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CHAPTER ONE
HERLIFE—HERHISTORY—had been erased.
Flora Bick stared at the document in her hands. One hundred and twenty-six pages of redacted information. Thick black line after thick black line.
She’d known the risks—the fall-out. The counsellor had prepared her before this, her first visit into the big smoke without her parents. London, a city that had always felt so far away from her life in Devon. But what she hadn’t expected was the pain in her chest, nor the tightening of her gut into a clenched fist.
She hadn’t expected the...grief.
Itwasgrief, wasn’t it? Something had crashed into her chest, leaving a vast crater. But it wasn’t empty. It was full of lots of things she couldn’t place—couldn’t catch. It was a tightness, a tingle, a breathlessness.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Flora flipped to the first page of her adoption file with trembling fingers.
It was a chronological account of her life before the farm. Before two strangers had claimed her as their own. As their daughter. But she’d been someone else’s daughter, hadn’t she? It had taken a broken ankle for her to find that out. To learn that she and her parents were not biologically related.
And it hurt.
The lies.
Twenty-one years of lies!
Her instinct was to run. Run hard and run fast. But where would she go? She’d chosen this hotel. Ignored the reservation for the more budget-friendly hotel her parents had booked for her, close to the train station, and walked into this hotel with its golden doors and nodding doormen dressed in white hats and gloves, offering to carry her tatty backpack for her.
Because just for today—for tonight—she wanted to experience a world that was unlike her own. A life she might have had. Who knew?
She hadn’t known.
Not until she’d opened this folder.
And she’d wanted to open it in a room like this.
The ceilings were high, with sweeping patterns leading to a chandelier of dangling diamond lights. The dark oak bed almost spanned the width of the room, with layers upon layers of the softest blankets. And when she’d climbed onto it the mattress hadn’t given at her weight. It had cushioned her body in a firm but gentle hug. Caressed her skin with the softest touch. And she’d let her head fall against the mountain of pillows and stared at the view.
Her eyes shot now to the floor-to-ceiling windows. She’d pulled back the heavy blue curtains with their intricate gold leaf pattern when she’d arrived, pushed open the French doors which led to nowhere but an iron railing and the view.
The skyline of London—the big city—the home of her birth, of her beginning. The place where she’d discovered the truth about herself when she’d collected her adoption file from the local authority.
She’d had to make a special request for it not to come through the post, because if it had she might never have received it. She didn’t doubt for a second that her parents would have intercepted it first.
She’d pushed harder than she’d ever pushed for anything. For her parents to loosen the reins. To trust her to collect her file unaccompanied. To be in this big city with its bright lights and buildings taller than the clouds. So she could be away from the farm, away from them, away from expectation.
She hadn’t wanted the people who’d raised her to sugar-coat the impact. All her life they’d been sprinkling sugar over sour apples. Peeling off the tart skin. Removing the core. Presenting perfectly bite-sized pieces for her to consume. Just the way they’d presented life to her. In perfect chunks. Removing the bruises. Sweetening the distasteful...
It made sense now. The over-protectiveness. The never letting her fall from the straight and narrow, never allowing her to make her own choices. They’d never let her make her own choices because she was missing vital information, wasn’t she?
The strong pain medication she’d required for her badly broken ankle was something that she should be careful with because of the risks. Risks that may be compounded because of her history. Because of her genes. Her possible addictive personality. Her compulsions...
Like buying the dress.
She hadn’t been able to resist, had she? Not the dress—not the hotel.
She looked at her bare arms, at her shoulders encased in tight-fitting emerald-green. She’d never worn a fancy frock before. Never had the opportunity. But she’d bought this. Wanted to have it.Neededto have it. Whipped it off the charity shop hanger and claimed it as hers.
Because addiction ran in her blood, didn’t it? Her mother’s blood.
She’d never known her mother. She never would. The file was clear on one thing: her biological mother was dead. The way of life she’d chosen above her own flesh and blood had taken her to an early grave.
What else ran in Flora’s blood? A sickness like her mother’s? How would she ever know when her life was...redacted?
