Omens (3 page)

He kissed my hair. “Speaking of speeches…”

I lifted my head. He adjusted his stance, lowering me to the ground.

“I need to ask you something.” He cleared his throat. “This isn’t quite how I planned it. I was going to take you to a fancy dinner and pop the question…”

“Uh-huh. While I’m flattered that the sex was so good it caused temporary amnesia, we’re already engaged.”

He smiled. “Yes, I know. This is a proposal of another sort. Equally terrifying in its own way. Neil Leacock came to see me today. My dad’s former campaign manager. He—
they
—the team and its supporters—would like me to consider running.”

A moment passed before I could find my voice. “For junior senator?”

“Yes, but not right away. They want to wait until I’m thirty-five. For now, they’d just like me to start heading in that direction. Grooming me.” He took my face in his hands. “I don’t want to hit you with this after the wedding, Liv. I know you might not want a life of endless speeches and endless dinners.”

A senator’s wife? I swore I could hear the trap snap shut on my leg. I leaned against James, hiding my reaction.

Just relax. Don’t say anything. You need time to think this through. Play along for now.

It took a moment, but I found a smile that would fool James. I’d minored in drama in my undergrad years. My instructors always said I was a natural. No big surprise there. Sometimes I felt as if I’d spent my life faking it.

I smiled up at him. “In other words, no more sex in the back hall?”

“Er, no … Actually, I was hoping that if I promised
more
sex in the back halls it might make the rest more tolerable.”

I put my arms around his neck. “If you’re willing to make such difficult concessions, then I can probably make some, too.”

“Because it
is
difficult.”

“I know, and I appreciate it.”

He laughed and kissed me.

W
e’d just made it back to the party when my cell phone beeped. My mother hates to text, but if the alternative is having me do something as crass as talk on my phone at a charity event, she’ll make an exception.

I need to speak to you, Olivia. Will you be coming home after the dinner?
Mum never lowers herself to text speak.

“What’s up?” James asked.

“Mum needs to talk to me about something.”

“Meaning you’re not staying at my place.”

“Sorry. You know how she gets.”

When my dad died, I’d been home from college and planning to move into my own apartment. But then my mother needed me at home. I’d expected that. I hadn’t expected the nonstop frantic calls to resolve every curve ball life threw at her. Last week, she’d called me home from James’s place at 2 a.m. because she’d “heard something.” It turned out to be a raccoon on the back deck. I would have been a lot more sympathetic if the housekeeper hadn’t been right downstairs, as she was every night I stayed with James.

We’d already arranged for the housekeeper to move in permanently after I got married. We’d also decided to hire a full-time chauffeur to double as a security guard. I still wasn’t sure it would be enough.

“Go on,” James said. “I’ll call a car to the back. I hear something’s going on around front.”

“A protest?”

He shook his head. “Just a couple of paparazzi. There must be a media personality here.”

He lifted his cell phone then stopped. “Are you okay with going out the back? It’s not the door you came in.”

I shot him a glare.

He grinned. “Sorry. I’m just checking, because I know it’s bad luck—”

“Once,” I said, lifting my finger. “It was one time, and you’re never going to let me forget it, despite the fact we just celebrated our engagement with a bottle of Cristal, and I could barely
find
the door.”

“And the time in Cozumel, when you insisted on turning our pillows around so we wouldn’t have nightmares?”

“Tequila.”

“Alcohol isn’t the cause. It just reveals your adorably superstitious self.”

I don’t know where my superstitions come from. A nanny, I suppose. It really does take alcohol—in copious quantities—for me to mention one. James thinks it’s adorable. The only thing I can do is to change the subject fast, which I did.

Twenty minutes later, I slipped into the car’s leather backseat, feeling faintly ill. James wanted to run for senator. I should have seen that coming. Soon after we’d started dating, I’d asked whether he had any plans to follow his dad into politics. He’d laughed it off but never really answered, and I hadn’t pursued it. I hadn’t dared. I’d been falling for James Morgan, and I didn’t want to hear anything that might interfere with that.

