Chapter 2

The homecoming dinner was over in less than an hour.

Back at the Warren estate, Diana was wrapped in a cashmere blanket on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate by her feet. My mother sat beside her, patting her back.

I had barely gotten through the door when Lucas looked up at me, his mouth twisting to one side.

"Apologize to Diana."

I took off my coat. "Apologize for what? Spell it out, or I might apologize for the wrong thing."

Ethan came out of the study with a dark blue velvet box.

"Let it go," he said, quickly pushing the box toward me as if he were wrapping up a meeting. "Tonight didn't go well. Take this. Call it compensation."

I opened it. Inside was a pearl necklace with a brand-new clasp and the tag still attached. Diana glanced over, and her hand went to her throat. She was wearing a rose-gold crest necklace, its pendant bearing the Warren beech leaf.

I had seen a photograph of that necklace.

Three years ago, the first time my parents came for me, my mother sat on the old couch at my foster family's house and held the photo out to me. She said it was the crest necklace my grandmother had left to the Warren daughter. My grandmother's will specified that it would go only to a daughter who had been formally acknowledged.

She also said she had been keeping it for me the whole time I was gone.

I closed the pearl box, and its corner knocked against the edge of the coffee table. "Why is the necklace my grandmother left me hanging around Diana's neck?"

My mother's hand stopped in midair. "Two years ago, Diana was very ill. She couldn't sleep, night after night. She had it in her head that once you came back, this family wouldn't need her. I was afraid of what it would do to her, so I brought the necklace out and let her wear it for a few days."

I looked at the pendant on Diana's neck. "By 'a few days,' you mean two years?"

My mother's face stiffened. "She got used to wearing it, and I never pushed the issue."

A log cracked in the fireplace.

Diana looked down and reached for the clasp. She tried it twice, but it wouldn't open. Her tears fell onto the pendant instead.

"I'll give it back to Sylvia."

My mother put a hand over hers at once, then turned to me. "Sylvia, if you like it that much, I'll buy you a better one."

Noah came down the stairs and stopped on the last step. He looked at the necklace on Diana's neck, then at the pearl box in front of me.

"Mom, Grandmother's will says that necklace isn't ordinary jewelry. If it has always belonged to Sylvia, somebody should at least have asked her."

My mother looked up at him, her eyes still red, and for once she didn't argue right away.

I looked at the pearl box on the coffee table. This wasn't the first time.

Every time my birthday came around, Diana had some new problem. She'd get teary over a concert she wanted to attend. She'd have a fight with a friend and hug a pillow, crying from noon until night. Her cat would suddenly start throwing up... and the whole family would gather around her.

Over and over, I told myself to wait a little longer. They just weren't used to me being their daughter yet.

But I was done giving them time.

I pushed the pearls back across to Ethan. "Let's call this what it is. Hush money. You want me to take it and stop thinking about Grandmother's necklace. Right?"

My father came in from outside, his suit still damp from the night air. He pulled off his gloves and tossed them to Mr. Pierce. "What is it this time?"

Lucas jumped in. "She's demanding Diana's necklace."

I looked at my father. "I'm not demanding anything. I'm finding out whether it's mine. If it is, why don't I have it? If it isn't, I don't want it."

My father pinched the bridge of his nose.

"We'll deal with the necklace later."

He took a stack of documents out of the envelope his lawyer had sent over and set them in front of me.

"Tomorrow, we're going to the county clerk's office to finalize your birth record, your name-change paperwork, and your registration as a beneficiary of the family trust. Sylvia, this is the paperwork that makes you a Warren.

"Your surname, your place in the line of inheritance, your status in the family fund. This confirms all of it."

I looked at the top of the page. This should have been done three years ago.

But every time it came up, something else got in the way. A trust restructuring. My mother traveling for work. Ethan busy taking over the group. And then Diana's treatment...

Eventually, I stopped asking when it would happen.

And now the appointment confirmation was sitting right in front of me. Tomorrow, nine o'clock.

My heart raced.

My mother took my hand and held it tight.

"Tomorrow, the whole family will be there. Sylvia, nothing is getting pushed back this time."

I took out my phone and started recording.

"Dad, Mom, Ethan, Noah, Lucas. All of you?"

My father tapped the arm of the couch once, hard. "All of us."

I looked at my three brothers.

Ethan and Noah nodded. Lucas pressed his lips together and didn't look happy about it, but he said, "Fine. I'll be there."

I stopped the recording. "Good."

Maybe after tomorrow, I would finally hear people call me Ms. Warren.

Maybe we could finally schedule the family portrait we'd been putting off for three years.

Maybe a lot of things would actually be different.