CHAPTER FOUR
I lifted my hands to shield my face as the camera flashed.
“There’s no Eden here,” I said. “You’ve got the wrong house.”
“No, I don’t.” He lifted a recorder. “Tell me, Miss Larsen, how does it feel to be the long-lost daughter of America’s most notorious—”
Howard slammed the door and shot the bolt.
“What just . . . ?” I began. “Did they say what I thought they said?”
Howard tugged the sidelight curtains shut. Before I could ask my mother if we had a neighbor named Eden, she said, “I need to talk to you, Olivia.”
“Okay,” I said as I let her lead me into the sitting room. “We’ll ignore the crazy folks at the door. What’s up?”
Howard stayed in the doorway. I sat on the love seat and patted the spot beside me, but she was already heading for “her” chair—a very pretty antique so hard it felt like sitting on a rock. She hated the love seat, which didn’t match anything in the room. But it was comfortable. Some of my earliest memories were of being curled up on it with Dad as he read to me.
“What’s up?” I repeated.
“There’s something I need to tell you. Something we probably should have told you years ago.”
“Okay . . .”
She paused a moment, then blurted, “You’re adopted.”
“I’m . . . ?”
She nodded. Didn’t say the word again. Just nodded.
I stared at her. That wasn’t possible. I looked just like my parents. Everyone said so. I had my mother’s ash-blond hair and green eyes, and my dad’s height, wide mouth and strong jaw.
“Did you say I’m . . . adopted?”
I waited for her to stare at me in confusion. Maybe even laugh. Clearly that was not what she’d said.
Instead, she paused for at least five seconds and then nodded.
I thought of the reporter at the door. “So he didn’t get the wrong place. Someone found out I’m adopted. They went to the press. You wanted to warn me before someone showed up on our doorstep.”
She nodded again.
“And now they’re saying I’m the daughter of America’s most notorious . . . what? Actor? Rock star? Politician? Oh God, please tell me it isn’t a politician.”
She said nothing. As we sat there in silence, her words finally sank in. Forget whose child I was. I was someone else’s. Not hers. Not my dad’s.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last. “You shouldn’t have had to find out about it this way.”
“No, I shouldn’t.”
I looked over at her and the shock cleared, pain seeping in. Hard, angry pain. “You had no intention of telling me I was adopted until you were forced to.”
Howard stepped forward. “Olivia, your parents were unable to have children of their own. They decided to give a wonderful, loving home to a child in need.”
“I’m not questioning their motives,” I said. “It’s the part about not telling me for twenty-four years that I’m having trouble with.”
“Twenty-one, actually. You—” Howard stopped. His sallow cheeks flushed. Then he cleared his throat, and stepped back. “I’m sorry. This really isn’t my place.”
“No shit,” I muttered.
My mother didn’t tell me to watch my language. Didn’t even flinch.
“So I’m not twenty-four?” I said.
“You are,” Mum said. “It’s just that you weren’t an infant when we first got custody of you. You were a little over two and a half. I wanted a toddler. Everyone wants a baby and there are so many older children who need a home.”
And it was much easier to find an older child who looked like you. Shame plucked at the edges of my anger, telling me I was being unfair.
We sat in silence. I didn’t want silence. I wanted to rage and shout and throw everything within reach.
I wanted Dad. If he was here, I could rage and shout and throw things. He’d expect no less. But with Mum’s worried eyes fixed on me, there was no way I could give in to a temper tantrum. Sitting there quietly hurt, though. Physically hurt.
“Okay,” I said finally. “So I’m not your daughter—”
“Of course you are. Don’t be melodramatic, Olivia. I only wanted to keep it a secret because I feared how others would treat you. When you live in a world of privilege, everyone wants to believe you don’t deserve it. I had a younger cousin who was adopted and people always behaved as though she didn’t really belong. I made your father swear that wouldn’t happen to you.”
“All right.” I took a deep, ragged breath that seared my lungs. “So now the word is out, and the press is making a big deal out of it. Must be a slow news day. We’re going to have to counter with a statement. I take it you know who my parents are?”
Silence. I looked at Mum. Then at Howard. Neither would meet my gaze.
“So you do know,” I said. “You just don’t want me knowing, because I might contact them. Well, clearly the press knows so you’re going to have to—”
“That’s not it,” Mum said. “Neither your father nor I had any idea who your biological parents were when we adopted you. I only found out tonight. According to Howard”—she shot a look his way—“your father learned the truth two years ago. He decided to keep it from both of us.”
“He paid a great deal to keep it from you,” Howard added.
Mum nodded, and they looked at me expectantly, as if I should be grateful for this, when all I could think was My dad paid blackmail money to hide something from me. My father. Who’d never coddled me. Never shielded me from the darker side of life. I’d loved him for that. Pay blackmailers? No, that wasn’t possible. Not from a man who would thunder and lecture me when I argued for leniency dealing with young shoplifters at the store.
“I . . . don’t understand,” I said finally.
Howard answered. “Your father was the victim of a blackmailer who now seems to have realized he could get more money selling his story to the online tabloids.”
More money than he could get from my wealthy family? How big of a story was it?
I swallowed. “Who are my birth parents?”
Howard watched my mother for a moment, silently pleading with her to answer. When she didn’t, he cleared his throat. “Pamela and Todd Larsen. The names will likely mean nothing to you—”
“I know who they are.” The words came as a whisper, forced out past lungs that seemed to have collapsed, like I’d been hit in the chest with a five iron.
“Did you say . . . ?” Howard began.
“I know who they are. Everyone knows who they are.”
Deep breaths. In and out. Don’t think. Just breathe.
I shifted my gaze to my mother. She looked away.
She looked away.
Oh God. My own mother couldn’t bear to look at me.
“So it’s . . . ?” I shook my head and turned to Howard. “No, that’s who they’re alleging are my parents. It’s a rumor. It has to be proven. I need to submit DNA and compare it to the records of these . . . people.”
Howard shook his head. “Do you think your father didn’t demand proof when this was first brought to him? The blackmailer provided test results and it wasn’t enough. Your father took hair from your brush and had an independent lab test your DNA against the Larsens’ DNA from their samples taken as evidence in their trial. There is no doubt. They are your biological parents.”
“It means nothing, Olivia,” my mother sniffed. “You are our daughter. Not theirs.”
Not Pamela and Todd Larsen’s. Not the child of . . . Oh God. My stomach heaved.
“I . . . I need a minute,” I said and ran from the room.