What a Girl Wants (12 page)

Her response came ten minutes later:
Did you inform me we had plans earlier?

He frowned. Since when did he have to inform her? He tapped back a text.
No. I thought we’d go to dinner.

He drummed his fingers on the desk, waiting for her reply. Just when he thought she wasn’t going to say anything, he got a text back.

I have plans already. Maybe another night.

“Another night?” he roared. He stormed up the stairs, back to their bathroom and slammed the door open.

She wasn’t there.

There was a ring of bubbles clinging to the rim of the tub and the scent of something fruity in the air. Her towel was hung on its usual hook, obviously used.

He turned. On the counter, the flowers he’d brought still sat, starting to go limp in the bathroom’s warmth.

He heard the quiet roar of her Maserati. He got to the window just in time to see her drive away.

Something in his chest panged. He put a hand over his heart, massaging it, wondering if he was having the heart attack his doctor had prescribed if he didn’t slow down.

He picked up the flowers and looked at them. They’d looked like hope earlier. Now they just looked sad.

He tossed them into the trash and went downstairs to his office to wait for her to come back, to try again.

But she didn’t—not until it was late. When she crawled into bed, he pretended he was asleep.

‡

A
riana pulled on her favorite comfortable outfit: the jeans that were as soft as pajamas, her favorite tank top that said
Create your own sunshine
, and an old cashmere sweater she’d found in a vintage store years ago. She needed comfort today: She had an appointment to see Rick Clancy.

At his insistence. He wanted to discuss the photo.

In the end, she’d had to make the appointment. She had to know what he had to say, particularly since he’d been so against her pursuing finding out who the woman was.

As if sensing her agitation, her mom called minutes before she headed to his office. “Are you busy today, sweetheart?”

“A little bit.” She bit her lip, feeling guilty. “Why?”

“I just wanted to chat. The art gallery hung one of my paintings last minute for the opening of their show last night.”

“That’s super, Mom,” she said, trying to sound appropriately enthusiastic despite the fact that her mind was on the woman in the picture.

“It was unexpected and exciting,” her mom continued. “I need to take you by to show you.”

“What did Dad think?” She got down on her knees. Where were her shoes?

There they were. She reached under the bed.

“He wasn’t able to go,” her mom said after a long pause.

Ariana paused, stretched on the floor. Something in her mom’s voice raised an alarm. “Is everything okay, Mom?”

“Of course.”

“Are you sure?” She wasn’t sure she believed it. “Lately whenever I talk about Dad, you get quiet.”

“We’ve been married thirty-five years, Ariana. There’s not much to talk about.”

She pictured being with Sebastian for that long and she couldn’t imagine feeling any less excited to hear his voice after all that time. Something more was going on with her parents, and it worried her.

Her calendar reminder pinged, urging her to go to Rick’s.

She winced. “Mom, I have an appointment. Can we talk later?”

“Of course, sweetheart. Call me when you’re free.”

Frowning, Ariana hung up. Her alarm pinged again, and she promised herself she’d talk to her mom to figure out what was happening.

As soon as she talked to Rick.

She went downstairs, out her building, and to his office above George’s garage.

“When I didn’t hear from you right away, I thought maybe you’d decided to give up the search,” Rick Clancy said as he opened the door for Ariana.

She hesitated in the doorway. “It’s just been a busy week.”

“Come in. Have a seat.” He waved to the visitor’s chair as he took his own. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about this.”

After her conversation with Esme, she’d had doubts. But this had to be a sign, right?

The look on Rick’s face made her think twice about that, though. “Should I change my mind?”

“It’s your call.” He tapped his pen on the desk. “I just want to make sure this is an avenue you want to pursue before we head down it.”

She hunched her shoulders against the trepidation. “I kind of have to after you put it that way, don’t I?”

“You don’t,” he said, gazing at her steadily. “You can just walk out of here and forget about all this. Most people regret their decision once I give them the information they requested. They prefer being blissfully ignorant in the end.”

“No, I want the information.” She didn’t even sound certain to her own ears.

“Okay.” Unlocking a drawer, he reached inside and pulled out a manila envelope. He set it right in the center of his desk and opened it, flipping through the pages. He took out a page and pushed it across the desk to her. “Do you recognize this woman?”

“That’s Hadley James,” she said, looking at the printed picture in front of her. She didn’t watch the woman’s morning show, but she knew it was popular.

Rick nodded. “Do you have your picture with you?”

Nodding, she pulled it out of her pocket. It’d become a little ragged around the edges, but the faces were still unmarked.

“Look at them together,” he instructed.

She set the photo next to the printed picture and studied the women. Hadley James was much more defined than the woman holding her. She also looked more focused and less defeated. “What am I looking for?”

Rick leaned over the desk and pointed with his finger. “Imagine Hadley with a bigger nose, a face fuller, and thinner lips. Add dark hair . . .”

Ariana stared at the photo of the woman and gasped. “Are you saying this is Hadley James holding me?”

He nodded. “I thought I recognized her in the photo. I couldn’t resist checking out the hunch, to see if I was right.”

“Apparently you were,” she murmured.

He nodded. “Hadley James is her stage name. She used to be Harriet Jones. She changed her name after her first gig as a news anchor.”

“So my parents knew her.”

“Actually, they knew her really well.” Rick made a face. “This is the point of no return, Ariana. You know who she is now, and we can stop here.”

“There’s more?” She sat back, confused.

“Yeah.”

“What’s the worst it could be?” she asked rhetorically.

Rick sighed and reopened the folder. “It was like a thread unraveling. I pulled at it, and the hole kept getting bigger. My wife says it’s a gift as well as my greatest flaw.”

