CHAPTER TWO

Gerald's question hung in the air, and no one rushed to answer it.

"Don't be ridiculous, Gerald." Vivienne broke the silence first, because she always did. "What is there to be sure of? Dominic should have married Camille years ago. He would have, if this gold-digging little parasite hadn't crawled in and ruined everything."

"My brother deserves a woman of his own world," Brielle added, examining her manicure. "Not some charity case Grandmother fished out of the gutter."

"My friends have stopped inviting me anywhere," sniffed Margaret, Dominic's aunt, never one to miss a chance. "Do you know the shame of that? All because of who he married."

Through it all, Cordelia said nothing. She did not defend the granddaughter-in-law she had chosen, but she did not join the chorus either. She simply sat, hands folded, eyes lowered, as if she could absent herself from the room by sheer stillness.

Evangeline rose from the floor.

She did it slowly, deliberately, and the very calm of it made the room go quiet. They had braced for screaming. For begging. For her to claw at the papers and refuse. Instead she walked to the staircase and went up without a word, and the silence she left behind was thick with confusion.

When she came back down, she carried a single backpack over one shoulder — the same canvas bag she had walked in with three years ago. She set it on the table beside the petition, picked up the pen, and signed her name in one clean stroke. She did not read a line of it.

The scratch of the pen seemed to echo.

Dominic felt something turn over in his chest, sharp and unexpected, the instant her signature dried on the page. He could not have named it. He did not try.

"That's it?" he heard himself say. "You're not even going to read what you're signing away?"

Evangeline wiped her face with the back of her wrist, and then — to his confusion — she smiled. Not bitterly. The smile was almost radiant, dimples and all, and for one disorienting second it made his chest ache worse.

"I came into this family with nothing but a name and a backpack," she said. "I never asked your grandmother for anything. She came to me. She wanted to pay my tuition for saving her life, and she wanted me to marry you in the bargain, and I was poor enough and grateful enough to say yes. Whatever's written on that page — money, property, settlement — I don't want it. There isn't an amount large enough to buy back what these three years cost me."

She unzipped the backpack and turned it over.

Books spilled across the table. Worn textbooks, dog-eared and bristling with notes. A handful of cheap pens. Nothing else. The family stared, baffled, waiting for some trick.

"This is what I brought," she said. "This is what I'm leaving with. I knew from the first day that a family like yours would never truly let me in, but I tried anyway. I cooked and cleaned and smiled until my face hurt, and I told myself that one day it would be enough. It was never going to be enough. I understand that now."

She reached into the side pocket and drew out a slim notebook and a bank card, and held them out to Dominic.

"Every allowance you ever gave me is recorded in here. Date, amount, where it came from. I never spent a cent of it. I opened an account and let it sit, because I thought — God, this is embarrassing — I thought one day you'd love me, and I'd give it all back to you as a gift, and we'd laugh about how careful I'd been." Her voice didn't waver. "Take it. I won't have anyone in this room calling me a gold-digger ever again. I earned my own way before I met you, and I'll earn it after."

Dominic's hand closed around the notebook and card without his telling it to.

She turned to Cordelia next and set a second card on the small table beside the old woman's chair.

"Your money for my schooling is in this one. I never needed it, Madam. I told you that the day you offered, and I'm telling you again now. It's all there."

Cordelia's fingers closed over the card, and to Evangeline's distant surprise the old woman's eyes were wet. It moved her not at all. The time for the Voss family's tears was three years gone.

"Hold on." Brielle's voice cut in, sharp with suspicion. "How do we know there's anything on these cards? She could be handing us empty plastic and walking away looking noble."

Evangeline looked at her for a long moment, and whatever was in that look made Brielle sink back against the cushions.

"Call the bank," Evangeline said softly. "You're the one in this room who's terrified of being poor. I'm not. Losing the money would cost me nothing — it was never mine to begin with."

A ripple went through the family. This was not the girl they knew, the one who flinched and apologized and made herself small. This woman frightened them a little.

Evangeline slung the empty backpack over her shoulder and started for the door. And then her gaze passed over Camille, still cradled in Dominic's arms — and she stopped.

Because Camille was watching her leave, and at the corner of the woman's mouth was a smile. Tiny. Triumphant. Gone in an instant, but Evangeline had seen it, and it landed like a key turning in a lock.

The wheelchair. The blanket. The doctors who couldn't promise. The fall no one had witnessed.

She faked it. All of it. She faked it to drive me out.

The understanding rolled through Evangeline like ice water, and on its heels came a fury so clean and bright it almost felt like relief. She turned around and walked straight back toward the pair on the sofa.

Camille flinched, shrinking into Dominic's chest.

"Regretting it already?" Vivienne crowed, jabbing a finger toward her. "Too late, girl. You signed. It's done."

But Evangeline wasn't listening to her. Her eyes were locked on Camille, and her voice when it came was very soft and very cold.

"One question, Camille. Look at me and answer it. Did I push you into that car, or did I not?"