“You look smarter than that, girl. You know what I did for Maxwell. That’s why you’re here.”

“He paid you to get pregnant and deliver a healthy baby,” Chase said, answering my question.

She tapped her index finger on her nose then pointed it at Chase. “You got it in one. I can tell you’re the brains of this operation.”

“How did it work?” Chase asked. “Did he have a client before or after you got pregnant?”

“Before, of course. He’d get an order, find the right man, put us together, and most of the time I popped out exactly what the client wanted. That’s how you get the big payday. Clean bill of health, right hair color, right eye color.”

She pointed the cigarette at me and shook her head. “You were a problem. Those eyes. Only one with my eyes. It’s a—whad’ya call it?”

“Recessive gene?” Chase offered.

“That’s it. Recessive. Shouldn’t a come out. Lost me a quarter million. I was lucky they took you, but they said it was close enough and they didn’t want to wait.”

“How many times?” Chase asked. On the way here, I’d imagined asking so many questions. Now that I was confronted with this woman who’d given birth to me and sold me as easily as she might a litter of puppies, my mind was blank.

“Nine. I tried for ten, but the last one wouldn’t catch. Lost two in a row, Maxwell said I was done.”

“Profitable venture,” Chase commented.

She winked at him and tossed back the rest of her vodka. “Profitable and easy. Only thing my mama ever gave me was a clean health history and a body that was good at having babies. All I had to do was eat right, avoid smokin’ and drinkin’ and keep my fingers crossed I had a boy when the client wanted a boy and a girl when they wanted a girl.”

“What did you do if they wanted a boy and you had a girl?” I asked, horrified by the potential answers. Her response didn’t make me feel any better.

She shrugged a shoulder and I got the feeling she truly could not have cared less when she said, “It depends. Sometimes I tried again, sometimes they took what they got.”

“And if you tried again? What happened to the baby they didn’t want?”

“Who knows? My job was to hand over healthy babies and cash my check.” She flexed her toes, slapping the sole of her plastic slides against her heel. Her eyes narrowed on me, she said, “Don’t you get any ideas. You’re nothing to me. You were a payday and that money’s been spent. Once you walk out of here, I don’t want to see you again, you understand me, girl?”

She dismissed me. Pulling another cigarette from the pack at her hip, she lit it, looking at Chase with a heavy-lidded gaze. “Now, if you want to come back, you’d be more than welcome as long as you keep your questions to yourself.”

I repressed the urge to shudder in revulsion. The thought of Chase and this woman…ugh. So much gross I didn’t know where to start.

“So you don’t know—” I didn’t know how to ask. I couldn’t bring myself to call the man who’d impregnated her my father. For better or worse Henry Westbrook was my father. I didn’t have to articulate the question. She knew what I wanted to know.

“Don’t know. Don’t care. Maxwell delivered him, I fucked him until I got pregnant, then he disappeared. He cashed his check, I cashed mine. Mine was a hell of a lot bigger on account of all the work I had to do.” Her laugh was a cackle that made my skin crawl.

“When was the last time you saw Maxwell Sinclair?” Chase asked.

“More’n five years ago, which is what I told the other one and his partner.”

“You didn’t know he was dead,” Chase pressed. Surprise flashed across her face.

“Dead? He’s not dead.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because I get my check every month, right on schedule, signed by Maxwell himself.”

“Check for what?” I asked.

“Check for keepin’ my mouth shut.”

I gave her a blank stare, then looked at the stack of money on the couch beside her. She rolled her eyes and tried to share a sympathetic glance with Chase. “She always this naïve?”

Chase ignored her question. “Did you tell this to Maxwell’s son?”

“Nah. They pissed me off. Telling me to keep my mouth shut, like I was going to go around town blabbing. Told me to keep away from any of the babies I had, like I’d want to look for them. If I’d wanted my own, I would’a had one. Little parasites.”

Tilting her head to the side, she gave me a speculative look. The light dawned, and her eyes widened before they narrowed again. “The brown-eyed one with the stick up his ass was yours, wasn’t he? Looked rich. You listen good. You get him hooked on that pussy, make him pay ‘fore you start saggin’. You fuck him good, you’ll get yourself set up before he trades you in.” Another jab of the cigarette in my direction. “There. Good advice. Don’t say I never gave you nothing.” She cackled again, exhaling smoke in my face. My stomach turned over.

Chase looked at me, clearly at the end of his patience. “Are we done?”

I let out a long breath. There wasn’t a question in my mind of my answer when I said, “We’re done.”

I lowered my window when I got in the car, hoping the fresh air would clean the stench of smoke from my clothes and hair. Neither of us said anything as we followed the GPS directions out of the maze of streets and through the security gate.

We were speeding down the highway when Chase said, over the rush of wind through my open window, “I never thought I’d say this, but that woman made Suzanne look like fucking Donna Reed.”

Trust Chase to make me laugh. Our mother always hated it when he called her Suzanne. And he was right, Suzanne wouldn’t win mother of the year, but compared to LeAnne Gates, she’d been a pretty good deal.

She hadn’t hugged or tucked me in at night. She’d tried to sell me in marriage to a man old enough to be my father and kicked me out of the house when I refused to let that same man rape me. And still, she was a better mother than LeAnne Gates.

I snickered. “You sure you don’t want to go back and take her up on her offer? She really seemed to like you.”

“Let’s never mention that part again.”

“Deal. And I’ll pay you back. I didn’t think—”

“No, you won’t.”

“Chase—”

“Violet. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Just shut up.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and blew out a breath. “Fine. Throw your money away.”

“It was a cheap price to pay if we can consider this whole thing over and done.” He took his eyes from the road and looked at me until I raised my gaze to meet his. “Is it? Over and done?”

