It’s a deep green silk that flows like water when I move. It cost more than I spent on clothes in five years living in Ireland, and I hate how good it feels to wear something this elegant again.
I’m standing in front of the mirror in my bedroom at our estate, trying to recognize the woman staring back at me. Hair styled in soft waves. Makeup done professionally by someone Julian hired. Jewelry that once belonged to my mother draped around my neck and wrists.
I look like Aurelia Vance. Not the runaway who dyed her hair black and hid for six years in Barbados and then Ireland. Just Aurelia. Daughter of the Vance family. Sister to Julian Vance, the new head of operations.
The woman I was before the arranged marriage changed everything.
Julian made it clear two weeks ago, when the invitation arrived, that I needed to attend tonight’s gala. It’s my first major public appearance since returning home. The family needs toshow unity under his leadership, prove we’re moving in a new direction. Legitimate business, clean operations, and distance from the violence that defined Victor’s reign.
And I’m part of that image. The prodigal daughter who came home. Living proof that Julian keeps his family close and values loyalty.
It’s all performance, sort of like a theater designed to convince New York’s elite that the Vances are respectable now. But I agreed because Julian brought me home and because he’s keeping my sons safe.
Downstairs, I can hear the twins laughing. The sound pulls me away from the mirror and toward the door. I walk down the hall in bare feet, and stop at the top of the staircase.
Finn and Liam are in the main sitting room with Nadia. She’s on the floor with them, her dress bunched carelessly around her knees, while Finn lies flat on his stomach, pushing a small car across the rug, and Liam crouches nearby, arranging cushions into something that looks vaguely intentional.
“It has to go this way,” Liam says, dragging one cushion into place. “That’s the road.”
“No,” Finn says without looking up. “This is the road.” He drives the car straight over Liam’s cushion.
“You can’t do that,” Liam protests. “You’ll crash.”
“Iwantto crash.”
Nadia makes a thoughtful sound and nudges one of the cushions closer. “What if that’s the mountain,” she says, “and this part is the road around it?”
Finn considers this, then immediately launches the car into the cushion anyway. “See,” he announces. “Crash.”
Liam throws his hands up. “You ruined it.”
“You didn’t say no crashing,” Finn argues.
Nadia laughs, shaking her head. “I definitely should have said no crashing.” She reaches for the car and holds it just out of Finn’s reach. “Again,” she says, “but this time we finish the road first.”
I watch them from the stairs, tears threatening to fill my eyes.
Nadia has been incredible since we arrived. Patient with the boys, kind to me, never once making me feel like an imposition. She plays with Finn and Liam like they’re her own children, reads them stories at bedtime, and listens to their endless questions about New York with genuine interest.
I know the grief her miscarriages have caused in her relationship with my brother. The way it nearly destroyed their marriage. I see it sometimes in the way Nadia looks at the twins. Love mixed with longing, and joy mixed with pain. She wants children desperately, and here I am with two healthy boys I never planned for.
The universe has a cruel sense of humor.
“Mam!” Finn spots me on the stairs and runs over, Liam following at a slower pace. “You look pretty!”
“Thank you, baby.”
“Where are you going?” Liam asks, studying my dress with the same serious expression he uses for everything.
“I have to go to a party with Uncle Julian.”
“Can we come?”
“Not this time. It’s just for grown-ups.”
Finn’s face falls. “That’s boring.”
“Very boring,” I agree. “But you get to stay here with Nadia, and she promised to let you have ice cream for dessert.”