“I have no idea what you’re saying.” Ariana glanced at the paper he set in front of her and blinked in surprise. “This is a birth certificate.”

“Read it,” Rick commanded.

Picking it up, she scanned it. The document was for a baby girl named Jane Jones. Edward Warren was typed on the father line. On the mother line there was Harriet Jones.

Her stomach sank with dread. She leveled a look at Rick. “Did my father and Hadley James have a child together?”

“Yes. You,” he said, sliding another piece of paper toward her.

Frowning, confused, she looked at what appeared to be adoption papers. She felt the blood drain from her face as she read the name change from Jane Jones to Ariana Warren, as well as Edward and Lillian Warren as her legal guardians. She opened her mouth but no words came out. She swallowed, and tried again—twice—before she could speak. “Where did you get this?”

“It’s easy getting copies of official papers like this.” He looked at her with a regretful expression. “I take it you didn’t know you were adopted.”

“No,” she croaked. She cleared her throat. “Are you sure this is right? My parents wouldn’t hide something like this from me. It makes no sense.”

“Why don’t you talk to them?” Rick gathered up all the evidence from his file, put it neatly inside, and handed it to her. “Take this with you. I have another copy for safekeeping.”

She stared at the file, not wanting to touch it. In the end, she took it so she and her parents could have a good laugh about it, because it had to be a mistake.

Nodding at Rick, she started to walk out of his office, feeling like a zombie.

Adopted.
Her
.

And they didn’t tell her.

She stopped on the steps, staring at the folder. All those years when she felt different, when she didn’t fit in with the rest of the family—because she had a different mother.

No wonder. She was just different.

Relief shot though her, followed closely by anger. They could have told her there was a reason that she was the odd man out. Instead they’d let her believe she was the black sheep—the loser black sheep.

Stomping down the rest of the steps, she called Belle on the way to her studio. “Come over.”

“I’m right in the middle of—”

“Right now, Belle,” she said louder.

Belle stilled. “You never yell.”

Yeah, it surprised her a little, too, kind of the same way finding out that she was adopted had. “I need you to come over.”

“What happened? Are you okay?”

“Do I sound okay?” she exclaimed as she let herself into her flat. She threw the folder on the table. “Damn it, just come over.”

“I’m on my way.”

When Belle rushed in, Ariana was pacing in front of her futon, keeping an eye on the folder like it might attack.

It already had though. She laughed, hearing the hysterical edge to her voice.

“What happened?” Belle asked, dropping her purse on the floor and rushing to take her arm. “You’re super pale. Did you hurt yourself?”

Without a word, she pointed to the evidence on the table.

“What? The manila folder?” Belle picked it up. “Is it taxes or something?”

“Or something,” she said in a flat voice, dropping on the edge of the futon. She watched Belle open the folder and quickly flip through the pages. She could tell when Annabelle got to the pertinent information by the way she gasped.

Belle looked up. “Is this real?”

“I’d never have thought so, but it looks that way, right?” She gripped the futon frame. “You didn’t know, did you?”

Belle recoiled with horror. “Of course not. How can you even ask?”

“I wouldn’t have thought any of this could be true.” She waved at the folder.

“Come on.” Belle gathered up the folder and tucked it under her arm.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re going to see the folks.”

“No.” Ariana crossed her arms and shook her head. She wasn’t ready to face them—to face Lillian—yet.

“You can’t just sit on something like this. You have to talk to them.” Belle pushed her from behind. “They’ll be able to clear this up. This can’t be real.”

“Why couldn’t it?” She dug her heels in. “Think about it, Belle. It explains everything.”

“Like what?”

“Like why I’m so unlike the rest of you.”

“What are you talking about?” Belle asked, hands on her hips.

“You know I’ve never fit in.”

Her sister rolled her eyes. “Ariana, no one ever feels like they fit in.”

She shook her head. “Everyone in our family always knows what they want, and then they get it. It took me years to figure out what I wanted, and I’m still struggling with it.”

“You’re overreacting. Let’s just go talk to Mom and Dad to clear this up.”

“My mom is Hadley James, apparently.” It hit her in the heart that Lillian wasn’t her mother. She wilted into herself. What an awful realization.

“That’s bullshit,” Belle said with her usual candor. “It doesn’t matter whose cootchie you shot out from, Mom is your mom. Period.”

Before she could say anything, Belle grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go. I’m driving.”

Fortunately, both her parents were home—their cars were in the driveway. She and Belle went to the door and rang the bell.

Her mother opened it a moment later. “Girls,” she said, a look of cautious surprise on her face as she looked back and forth between them. “This is a surprise.”

“Is Dad around?” Belle walked in, dragging her behind. “We need to talk.”

“I think he’s in his office.” Lillian glanced at Ariana.

She ducked her head, unable to meet Lillian’s eyes.

Belle tugged at her. “Let’s go talk to Dad and get this all cleared up.”

“What cleared up?” Lillian asked.

She looked at her mom and felt the anger dissolve into sorrow. How could the person she loved most in the world have deceived her all these years? She headed down the hall, sniffing back the sudden tears that sprang into her eyes.

Her sister waited for her at the door of their dad’s study. Taking a deep breath, Ariana opened it without knocking. She couldn’t bother with formalities—she needed to straighten this out.

“Ariana.” Her dad stood from his desk, a puzzled expression on his face. “What’s going on?”

“You tell me.” She took out the birth certificate and adoption papers.

Belle came and wound her arm around Ariana’s waist. Lillian joined their father to look at the papers. The way she paled and gasped killed any faint hope that this was all a mistake.