I could fake a lot of things. A politician’s wife, though? I might be able to pull it off for a month or two. Years? Maybe even a lifetime? Never. I’d grown up in these circles. I knew what came with the position. What would be expected of me. I could not do that. It was like masquerading as a paramedic and then suddenly being promoted to chief of surgery.

As the town car headed into the suburbs, I called James.

“I’m going back to school,” I said when he answered.

A long pause. “You’re going…?”

“Back to school. For my doctorate. In the fall if I can.”

“Okay.”

That’s all he said.
Okay
. My heart rate slowed.

“Where did this come from?” he asked.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I was going to tell you after I looked into it some more, but now with your news…” I took a deep breath. “I wanted to be upfront about my plans, too. I’d really like to go back to school. Get my PhD in English.”

“Okay.”

I leaned back against the seat, eyes closing in relief.

“There’s no reason you can’t, Liv. Like I said, it’ll be a few years before the campaign starts. I won’t need you full time until then.”

My eyes opened. “But I’m going back to school for a job. I want a career.”

“With an English doctorate?”

“
Yes,
with an
English
doctorate,” I snapped.

“Sorry,” he said. “Of course you could do something. Maybe you could write.”

“Write?”

“Mysteries. I know you love mysteries. You could be the next Arnold Conan Doyle.”

I resisted the urge to correct him.
Arthur
Conan Doyle had been the subject of my master’s thesis. James hadn’t read a novel since college, but when he’d discovered my area of study, he’d read two volumes of the Sherlock Holmes stories, just for me.

“Fiction writing isn’t really my thing,” I said.

“Don’t be modest, Liv. You’re a great writer.”

I’d meant that I had no interest in it as a career. I wanted to get out and do things, not tell stories about other people doing them. But at least he understood I needed a job. It was a start.

After we hung up, I relaxed into the seat again. I’d been overreacting. Even if he did run for senator, there was nothing to say he’d win. He wouldn’t even run for five years anyway. Lots of time for me to persuade him this wasn’t the path for us.

I was lost in my thoughts when the driver said, “Is this it, miss?”

I looked out the side window at the familiar gates. Manicured flowering shrubs softened the “keep out” message of the fence. My mother’s touch. Dad always said if you’re uncomfortable with the message a massive fence sends, then you damned well shouldn’t put one up.

“Yes, this is it.”

“Nice place.”

Our house was actually modest for the neighborhood. The driver was impressed, though, which meant I had to give him a generous tip in addition to the standard gratuity on James’s bill or he’d whine about the “cheap Mills & Jones brat.”

As the driver did his paperwork, I walked to the front door. The rich scent of lilacs floated past, and I took a moment to enjoy it, the smell prompting memories of evening garden parties and late-night swims.

I glanced up at the sky. A perfect May evening, warm and clear. Still time for a swim if I could resolve Mum’s problem fast enough. I might even get her into the pool if I promised to wear my suit.

I was still digging out my keys when our family lawyer flung open the door and practically dragged me inside, not an easy feat for a man who looks like Ichabod Crane, so pale and gaunt he breaks into a sweat climbing stairs.

“Howard?” I said as I escaped his grip. I sighed. “Let me guess. The board of directors wants Mum’s feedback on something, and she’s in a tizzy. How many times have we told them not to bother her?”

“It’s not that. This is … a personal matter, Olivia.”

My mother appeared in the study doorway.

“Olivia,” she said in her soft British accent. “I hope my message didn’t bring you home early.”

“No,” I lied. “James needed to leave, and I wouldn’t stay without him.”

Normally she’d have gently praised me for making the socially correct choice, which wasn’t always my default. But she only nodded absently. She looked exhausted. I walked over to give her a hug, but she headed for the front door, double-checking the lock.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Come into the sitting room.”

As I was following her down the hall, the doorbell rang. I glanced down the hall to see a tall, capped figure silhouetted by the porch light.

“The driver’s back,” I murmured. “What did I leave in the car this time?”

My mother sighed. “You really need to be more careful.”

“I know, I know.”

As I reached for the handle, Howard hurried over.

“Olivia, allow me—”

“Got it.”

I swung open the door to see, not the driver, but a middle-aged man in a fedora. Behind him was a woman with a camera.

