The Unwanted Heiress And Her Silent Tears

She lay awake until the gray light of dawn crept across the ceiling.

Abigail pulled on her cleanest sweater, took three slow breaths at the door, and went downstairs.

She heard them before she saw them. A light, musical laugh — Danita's laugh, soft and real in a way it had never once been directed at Abigail. She stopped on the landing and peered through the balusters.

In the sunlit dining room below, Hank was handing Danita a piece of perfectly toasted bread. Danita smiled, touching his arm. It was a complete, self-contained world. Every piece in its place.

Abigail had shattered it just by arriving.

Her stomach growled. She had to eat. She forced herself down the stairs and into the dining room.

The laughter stopped the moment her foot crossed the threshold.

"Good morning," she said softly.

Silence.

Hank looked at his phone. Danita looked out the window, through Abigail, as if she were made of glass.

Then Abigail noticed the table. Two placemats. Two plates. Two cups.

The housekeeper materialized from the shadow near the kitchen door. "Your name was not on the list for breakfast service this morning, Miss," she said, her voice professionally blank.

So that was how it was going to be.

"That's okay," Abigail said. She kept her voice light. She found a glass, filled it with tap water from the sideboard pitcher, and sat at the far end of the long table, as small and far away as she could make herself.

The moment her chair scraped the floor, Danita set down her cup.

"It's suddenly very stuffy in here," she said, wrinkling her nose. She folded her napkin with precise, deliberate movements. "Have the car brought around. I'm going to the salon."

She left without a glance.

Hank stood a beat later, grabbing his blazer. "We leave for school in ten minutes," he said to the wall, and was gone.

Abigail sat alone in the enormous room, holding a glass of water.

She drank it in one long swallow and made herself a promise: she would not beg. She would not perform. She would treat this house like a hostile hotel, and she would expect absolutely nothing from the people inside it. It was the only way to get through this without breaking.

She reached into her canvas bag and closed her fingers around a battered brass pocket watch. Niall, her foster brother, had pressed it into her hands at the Ohio bus station four days ago. So you don't forget, he'd said, that somebody thinks you're worth finding.

She held it for exactly ten seconds. Then she let go, squared her shoulders, and walked out to the Escalade.

The driver hit the gas before she had fully settled into the seat. The SUV lurched forward, slamming her spine against the leather. She didn't make a sound. She just gripped the door handle and watched Boston rise up through the tinted glass.

Whatever was waiting for her at St. Jude's Preparatory School, she was going to need every bit of that steel she'd spent sixteen years building.