The park down by the river was a different place this early in the morning. Like TJ, I loved it down here, but for different reasons…and at different times.

It was quieter, calmer. Save for the people who were crazy enough to be out here running, it was empty. I should know. I was one of the ones crazy enough to be out here running. I didn't really like running – any woman with a build like mine understood why – but on days when swimming wasn't an option, this was what I did to keep in shape.

The sound of my feet slapping against the pavement was rhythmic, lulling my brain into that easy state where I just let thoughts come and go as they pleased. Except this morning, my mind drifted to places probably better left alone.

I kept thinking about Jal.

Once we’d gotten out of the hotel and had started to walk, he’d loosened up and was actually…well, almost easy to talk to. Easy, for a guy who pretty much topped the social echelon. Who had more money in his bank account than I’d ever see in my lifetime.

For a guy who was about to get engaged.

If he wasn’t already. He said he needed the ring for this weekend, which meant that was probably when he planned on popping the question.

Why in the hell had he come into my salon anyway?

Why had he left that damn coat, and made me start brooding about things like…like…him. Him and that damn ring. Him and me. Not that there was a him and me, but just spending a few hours with him made me think about why things like him and me couldn’t happen. And it had absolutely nothing to do with that ring.

That damn ring.

Had he proposed yet?

Probably.

I imagined it had gone perfectly, and I imagined she’d said yes. He wasn’t the kind of man women said no to.

They’d get married, and after the appropriate amount of time, they’d have two point three kids and vacation up in the Hamptons. Eventually, Jal might even end up taking himself a mistress…like my father had.

That was, after all, how I’d come to be.

Oh, it was entirely possible my dad had loved my mother. I know my mom had loved him, and she'd told me that she loved him. It hadn’t mattered to her at that time that he was married, rich, white…from a whole other world.

She’d just known that she loved him, and she'd stayed even after he made it clear that she would never be more to him that what she already was.

A woman to warm his bed.

The cliché maid and nanny rolled into one.

I knew all about men like Jal Lindstrom. Flirtatious, manipulative, so convinced that I’d fall prey to his easy charm.

I could have too, if I hadn’t been looking out for that sort of thing my whole life.

Maybe it made me paranoid and cynical, but I’d seen how easily love could destroy a person. My mother had lost her sense of self for the longest time. Finding Tyson had been the first step to rediscovering herself, but sometimes, I still wasn’t sure she’d picked up all the pieces.

I sometimes wondered if it'd ever affected my father. If he'd simply moved on to someone else as soon as Mom made it clear she was done.

Coming to a stop at the railing where I’d been with Tao and TJ just yesterday, I swiped my gloved hand over the back of my brow and slowed to a walk. From the nearby bridge, I heard horns and engines, their sounds carrying easily in the cold, quiet air.

It made me feel that much more isolated.

It had been years since I’d seen him or my sisters. I had two of them, although it had taken me a while to really understand that those two pretty little white girls were my sisters. Not that they knew, of course. They always looked so perfect, like elegant little dolls, dressed in their clothes so much nicer than anything I had. Not that I hadn’t had nice clothes or nice toys, but there’s nice and there’s nice….

The kind of nice that only the very wealthy can afford.

I remembered seeing their presents one Christmas morning when they’d called the whole household in to the sitting room. It was an annual tradition – the household staff was given gifts, along with the family because they were part of the family. A nice idea…such bullshit.

While the girls sat there surrounded by their dolls and electronics and jewelry with authentic jewels, each member of the staff was given an envelope with some cash in it. I was given a sweater.

My father never looked at me that day.

Oh, he spent time with me when they weren’t around. But I was the pariah. If his real family was there, then I was just…nothing. He didn’t talk to me, rarely looked at me. It was likely I was something…other.

Not his daughter, just another one of his dirty little secrets. Like my mother.

That had been the way of it through my childhood. He’d spend some time with me, love on me and hug me, play with me and laugh with me – teach me things too, once he realized I loved to learn. Math and numbers had fascinated me. But if his real family was around, he didn’t even acknowledge me.

Mom met Tyson when I was seven, then they got married. He was my step-dad and sometimes I called him Dad, sometimes Tyson. I never said he wasn't my real dad because I hated that word, like it meant some people were only figments of the imagination. But I never called my biological father “Dad.” He'd never allowed it. After Mom and Tyson married, things had gotten even more tense, but Mom had stuck it out as long as she could. I hadn't seen my biological father since the day Mom and I walked out of the house and never looked back.

It was a rub against my nerves even now. Old wounds. They never healed well, but I usually didn’t brood over them quite like this. And I knew what had brought it on.

I'd always known that I didn't belong in that world, no matter how many times I had math lessons or got to listen to my father explain how his business worked. I was separate, different. I didn't fit.

I’d never cared about it really, though.

And it pissed me off that I was caring now.

All because some blue-eyed, sexy piece of work had smiled at me and made me wonder.

He was engaged. It didn’t even matter if I might have fit and, why would I want to anyway?

“I don’t,” I said under my breath.

I’d kissed that part of my life goodbye when I was sixteen, when Mom had finally quit the job that had bound me to them, and I was glad for it.

“So stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about him.”

Shoving back away from the railing, I turned to face the running path once more. The burn in my lungs was gone. About time to make it come back.

* * *

I snagged the paper off the front porch as I went inside. I was tired, my legs half-numb from the cold, my nose all the way numb. I wanted some coffee and a hot bath, but the hot bath would have to wait until I could actually feel my legs.

Caffeine first.

Inside the kitchen, coffee in hand, I dropped down at the kitchen table and flipped open the paper just as Mom came in. She smiled at me and asked if I was hungry.

Starving, I replied.

The coffee brought welcome warmth to my belly as I sipped it, and I wondered if this unending winter was ever going to end. March should start to show some sign of spring, shouldn’t it?

A shiver racked me, and I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, chafing them to warm up. Over by the refrigerator, Mom was moving around. It wouldn’t be long before I heard the sound of bacon sizzling.

Bacon. Eggs. Coffee. For a Sunday morning, it wouldn’t suck.

Then I flipped open the paper, and my eyes landed on a picture.

My heart stopped for a few seconds before ratcheting back into something that resembled a normal rhythm.

It was Jal, and he wasn’t alone.

Sitting on his lap was a woman with a sassy little flip of a haircut, a smile on her face that was decidedly smug.

The caption mentioned their names, along with an announcement about their recent engagement. Philadelphia’s golden son…engaged…

Yeah. He was golden, alright.

Really, though, I didn’t need the caption. I'd known he was getting engaged.

I just hadn’t realized to whom.

Paisley Hedges.

My older half-sister.