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Fine, Sierra thought. She’d take the bait and play along. “What if Ace doesn’t want to be found?”
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“That’s a silly thing to say. He should want the love and support of his family.”
You keep selling that word, “family,” but I’m not buying it.
Only Sierra didn’t say that. And with the rigid smile she kept in place, she knew her body language hadn’t suggested it either.
“He’s a grown man.” Sierra considered the photos she’d seen of Ace Colton through the years. Grown was an understatement for the attractive, vibrant man he’d become. “A successful one by all accounts, too. Surely he can keep his own counsel.”
“Ace needs to come home to his family.” Selina took a sip of her tea, the delicate move at odds with the calculation in her eyes. “I was told you’re the best and that you always get your man.”
“I do.”
“Then why all these unnecessary questions?”
Sierra had to give the woman credit for landing a strong, sure jab on that one. She needed this job, no matter how skeptical she wanted to be about the Colton woman’s motives. She hadn’t believed her personal life could get more challenging after her father passed away, but she’d been wrong.
So wrong.
And she did need the money Selina was prepared to pay. Twenty-five thousand paid off a lot of debts.
“I like to know what I’m up against.”
As an answer, it seemed to placate the woman in front of her. But as their conversation spun out, Sierra hammering out the expectations of her work, she wondered what she was getting into.
Would this fix her problems?
Or create a whole set of new ones?
* * *
Nova hung up with Marlowe, once again surprised by how easy the other woman was to talk to. Not that she’d call her “Aunt Marlowe,” but it was still so novel to think of her that way. A part of her still questioned if there was a falseness to it until she took a DNA test, but she pushed it down.
She still thought of Paul Ellis as her father, after all. The man had raised her and loved her, and that meant more than biology when she thought of the man she’d called Dad for nearly two decades. They’d had a wonderful relationship and she’d spent a lot of time since hearing her mother’s news about Ace considering how she could—or should—think of Paul. He might not be her biological father, but she’d never dismiss her wonderful memories of him.
Or the subtle guilt that she was somehow erasing him by looking for her biological father.
Marlowe’s attitude and continued insistence on the definition of family had given her some clue, though, on how to move forward. Family was what you made. And Paul would always be the wonderful man who raised her.
Always.
Taking heart from that truth, Nova focused on moving forward.
Marlowe had stressed once again on their call her personal conviction that Nova’s DNA test would come back as a match with Ace and that, despite the recent discovery of Ace’s own parentage, the Coltons were Nova’s family.
And they were all there for her.
As an additional sign of that solidarity, Marlowe had invited her and Nikolas over to the Triple R that night for dinner with her and Bowie as well as Ainsley and her fiancé, Santiago Morales. The rest of the Colton siblings were off at other functions and Nova was strangely glad of that. It was all still so new and she wasn’t sure she could handle an evening with all of Ace’s siblings and associated significant others.
Nikolas looked up from the laptop he sat with at the kitchen table. “How’d the call go?”
“Good. We’re going to the Triple R for dinner.”
“That’s a great idea. You can see the family home and get a feel for where everyone spends so much of their time.”
Nova thought about her mother and the way Allegra had spoken of the Triple R. She’d be so excited for Nova to go there and to meet more of the family. Nova could practically hear her mother’s voice, chattering away as they discussed outfits and hairstyles.
