Chapter 3
The dining room erupted.
Celeste said my locket was fake.
Beatrice Vale began crying.
Guests whispered behind crystal glasses.
I could barely breathe.
Julian crossed the room slowly, as if moving too fast might shatter whatever truth had just entered it.
“May I see it?”
I stepped back.
Instinct.
The locket was all I had left of my mother.
No one touched it.
No one took it.
Celeste had already taken my career.
I would not let the Vales take my last piece of home.
Julian stopped immediately.
“I won’t take it,” he said. “I just need to see the back.”
His voice was gentle.
That made my eyes sting.
I turned the locket around while still holding the chain.
He leaned closer.
His breath caught.
There was a tiny engraved mark on the back.
E.V.
Eleanor Vale.
“My sister vanished twenty-eight years ago,” he said.
I stared at him.
“My mother’s name was Elena.”
Beatrice made a broken sound.
“Eleanor used Elena when she ran away.”
My heart pounded.
“No.”
Julian looked at me.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
Beatrice covered her mouth.
Julian asked, “What was your mother’s full name?”
“Elena Ellison.”
“Ellison was our grandmother’s maiden name,” Beatrice whispered.
Celeste suddenly laughed.
A sharp, ugly sound.
“This is insane. She is manipulating you.”
Julian turned.
“How would she know?”
Celeste’s lips parted.
“I don’t know. People research rich families.”
I shook my head.
“I didn’t know anything about your sister.”
Celeste stepped toward me.
“Of course you didn’t.”
Her voice turned sweet.
Too sweet.
“You barely know how to read legal forms. That’s why agencies dropped you.”
My face burned.
Julian’s eyes sharpened.
“What legal forms?”
Celeste froze.
I looked at him.
“She accused me of stealing eleven years ago. At a campaign shoot.”
“What campaign?”
Celeste said, “Julian, enough.”
He ignored her.
“What campaign, Mara?”
I swallowed.
“Ashford Diamonds.”
Beatrice’s head lifted.
“Our company owned that campaign.”
Celeste grabbed her purse.
“I am done with this humiliation.”
She turned toward the door.
Then Ivy spoke.
“Daddy, why is Aunt Celeste wearing Mara’s bracelet?”
Every head turned.
May you like
On Celeste’s wrist was a thin silver bracelet.
A bracelet I had lost the night my life was destroyed.
