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“We didn’t bring anything!” Meghan hissed. “Not even a bottle of wine!”
Oriana and Brea glanced at one another and burst into nervous giggles. Bringing something for dinner had been the very last thing on their minds. Before they finished laughing, Estelle opened the door and smiled at them confusedly.
“Well, hello! To what do we owe this spontaneous dinner?” Estelle beamed.
“It’s just about the silliest thing,” Oriana explained, dropping down to hug her half-sister-in-law. “I would tell you if it weren’t so embarrassing.”
Estelle set the table for Roland, Grant, his wife, Katrina, Meghan, Brea, Oriana, and herself. Dinner was an Indian lamb curry, and the spices of ginger and turmeric were warm and inviting.
“Did you ever go to India while you lived in Asia?” Estelle asked Brea as she poured them each a glass of red wine.
“I never did,” Brea said. “I was on a small island and hardly left it.”
“It sounds like paradise,” Roland boomed as he entered the dining room, extending a hand for Brea to shake. “Grant told me all about you.” His eyes flickered in a way that proved Grant had told him even more— all about the blackmailing.
But Oriana didn’t see it as a betrayal. Rather, it was good that Roland already knew so that they could get the conversation going.
First, however, they ate. They piled their plates high with spicy meat, rice, and naan bread, swapped stories from their travels, and built a rapport that Oriana felt drew them closer together as a family. She knew it would take time to feel close to Roland and Grant, but now her heart opened wider to the idea of loving them completely.
When Estelle and Katrina left to wash the dishes in the next room, Oriana knew it was time to act.
“So.” Grant crossed his hands over the table. “You mentioned you had something to discuss with us. Is this about what we talked about yesterday?”
Oriana nodded. “I contacted your private investigator. Ours wasn’t available. Thank you again for passing his name along.”
“He’s the best in the business,” Grant assured her. “Roland and I have used him numerous times.”
“See, that’s the weird thing about it,” Oriana went on. “Because the minute your private detective answered the phone, I realized I knew him. We were very good friends back in New York in the late nineties and early two-thousands.”
Grant’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding.”
“It can’t be a coincidence,” Brea interjected.
“How did you meet Carl?” Grant asked.
“He was never Carl to me,” Oriana went on. “His name was always Nick. But now that I think about it, it’s not like I ever looked at his birth certificate. Maybe Carl is his real name, and Nick is his public name. I don’t know.”
“Strange. I guess it’s important to keep both personas separate,” Grant said thoughtfully.
But suddenly, Brea raised her hand and glared at Roland. “What is going on?” she demanded, her tone icy.
Oriana followed Brea’s gaze to Roland, whose face had turned beet red. His eyes were blotchy, and he looked on the edge of having a breakdown. Even Grant was surprised at his brother’s transformation.
“Roland? Are you all right?” Grant asked.
Roland grabbed a clean napkin and placed it over his mouth. His shoulders quaked violently. Something was very wrong.
Nobody spoke for a long time until Roland removed his napkin, looked Oriana dead in the eye, and said something that nearly crushed her.
“I hired Carl to tail you back in the late nineties.”
Oriana, Brea, and Meghan were speechless. Oriana pressed her hand against her chest, struggling to breathe. All those years, Roland had pretended not to want anything to do with his sisters— yet he’d gone behind their backs, spying on them, to learn more.
All Oriana could think to ask was, “Why? Why would you do something like that?”
Roland sputtered. “I was curious, I guess. Interested in what you were up to in the city. I was too scared to reach out to you, but I wanted to know what you were like, how your career was going. The internet didn’t exist back then, not in the same way. And you just couldn’t learn about people unless…” He trailed off. “You said he befriended you?”
“We went everywhere together,” Oriana rasped, feeling the worst sense of betrayal. “Nick, Carl, or whoever he was, went out with me all the time. We met important people and networked.”
