A few days after the scene in the wine room, Gage got the bright idea to have a family dinner, complete with the newest member of the Winters family, my brother. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to bring Chase further into the Winters fold or aggravate me.

Knowing Gage, he was multitasking. He tossed the idea out in the middle of dinner, fully aware that everyone would love the idea, making me look like a churlish bitch if I objected.

The truth was, I was nursing a grudge. It was long past time to forgive Chase. He’d screwed up. Fine. But he’d done it because he loved me. I could cut him some slack in the face of decades of being the best big brother on earth.

Unable to stop himself from poking at me, Gage said point blank, “He won’t come unless you invite him.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. The only thing worse than Gage getting under my skin was letting him know how deeply he annoyed me. I buried the need to scowl or make a sarcastic remark and gave him my best ice queen.

“I’ll call him tonight. Find out when everyone is free and I’ll make sure he’s here.”

Gage only inclined his head in agreement, mischief sparking in his eyes. He knew he drove me nuts. My hand itched to wing my dinner roll at his head, ice queen be damned. Instead, I raised my chin and turned my eyes to Aiden, dismissing Gage. If a low chuckle drifted over from his side of the table, I ignored it.

Chase being Chase, he didn’t make me work for it. I called, he apologized for lying, and I said I was sorry for taking so long to get over it. Just like when we were kids, that was all it took. I could hold a grudge like a champion, but not against Chase.

“I’ll come to dinner if you’ll think about coming home,” Chase said.

I sighed, half in exasperation and half in affection, looking up to make sure the door to Aiden’s office was firmly closed.

“I’ll think about it.”

“It’s too soon, Vivi. You barely know this guy.”

I let out an exasperated breath. “I’ve known him for more than six weeks.”

“Do you hear yourself? Six weeks. That’s nothing. You go away with him for the weekend, and now you’re living with him?”

“I’m not living with him. I’m looking for a job, and as soon as I find one I’m getting my own place.”

“You don’t need your own place. You have a place. Here.”

“Chase, I can’t live with you forever.”

“I didn’t say you had to. But it doesn’t make sense for you to move out and pay rent on your own apartment when I have plenty of room here.”

I raised my eyes to the ceiling, praying someone in the heavens would deliver me from overbearing men. “Can we talk about this later? On the list of things I have to figure out about my life, where I’m living is somewhere in the middle. First I need to find a new job.”

“I’m sure your boyfriend would—”

“Shut. Up. I’ve already had this argument with him, I don’t need to hear it from you. I can find my own job.”

“Okay, okay. Shutting up.”

More than ready to change the subject I said, “So, did you hear about our little raid on Mom and Dad’s file cabinet?”

“Gage got me a copy of the papers you gave the Sinclairs,” Chase said, carefully.

“Aiden said they’re trying to track down the attorney who brokered the adoption.”

“Are you trying to find them? Your biological parents?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I can think of a lot of reasons why,” Chase snapped. “Starting with the fact that there are all sorts of things fucked up about that adoption. Not just how much they paid. You’re poking a hornet’s nest.”

“Is this why you didn’t tell me? Because you didn’t think I should go looking for them?”

Chase was silent for so long I checked the screen of my phone to make sure we hadn’t been disconnected.

Finally, gently, he said, “I’m afraid of what you’re going to find, Vivi. I’ve read that contract. More than once. That was not a standard adoption. This wasn’t some kid who got pregnant by accident and decided to have the baby and give it to a good family. Mom and Dad paid three quarters of a million dollars for you. That kind of money? It does not point to good things.”

“I don’t know what that means, Chase,” I said.

He sighed, and when he spoke again he sounded sad. “I don’t know either, Vivi. Not exactly. But I talked to Gage about it, talked to Cooper Sinclair. After their father died they found out he was involved in some shady business. Yours was not the only high-priced adoption they’ve come across. They’re digging, and they don’t have anything solid, but people paying that much money for babies…I’m scared for you. I wish you’d just let it go.”

“I can’t.” The words felt pulled out of me, breaking as I spoke. “I need to know.”

“Vivi, if you think you’re going to find someone to make up for what happened with Mom and Dad, I don’t—”

“That’s not it. I’m not looking for another family, or a mother to love me. I just want to know. I want to know the whole story so I can put it behind me. They lied to us, and you lied to me. I want to know the truth.”

I couldn’t explain it any better than that. It nagged at me, not knowing where I came from. I kept thinking that if I just had answers I could close it all up like a book and put it on the shelf. Make it part of my history and leave my parents and that contract behind.

“Okay. I’m not going to try to stop you. But I’m here. Always. You know that, right? Forget about all this stuff with the Winters family. You’re my family. You’re my sister, my Vivi, and nothing’s ever going to change that.”