“Eden,” the man said. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

I
lifted my hands to shield my face as the camera flashed.

“There’s no Eden here,” I said. “You’ve got the wrong house.”

“No, I don’t.” He lifted a recorder. “Tell me, Miss Larsen, how does it feel to be the long-lost daughter of America’s most notorious—”

Howard slammed the door and shot the bolt.

“What just…?” I began. “Did they say what I thought they said?”

Howard tugged the sidelight curtains shut. Before I could ask my mother if we had a neighbor named Eden, she said, “I need to talk to you, Olivia.”

“Okay,” I said as I let her lead me into the sitting room. “We’ll ignore the crazy folks at the door. What’s up?”

Howard stayed in the doorway. I sat on the love seat and patted the spot beside me, but she was already heading for “her” chair—a very pretty antique so hard it felt like sitting on a rock. She hated the love seat, which didn’t match anything in the room. But it was comfortable. Some of my earliest memories were of being curled up on it with Dad as he read to me.

“What’s up?” I repeated.

“There’s something I need to tell you. Something we probably should have told you years ago.”

“Okay…”

She paused a moment, then blurted, “You’re adopted.”

“I’m…?”

She nodded. Didn’t say the word again. Just nodded.

I stared at her. That wasn’t possible. I looked just like my parents. Everyone said so. I had my mother’s ash-blond hair and green eyes, and my dad’s height, wide mouth and strong jaw.

“Did you say I’m … adopted?”

I waited for her to stare at me in confusion. Maybe even laugh. Clearly that was not what she’d said.

Instead, she paused for at least five seconds and then nodded.

I thought of the reporter at the door. “So he didn’t get the wrong place. Someone found out I’m adopted. They went to the press. You wanted to warn me
before
someone showed up on our doorstep.”

She nodded again.

“And now they’re saying I’m the daughter of America’s most notorious … what? Actor? Rock star? Politician? Oh God, please tell me it isn’t a politician.”

She said nothing. As we sat there in silence, her words finally sank in. Forget whose child I was. I was someone else’s. Not hers. Not my dad’s.

“I’m sorry,” she said at last. “You shouldn’t have had to find out about it this way.”

“No, I shouldn’t.”

I looked over at her and the shock cleared, pain seeping in. Hard, angry pain. “You had no intention of telling me I was adopted until you were forced to.”

Howard stepped forward. “Olivia, your parents were unable to have children of their own. They decided to give a wonderful, loving home to a child in need.”

“I’m not questioning their motives,” I said. “It’s the part about not telling me for twenty-four years that I’m having trouble with.”

“Twenty-one, actually. You—” Howard stopped. His sallow cheeks flushed. Then he cleared his throat, and stepped back. “I’m sorry. This really isn’t my place.”

“No shit,” I muttered.

My mother didn’t tell me to watch my language. Didn’t even flinch.

“So I’m
not
twenty-four?” I said.

“You are,” Mum said. “It’s just that you weren’t an infant when we first got custody of you. You were a little over two and a half. I wanted a toddler. Everyone wants a baby and there are so many older children who need a home.”

And it was much easier to find an older child who looked like you. Shame plucked at the edges of my anger, telling me I was being unfair.

We sat in silence. I didn’t want silence. I wanted to rage and shout and throw everything within reach.

I wanted Dad. If he was here, I
could
rage and shout and throw things. He’d expect no less. But with Mum’s worried eyes fixed on me, there was no way I could give in to a temper tantrum. Sitting there quietly hurt, though. Physically hurt.

“Okay,” I said finally. “So I’m not your daughter—”

“Of course you are. Don’t be melodramatic, Olivia. I only wanted to keep it a secret because I feared how others would treat you. When you live in a world of privilege, everyone wants to believe you don’t deserve it. I had a younger cousin who was adopted and people always behaved as though she didn’t really belong. I made your father swear that wouldn’t happen to you.”

“All right.” I took a deep, ragged breath that seared my lungs. “So now the word is out, and the press is making a big deal out of it. Must be a slow news day. We’re going to have to counter with a statement. I take it you know who my parents are?”