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Ivy nodded quietly. Understanding, without judgment. After a long pause, she said, “Show me the shoes.”
Hope gave her a sidelong glance, then pulled the bag from under the coffee table. She took out the box and lifted the lid. With a gasp, Ivy raised one stiletto as if it were the Holy Grail. The shoe was delicate with a four-inch heel, slim ankle strap, and an ultra-feminine bow looped along the side, all in a classic sleek black. Ivy drew her fingertip reverently along the pretty bow.
For a long moment, they were silent, sipping wine and admiring the shoes.
“I’ve got rent covered this month,” Ivy finally said.
“No. No way,” Hope declared vehemently. “God, I don’t want to be that person, Ivy. The pathetic rich girl. The lost cause who needs immediate bailing out when she tries to make it on her own.”
Frustrated, Hope took another swig of wine and rose to pace the room. “I’ve been here a month, and I’m already failing!” She thrust her glass into the air for emphasis. “I don’t want to live on your charity forever. I want to find a job on my own, pay my own way. To prove that I can. To show everyone that I have the brains and guts to make it in this world without having to hide behind my daddy every time the going gets tough. I have a business degree for chrissake. No matter how much I off-roaded to get there, I got there on my own, didn’t I? And I graduated with honors, too. Honors!” This time when she thrust out the glass, wine sloshed up to the rim and almost over. To prevent spilling, she took another deep sip.
“At this point I think I just need to take anything. I’ll serve coffee if I have to.” Finishing her glass, she sank back into the couch. “I just can’t go back and take that cushy office next to Joel’s on the top floor of my dad’s building knowing that the only reason I’m there is because my dad feels guilty and saved a spot for me.”
Hope dropped her head in her hands. “I’m not one of them, and I’m tired of everyone pretending I am. I want to find out who I am and get ahead on my own.”
And wasn’t that exactly how she ended up here in Portland? Determined to forge her own path, to find out who the real Hope was—away from the facade of the Morgan family pedigree.
After being served the biggest lie of her life, all she’d wanted was the space and time to figure out who she really was.
Because she knew who she wasn’t—a real Morgan. At least not a to-the-blood one she thought she’d been her whole life. Every time she reminded herself of that, which was often, a familiar hit of grief struck her gut.
Theoretically, she found out on the evening of her sweet sixteen birthday party. Her cousin, Beth, had been jealous that the much-coveted high school quarterback, Luke Bradley, was paying more attention to Hope than to her. Beth had screeched and flung cruel words at Hope in front of everyone at the party, doing her best to humiliate her, ending it all with the words Hope would never forget.
“I don’t know why he likes you, anyway. You’re not even a real Morgan.”
Hope hadn’t understood.
And Beth, seeing Hope’s genuine confusion, had told her the cold truth with twisted delight. “You’re adopted, Hope. You’re not one of us.”Then, with gleaming wide eyes that mocked innocence, Beth had said, “Oh my God, you didn’t know. That’s so cute.”
It was like a scene right out ofMean Girls. Except it hadn’t been a teen movie, it’d been Hope’s life. And it hadn’t been a mean girl from school, it’d been her cousin, her flesh and blood—or so she had thought up until that moment.
It had only taken one sentence, and life as Hope knew it had changed course.
She hadn’t wanted to believe Beth, but there was something about the cruel words that had sunken in and taken root. By the time Joel had intervened, having heard the shouting, shock had immobilized Hope, stunning her speechless. Joel had calmed everyone down, as he was always able to do, and sent Beth home, but for Hope, the night had been ruined.
Later, while she’d been sobbing into her pillow in her bedroom, Joel had come in. He sat on the side of her bed and stroked a hand down her hair. “It’s not true,” he reassured her. “You’re a Morgan through and through, Hope. Don’t listen to her. She’s always been jealous.”
With Joel’s reassuring presence and steadfast reasoning, Hope had finally accepted his logic. There was no way it could be true. If it were, her big brother would definitely know. Joel knew everything, and he wouldn’t lie to her. He’d never lie to her.
And so, she’d convinced herself that her parents would never keep such a big secret from her either, and tried to brush it off. But looking back, she realized that the damage had already been done. Whether it was subconscious or not, she spent years thereafter internally tallying every difference and similarity between her and the rest of her family. From the opposing shade of their eye colors to the slight differences in their personalities. A seed of doubt had been planted, and she hadn’t been able to stop it from growing.
Without realizing it, or even intending it, a void between her and her parents had started to grow. When she turned eighteen, she’d left home for college, hoping that the physical distance would close some of the emotional distance her doubts had created. Absence made the heart grow fonder, and all that.
Besides, once she started questioning her identity, the desire to figure out who she really was, independent of her family, had become all-consuming. For a blip in time, she wanted to be out from under the Morgan umbrella, even if it meant getting wet.
Well, she had gotten wet alright. No, she’d gotten drenched, nearly destroyed by the storm that she’d been caught up in. And four years later, before the end of her senior year, she’d been forced to return home under the weight of scandal and accusations she couldn’t shake off, not even with the power of her family name behind her.
When she’d arrived home, stunned and traumatized, the comfort and familiarity of her family had been the balm she needed. She’d finished her degree at a local college and fallen into a comfortable rhythm where she could pretend her past hadn’t happened. After everything that had transpired while she was away at college, it had been easy to let go of the niggling doubt over her identity and cocoon herself in the safe bubble of being a Morgan.
But soon enough, that nagging doubt was back. Maybe it was working at her father’s company alongside Joel, who was competent and efficient and so damn natural at all things Morgan Construction that it made her feel more acutely out of place than ever before. Or maybe it was just time passing and the tally she’d subconsciously kept in her mind growing longer on the “not a Morgan” side.
Until, finally, last Christmas, she gifted her parents one of those popular do-it-yourself DNA kits. Was it underhanded? Maybe. Could she have confronted her parents honestly about what her cousin had said way back in high school? Probably. But she hadn’t. She’d done this. And the truth had finally spilled out. Everything Beth had said, everything Hope had dreaded, her most secret nightmare, was true. She was adopted, and her parents had hidden it from her. Her entire life.
Walter and Audrey Morgan had made excuses for keeping the truth from her. She was a daughter to them, they’d said, as real as any biological child could be. They’d meant to tell her, but as time passed, so did the opportunities. Blah, blah, blah. She hadn’t wanted to hear it then. She still wasn’t sure she was ready.
She’d been made to look like a fool—at her sweet sixteen birthday party and who knew where else—by the two people she’d trusted most in the world. Her parents.
That night, a few weeks ago, when the truth had been confirmed, the numbness of denial she’d felt for years melted into a painful awakening, as if she’d looked down to find a gaping wound in her chest but was only just realizing she’d been taken down.