“I know that, Chase. I love you, and I’m sorry I was such a bitch about the whole thing, you just hurt my feelings.” A tear ran down my cheek, taking me by surprise.

“Yeah, well, sometimes I’m an asshole.”

I giggled, the sound watery, but it was enough to reassure Chase.

“See you at dinner?”

“Don’t be late,” I warned.

“It’s not me you have to worry about,” Chase said before he hung up.

He hadn’t been at Winters, Inc. for long, but he’d heard plenty about Aiden’s reputation for working late. His comment might have been a stab in the dark, but it turned out to be wholly accurate. The night Chase was supposed to join the family for dinner, my phone vibrated with a text.

Running late. Be there for dessert.

Was he kidding me? The first time I was here with his entire family and he was bailing on me? Not going to happen.

“What is it?” Annalise asked seeing my expression as I stared at my phone.

“Aiden’s going to be late.”

“How late?” she asked, grimly.

“Not late at all if he values his life,” I said under my breath. Headlights flashed through the front windows. A car pulling into the courtyard. “Excuse me.”

I went down the hall to Aiden’s office and pulled up his number, pacing the carpet in front of his desk. He answered with a rushed, “Violet, I can’t talk now.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“Later, sweetheart. I’ll try to make dessert, I promise.” To someone else he said, “Put that over there and then get me copies of the file I emailed. Close the door behind you.”

“Aiden!” I shouted.

Silence. Then, vaguely annoyed, “Violet.”

“What’s going on that’s more important than dinner?”

“There’s an opportunity, a deal we lost opened back up. We need to reevaluate our initial offer and see what we can do to—”

“Stop,” I interrupted. “Stop and think about what I asked, Aiden. What’s going on that’s more important than dinner with your family? Everyone is here. And do you know who isn’t here? You.”

“I know, Violet, but they won’t miss me, and I have to get this—”

“Aiden, no. They will miss you. You’re crazy if you think they won’t. Tell me why you work so hard.”

“Vi, you can’t run a company like this without working hard. It’s part of the deal.”

“But you don’t have to. What do you need? More money? Another house? Another plane? Why do you do it?” I knew the answer, I just wanted to make him say it out loud, to force him to really hear the words.

“Violet, my father left me this company. This is my heritage. This company belongs to my family. I’m working for them. For all of them. For Vance’s little girl, for the kids I’m going to have one day.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “And what do you think your family would rather have? More money or you at the dinner table?”

“Violet—”

“No, be honest. If I asked them. If I asked Charlie right now what she’d rather have, higher stock prices or her brother here for a family dinner, what do you think she’d say?”

“Vi—”

“Or Gage? If I dragged him in here right now and asked, what do you think he’d say? Tell me the truth.”

“He’d tell me to put the offer together tomorrow and get my ass home,” Aiden said, slowly.

“I know that things are going to come up that you can’t avoid. I know that you love what you do, that Winters, Inc. is a part of who you are. But this can wait until tomorrow, can’t it? I’ll come in and help if you need an extra hand. You’ve given so much of your life to that company, so much of your life to your family. They’re here, happy and healthy, celebrating being together, and you’re missing it. You worked so hard to get them here and you’re missing it. Come home.”

Aiden went quiet. I heard a tapping in the background, his pen against his desk as he thought about his options. Finally, he said, “I’ll be there in twenty.”

I was still saying, “See you soon,” when he hung up.

“Thank you.”

I jumped at the unexpected voice and turned, almost dropping my phone. I bobbled it, the smooth plastic case slipping through my fingers before I managed to get a grip on the edges.

Charlie stood there, her tousled auburn curls pulled back on one side with a sparkly bobby pin in the shape of a dragonfly. A smile curved her lips and her eyes were soft on my face.

“Thank you,” she said again. Embarrassed by her warmth, I rubbed the screen of my phone against my hip and slid it in my pocket.

“He works too much,” I said, trying for distantly cool and instead sounding awkward. It killed me to admit that I cared what anyone thought of me, but I wanted Charlie to like me. She was Aiden’s baby sister, the sister he’d practically raised, and at our first meeting, she hadn’t seemed thrilled I was with her brother.

“I know. He fired me for being a workaholic, but does he slow down? No.”

“Well, you know it’s not the same,” I said, dryly. “Aiden is the King of the Universe. Mortal rules don’t apply.”

“Ha! He’d like to think so. You’ll have fun curing him of the idea. I already heard about the résumé fight. And the locked wine room.”

“Oh, God.” I sank into one of the armchairs opposite Aiden’s desk, smacking my cool hands over my suddenly fiery cheeks. “I thought I heard someone try to come in.”

Charlie smirked. “That’s the downside of this family—no privacy. We know everything, and what we don’t know, we eventually badger out of you.”

