Chapter 2 - I tried to breathe.
I couldn’t.
The first sob tore out of me before I could swallow it.
Then another.
Pregnant.
Betrayed.
Homeless.
Eleven years of my life ended with my belongings packed by someone else.
I covered my face.
A quiet mechanical hum made me look up.
The SUV’s rear window was descending.
My heart jumped.
An older man leaned toward the opening.
He was somewhere in his sixties, with silver at his temples, wire-rimmed glasses, and the composed expression of someone accustomed to difficult conversations.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“No.”
My voice broke.
His gaze moved briefly toward my suitcase.
“Is someone coming for you?”
I almost laughed.
“No.”
He studied me, then nodded.
“There’s a hotel about three miles from here.”
His tone remained careful.
“I can have my driver take you there, or I can call someone for you.”
I hesitated.
“Whichever makes you more comfortable,” he added.
That sentence mattered.
He wasn’t telling me to get into the SUV.
He wasn’t playing hero.
He was giving me distance.
Choice.
Something I hadn’t been given all day.
“I can call a car.”
I reached for my phone.
The screen remained black.
My battery had died again.
I closed my eyes.
Perfect.
The man opened the vehicle door.
I tensed.
He noticed.
Instead of approaching, he stayed beside the SUV.
“My name is Thomas Weller.”
He removed a business card from his pocket and placed it on the hood several feet away.
“You can verify who I am before making any decision.”
I stepped forward cautiously and picked it up.
THOMAS WELLER.
WELLER & HART, ATTORNEYS AT LAW.
I frowned at the name.
“Hart?”
Thomas noticed.
“No relation to anyone you may know.”
A strange coincidence on the worst day of my life.
“You’re a lawyer?”
“For my sins.”
A weak laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
Thomas smiled.
Then his gaze fell toward my suitcase.
There was a leather luggage tag hanging near the handle.
MADELINE PIERCE-HART.
His expression changed.
Not dramatically.
But I saw it.
“Madeline?”
My stomach tightened.
“How do you know my name?”
He pointed toward the tag.
Then his eyes sharpened.
“Is Pierce your maiden name?”
“Yes.”
“Was your mother Rebecca Pierce?”
Everything inside me froze.
My mother had been dead almost eight years.
Few people in this city had known her.
“Who are you?”
“I really am Thomas Weller.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
He removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Then he looked at me with an expression I couldn’t understand.
“I’ve been trying to locate you for almost four months.”
A chill passed through me.
“Why?”
Thomas glanced toward the empty road.
When he looked back, his voice had become very quiet.
“Because your grandmother asked me to.”
I forgot how to breathe.
“My grandparents are dead.”
Thomas didn’t answer immediately.
That was when I knew my mother had lied to me about more than I had ever imagined.
“No,” he said.
“Your grandmother is alive.”
I stared at him.
Then he said her name.
“Eleanor Whitmore Pierce.”
The name meant nothing to me.
But somehow, hearing it still felt like a door opening in a house I had never known existed.
Thomas watched my face carefully.
“She has been looking for you, Madeline.”
My hand moved toward my stomach again.
That morning, I had thought the impossible thing happening to me was a pregnancy.
By nightfall, I understood I had been wrong.
I did not get into Thomas Weller’s SUV until I had borrowed his phone, searched his law firm, called the number listed on the website, and heard a receptionist confirm that Thomas Weller was a founding partner.
Thomas seemed almost amused by my suspicion.
“Your mother raised you well.”
At the mention of her, the amusement disappeared from my face.
“My mother told me her parents were dead.”
His expression became heavier.
“I suspected she might have.”
The SUV’s interior smelled faintly of leather and cedar.
I sat near the door while Thomas took the opposite seat.
His driver pulled onto the road.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“The hotel you mentioned.”
“You said my grandmother asked you to find me.”
“She did.”
“Why?”
Thomas folded his hands.
“Before I answer that, I should tell you something.”
I waited.
“I represented your grandfather for nearly thirty years.”
“My grandfather?”
“Richard Pierce.”
Again, the name gave me nothing.
“He died four months ago.”
I stared at Thomas.
“And my grandmother?”
“Eleanor is eighty-two.”
“Why have I never heard of either of them?”
Thomas was silent long enough that I knew the answer would hurt.
“Because your mother left.”
