“Technically sixty-one percent.”
I glared at him.
He smiled.
Then he handed me champagne.
I leaned against the railing.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Finally I said, “We never had our first dance.”
Daniel put down his glass.
“What?”
“Our first dance.”
He looked through the windows.
The ballroom was nearly empty.
No orchestra.
No guests.
No photographers.
No mother.
No spectacle.
“Sounds perfect,” he said.
He held out his hand.
I laughed.
“There isn’t any music.”
Daniel took my phone.
He chose the song we’d originally planned.
Then placed the phone on the stone railing.
Soft music floated into the night.
He wrapped one arm around my waist.
I rested my head against his shoulder.
And under the stars, beside the dark lake, wearing the simple silk dress my mother had tried so desperately to erase,
I danced with my husband.
No audience.
No cameras.
No performance.
Just us.
Halfway through the song, the terrace doors opened.
Lila stood there.
Her makeup was gone.
Her eyes were swollen.
Nathan waited several feet behind her.
“Can I interrupt?”
I looked at Daniel.
He kissed my forehead.
“She can have thirty seconds.”
Lila almost smiled.
Then she came toward me.
For several moments we simply stood facing each other.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
Her voice cracked.
“For choosing her.
For helping her.
For believing her when she told me you hated me.”
That stunned me.
“What?”
Lila looked down.
“She told me you were trying to take the company because you wanted me cut out.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Mother had controlled both of us with different lies.
She told me Lila was shallow.
She told Lila I was jealous.
She made each daughter believe the other was the threat.
Because divided daughters were easier to control.
Lila looked at my dress.
“Grandmother would have loved it.”
I smiled through tears.
“She would’ve complained about the hem.”
Lila laughed.
A real laugh.
The sound broke something open inside me.
I held out my hand.
She took it.
Then I pulled my little sister into my arms.
For a moment, we were children again.
No company.
No inheritance.
No secrets.
Just two girls holding each other while a storm passed overhead.
“I don’t care who your biological father was,” I whispered.
She clung tighter.
“Dad was your dad.”
“I know.”
“And you’re my sister.”
“I know.”
“But if you ever steal one of my dresses again, I’ll kill you.”
She laughed against my shoulder.
“Fair.”
Six months later, my mother was formally charged with fraud, conspiracy, and several financial crimes.
The investigation into my father’s death continued much longer.
Prosecutors eventually alleged that Mother had ordered the sabotage intended to frighten him into abandoning the divorce.
She insisted she never intended his death.
Maybe that was true.
Maybe it wasn’t.
I stopped needing to know what lived inside her heart.
For most of my life, I had measured myself against her approval.
Then against her anger.
Then against her lies.
Eventually I understood something my grandmother had been trying to teach me from the beginning.