“Privacy is overrated. Privacy is what you get when your family doesn’t care about you.” I could taste the bitterness in my words, and I didn’t like it.

I wanted to shrug it off as if it didn’t matter that my parents didn’t love me. I couldn’t forget my father not bothering to greet me when we’d visited. He hadn’t asked how I was. Where I was living. If I was alright.

I had all the privacy I wanted from them, and I would have traded it in a second to know they cared what happened to me. They weren’t built like that. I knew it, I’d had a lifetime of experience as a teacher. And still, I held on to a grain of hope.

The sympathy in Charlie’s ocean blue eyes burned. I didn’t want her to feel sorry for me. How could she not? She’d lost her own parents, but from all accounts, they’d loved their children with everything they had.

Aiden had been young, but he’d stepped into the breach to hold the foundation strong. They were loud, and interfering, and nosy, but this family knew how to love. I couldn’t help but envy Chase a little for having a claim to a portion of that love.

I was adrift, tethered only to Chase and he’d found himself a whole new family.

I shoved my self-pity aside, bolstered a little when Charlie said, “Mrs. W likes you. Aunt Amelia says you have starch. And you got Aiden to unchain himself from his desk and come home for dinner. I guess you can stay.” Her quirky smile pulled a faint grin from me.

“I definitely won’t dump a bucket of water on your head,” she added, the smile flashing into mischief, making her look a decade younger. I’d bet Aiden had had his hands full with Charlie when she was a teenager.

“You dumped a bucket of water on Elizabeth’s head?”

“From the landing. They were on their way to a black tie dinner. She was wearing chiffon and her hair was in these huge curls.”

I smacked a hand over my mouth, my shoulders shaking with laughter as I imagined Elizabeth’s cool, blond beauty drenched with water, her mascara running, hair flattened, chiffon dress turned to sodden rags.

When I got my breath back I said, “Please tell me someone has a picture of that.”

“I wish. Aiden was furious. I was grounded for a month. Totally worth it.”

“I bet. The last time we met I was tempted to throw my champagne in her face. If she comes near Aiden again, I might.”

“I’ll keep my phone handy, just in case.”

The family dinner went better than I expected. Annalise had spread the word about Aiden’s attempt to bail and my dragging him home. We all marveled at how much Chase and Vance looked alike, which was only a little weird. Chase sat across from me, both of us flanking Aiden at the head of the table, and watched us with sharp eyes all through the meal. If he was looking for fault in Aiden, he didn’t find it. We were all on our best behavior.

Gage didn’t poke at me, Aiden didn’t provoke Chase, Aunt Amelia didn’t hide any plastic insects in the salad.

All in all, things were good. I should have been sleeping like a baby. Instead, I lay awake beside Aiden, staring at the ceiling, unable to settle my mind. When I slept my dreams were uneasy, and when I woke in the dark with a jerk, I had only memories of shadowy hallways. Of wandering in the dark. Of being lost.

I didn’t need a psychology degree or a shrink to tell me the loose ends in my life were plaguing my sleep. I knew once things were settled—once I found a job, an apartment, got a name from the Sinclairs—I’d feel less adrift.

Telling myself that I was doing my best didn’t help. Every day I sent out résumés, made phone calls. I went on interviews and got turned down for a job I really wanted. This time it turned out I wasn’t qualified enough, reminding me that if I didn’t get a job, I’d never save enough for tuition, and I’d never finish school.

Every day I asked Aiden if he’d heard from Cooper, if they’d found the attorney or a name. Every day he said they hadn’t. With each day that passed, my uncertainty grew.

Maybe they wouldn’t find anyone. Maybe the contract was just a dead end and I’d never know. Maybe I wouldn’t find a job I liked, wouldn’t be able to save enough for school. Wouldn’t get in when I applied. My grades had been good, my GMAT scores were strong, but the program was competitive.

Aiden’s words ate at me. I was still jobless and homeless.

Five years after my parents had thrown me out, and I had nothing to show for myself. I’d spent most of that time helping Chase build a company that no longer existed, and I’d lost a chunk of my savings when Harrison had changed the contracts and stolen it out from under us. I was back at square one. Again.

I lay beside Aiden in bed, still and quiet so I didn’t wake him, my thoughts going in circles. I didn’t want him to know about any of it—the bad dreams, that I wasn’t sleeping.

He wouldn’t be able to stop himself from trying to fix everything. He’d never understand that if he fixed it for me, I’d only feel worse. I just needed to hang in there and keep trying. Eventually, I’d find the right job, find a place to live, find the people behind that contract. I knew everything would work out.

But in the dark of night, my worries keeping me from sleep, I didn’t quite believe it.