I looked out the window.
Streetlights moved across the glass.
“She told me they were dead.”
“I can’t explain every decision Rebecca made.”
“You knew her?”
“Yes.”
“How well?”
“I watched her grow up.”
That hurt in a completely different way.
This stranger had memories of my mother that I didn’t.
“What happened?”
Thomas exhaled.
“Your grandparents were wealthy.”
I looked at him.
“How wealthy?”
“That isn’t the most important part.”
“That usually means very.”
His mouth twitched.
“Yes.”
I leaned back.
Of course.
My life had apparently decided subtlety was unnecessary.
Thomas continued.
“Your grandfather built Pierce Industrial Systems with his brother in the nineteen-seventies.”
I had heard of Pierce Industrial.
Everyone had.
They manufactured specialized equipment used in hospitals, laboratories, and large commercial facilities.
Their name was on a downtown tower.
I turned slowly toward Thomas.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“My mother grew up in that family?”
“She was their only daughter.”
I laughed because the alternative was screaming.
“My mother clipped grocery coupons.”
Thomas said nothing.
“She took extra bookkeeping work during tax season.”
“I know.”
“She drove a twelve-year-old Honda until the transmission died.”
“I know.”
My voice sharpened.
“Then explain it.”
Thomas looked toward the window.
“Rebecca and your father fell in love when they were very young.”
I knew that part.
Daniel Pierce had been twenty-three when he married my mother.
I had always assumed Pierce was his surname.
It wasn’t.
My father had been Daniel Mercer.
My mother had kept her maiden name professionally and later gave it to me as my middle name before I began using it again after college.
Thomas explained the rest carefully.
My grandfather Richard had wanted Rebecca to join the family business.
She wanted to teach.
He wanted her to marry someone he considered suitable.
She chose my father.
Words were exchanged.
Cruel ones.
Rebecca left.
My grandfather assumed she would return.
She didn’t.
After my father died, Eleanor tried to contact her.
My mother refused.
Richard tried too.
She refused again.
“Why?”
Thomas’s face tightened.
“Pride.”
“Whose?”
“All of theirs.”
That answer sounded painfully possible.
“My grandparents knew about me?”
“Yes.”
I felt something crack inside my chest.
“They knew I existed.”
“Yes.”
“And they never came?”
“Your mother made it clear that she did not want them in your life.”
“They could have tried.”
“They did.”
“How?”
“Letters.”
I stared at him.
“Dozens of them.”
My throat tightened.
“I never saw any.”
“I know.”
He reached into a leather briefcase and removed a thick envelope.
On the front was my name.
Not Madeline Hart.
Madeline Pierce.
The handwriting was elegant and old-fashioned.
Thomas did not hand it to me immediately.
“This is from Eleanor.”
I looked at the envelope.
“When?”
“Last month.”
“She wrote to me before she knew where I was?”
“Yes.”
My fingers trembled when I took it.
I didn’t open it.
Not yet.
“What changed four months ago?”
“Your grandfather died.”
“And suddenly she wanted me?”
Thomas shook his head.
“She has wanted you for years.”
“Then why wait?”
“Because Richard believed Rebecca’s wishes should be respected.”
A bitter laugh escaped me.
“So respecting my mother meant pretending I didn’t exist?”
Thomas accepted the blow without flinching.
“Eleanor stopped agreeing with him a long time ago.”
“Convenient.”
“Yes.”
His honesty disarmed me more than an excuse would have.
“After your grandfather’s funeral, she instructed me to find you.”
“Why you?”
“I am her attorney.”
“And my grandfather’s?”
“I was.”
I looked down at the unopened letter.
“Does this have something to do with his will?”
Thomas paused.
“Yes.”
There it was.
The part that made everything feel unreal.
“How much money?”
“I would prefer Eleanor explain.”
“I would prefer someone stop deciding what I’m allowed to know.”
Thomas nodded once.
“Fair.”
He reached into his briefcase again and removed a folder.
“Your grandfather established a family trust decades ago.”
I almost rolled my eyes.
Of course there was a trust.
“Rebecca remained a beneficiary even after she left.”
“My mother never took money from them.”
“No.”
“Then what happened to her share?”
“It accumulated.”
My stomach tightened.
“For how long?”
“More than thirty years.”
May you like
I stared at him.
Thomas continued carefully.
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