath smells like chicken soup for a few days afterward.
Mrs. W was not amused. When Abel, who we all suspected was sweet on her, pranked Amelia back, it seemed my great aunt decided to call a truce. The rest of us were relieved, but I wasn’t convinced the détente would last.
“When did you come home?” she asked, concern in her dark eyes. I was far more likely to work into the night than to show up in the middle of the day.
“Just a little while ago,” I said. “I brought someone with me. The woman I’ve been seeing, Violet Westbrook. She’s had a shock, a family problem with her brother. They live together, and she needed some space. She’s sleeping in my room upstairs. I’m going to run to her place and get some of her things.”