“For me? Yeah. Yeah, it’s over. It’s depressing and kind of gross. But it’s over. Someone’s going to have to tell one of the Sinclairs what she said, though. About their father.”

Chase sighed. “What a bitch. Not telling them their father might be alive. I’ll make sure they know.”

“You’re all in the loop over there now, aren’t you? Working with Gage, getting to know the Sinclairs…”

“Vivi, it’s not like that—”

I waved my hand in the air and shook my head at him. “Ignore me. I’m just having a shitty day in a shitty week. I’m glad things worked out for you. With the company, and the Winters. I’m just—”

I felt my eyes get wet, and I swallowed. I’d cried enough yesterday. I wasn’t doing it again.

I’d said all I wanted was to find the name on the contract so I could close the book on my past and move forward.

Now it was done.

It was time to look to the future. Find a job. Get an apartment. Save up enough money to go back to school.

Get over my broken heart and settle in to a life without men. Maybe I’d get a couple dozen cats. Take up knitting and drink lots of tea. Wasn’t that what spinsters did?

Chase cleared his throat, interrupting my thoughts. “Don’t hate me, but I get why he did it. Honestly? That woman was the reason I never told you. I didn’t know what we were going to find, but I was afraid of something like that. Aiden met her. He loves you. He was trying to protect you from her.”

“I know he was. But he lied. Every day I asked and he lied. Do you understand why I can’t live like that? Knowing that it doesn’t matter what I want, what’s important to me. That if he thinks I’m wrong, he’ll just tell me whatever I want to hear to keep me in line.”

“Not to keep you in line, Vivi. To protect you. To keep you from being hurt.”

“But that’s not his choice.” My voice cracked on a sob. I bit my lip, pushing it back. When I thought I could talk again I said, “It’s not his choice. Sometimes life hurts. And if I want to risk it, that should be up to me. I don’t want to be kept on a shelf, protected from everything. I want to live my life. I want to take chances. And I want to be able to trust the man I love with all my heart. I want to trust that he believes in me, that he has my back, not that he’s going behind it.”

“Yeah, I get it. I do. I’m just saying, you might want to cut him some slack.”

“I don’t think I can. Not on this.”

“Annalise invited me to the wedding. Why don’t you come with me?”

My mouth fell open and I stared across the front seat at him, incredulous. I felt rotten enough that I wouldn’t see the wedding I’d helped put together. Sad that I’d miss seeing my new friend get married. Sick at the thought of ever seeing any of them again.

“Not a chance,” I said.

Chase sighed but didn’t argue. I turned on the radio, cranking the volume to discourage further conversation. I knew he meant well, but it was no shock that my brother saw Aiden’s side of things.

Chase loved me, but he and Aiden were cut from the same cloth. Bossy, overbearing, and convinced they knew what was right, all the time, every time. Just like Aiden, if Chase could have wrapped me up and put me on a shelf, protecting me from all of life’s ills, he would have.

If that was the life I’d wanted, I would have let our parents marry me off to Gordon Walters and spent the rest of my life trading freedom for safety.

Gage was waiting at our front door when we stepped off the elevator. He and Chase exchanged chin lifts. To Chase, Gage said, “How’d it go?”

Chase just shook his head and unlocked the door of the condo. Gage followed us inside. Chase headed for the kitchen, saying over his shoulder, “Anyone want a beer? I need a beer.”

“Not for me,” Gage said. “Violet? Can I have a minute?”

It was the most polite Gage had ever been. I wasn’t in the mood to spar with him, but the sooner I found out what he wanted, the sooner he would leave.

Raising an eyebrow I said, “How can I help you?”

“I want you to get your things and come back to Winters House with me.”

If he’d asked me to marry him I couldn’t have been more shocked. All I managed was a stunned, “What?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and, for just a second, despite his dark hair, he looked so much like Chase I had to blink.

“Look, Aiden fucked up. He knows it, you know it, I know it, everybody knows it. He fucked up and he’s sorry. He’s miserable. He’s a mess. I swear if you give him another chance, this won’t happen again. He’s not perfect, but he never makes the same mistake twice.”

“You hate me,” I said, struggling to catch up.

“I don’t hate you. I didn’t trust you. For good reason.”

I inclined my head in his direction, acknowledging his point, but saying nothing.

“You’re good for him. You make him happy. He deserves to be happy.”

“And what about me? What about what I deserve?” I was grateful my voice stayed even. My chest ached, but I wasn’t sure I believed Gage’s claim not to hate me. I would not let him see me cry.

“No one will ever love you like he will,” Gage said. “When Aiden loves he does it with everything he has. He will never give up on you. He will never fail you. He’ll never cheat on you. He’ll spend the rest of his life doing anything he can to make you happy, because that’s the way he’s built. That’s the kind of man he is.”

“But will he tell me the truth? Will he respect my decisions when he doesn’t agree with me? Or will he go behind my back and arrange things the way he wants them because it’s for my own good?”

Gage had the grace to sigh and look away rather than argue.

“That’s what I thought,” I said. “Go home, Gage.”

“Just talk to him, Violet. At least answer your phone.”

I looked to Chase, standing in the kitchen, a beer in his hand, his eyes thoughtful. I knew what he would say if I asked.

Why was everyone on Aiden’s side?

“You can all just go to hell. I’m going to take a bath.”

I turned and stalked out of the room. From behind me I heard my brother say with a laugh, “That went well.”

I raised my middle finger over my shoulder just before I turned the corner, ignoring Chase’s answering chuckle. I was taking a bath. With lots of bubbles. And then I was going to consider moving somewhere far, far away where there were no men. Right now, that felt like the answer to all my problems.