When my parents finally brought me home, my sister stood beneath the chandelier in the front hall with both hands folded sweetly at her waist.
Chapter 1
Her name was Serena Whitmore. She wore a pale blue cashmere dress, a pearl headband, and the warmest smile I had ever seen on someone whose thoughts were saying something entirely different.
Oh, no. It really is her.
Her inner voice rang through my head as clearly as if she had spoken beside my ear.
She’s the girl who stole Mom’s purse outside the hospital last month. She must have been desperate. Poor thing. I should be kind to her, even if she’s dangerous.
My mother’s hand, which had been reaching toward me, stopped in midair.
That was when I knew nothing had changed.
Or rather, one thing had.
This time, I could hear Serena too.
In my first life, I had spent years wondering why my biological family seemed to hate me before they even knew me. I discovered the answer only when I was dying.
Everyone in the Whitmore family could hear Serena’s thoughts.
Serena knew it.
She had known for years.
And she used those thoughts the way other people used lies.
She never needed to accuse anyone aloud. She only had to think the accusation while pretending to defend them.
Poor Claire. She probably stole because she was starving.
Claire frightens me sometimes, but I know she doesn’t mean to.
Maybe Claire hates me because I had the childhood that should have been hers.
Then Serena would lower her eyes and speak gently, and my parents and brother would believe they had discovered the truth inside her innocent heart.
They never understood that her “inner voice” was another performance.
In my first life, neither had I.
Now I stood eighteen years old in the marble foyer of the Whitmore estate outside Boston, looking at the family I had once begged to love me.
My mother, Margaret, studied my thrift-store jeans and oversized sweatshirt.
“Go upstairs and change,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “You look… untidy.”
I looked down at myself.
Untidy was generous.
I was underweight, my wrists too thin, my shoes splitting at the soles. The sweatshirt had belonged to my foster brother, who was three years younger than I was.
The Whitmores knew why.
A hospital error had supposedly sent me home with the wrong family. The couple who raised me had discovered years earlier that I wasn’t their biological daughter. From then on, they treated me as unpaid labor.
I scrubbed floors before school until they stopped sending me to school altogether. I washed clothes in a freezing utility sink. I worked evenings at a grocery store, and most of my pay went toward their biological son.
Once, when he became seriously ill, I stole a purse from a hospital waiting room because I was seventeen, terrified, and stupid enough to believe the cash inside might buy the medication he needed.
The purse had belonged to Margaret Whitmore.
That theft was one of the things that led investigators to discover who I really was.
My mother knew all of that.
Yet shame, not pity, was what I saw in her face.
In my first life, I had lowered my eyes.
This time I smiled.
“If I’d spent the last ten years being raised here,” I said, “I imagine I’d look more presentable too.”
Margaret stiffened.
Serena’s thoughts immediately floated through the foyer.
Why is she being rude to Mom? Mom has cried herself to sleep over what happened. Claire must hate us. Maybe she hates me most of all.
Margaret’s expression hardened.
There it was.
The poison, wrapped in sympathy.
Serena stepped forward.
“Claire, you can stay in my room tonight if you want. Yours isn’t finished yet.”
I turned toward the staircase.
“You knew for three weeks that DNA confirmed I was your parents’ daughter.”
She blinked.
“So why isn’t there a room ready?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like?”
Serena’s thoughts sharpened.
She thinks I did it on purpose. I was sick from the paint fumes last week, but I don’t want Mom blamed. Maybe I should leave. Maybe that would make Claire happy.
Tears appeared in Serena’s eyes with astonishing speed.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered aloud. “The decorators were delayed because I wasn’t feeling well. Please don’t blame Mom.”
The front door opened.
My biological brother, Ethan, walked in carrying a gym bag.
He was twenty-one, broad-shouldered, handsome, and furious almost before he knew why.
“Serena?”
“She’s fine,” I said.
His gaze landed on me.
“You must be Claire.”
“Good guess.”
Serena touched his arm.
“Ethan, don’t. Claire’s had a difficult life.”
She hates me, Serena thought. But I don’t blame her. If giving her my room makes her feel wanted, I’ll do it. I can sleep somewhere darker. The sunlight helps my heart condition, but I’ll manage.
Ethan’s face changed instantly.
“You are not giving up your room.”
Serena lowered her eyes.
“It belongs to Claire more than me.”
I smiled.
“Perfect.”
Three faces turned toward me.
“I’ll take it.”
Serena went completely still.
“That’s generous of you,” I continued. “Should I ask someone to help you pack?”
Ethan stared at me.
“You can’t be serious.”
“She offered.”
“She has a heart condition.”
“Then she should conserve her energy and let the staff move everything.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“Claire, please.”
I met her gaze.
“In my first eighteen years, I never had a bedroom door that locked. Serena has the largest suite in this house, and she just offered it to me in front of everyone.”
Serena’s mouth trembled.
“I meant it.”
“I know.”
That was the problem.
She had expected me to refuse.
In my previous life, I always refused.
I had been so desperate not to appear greedy that I slept for five years in two basement rooms originally meant for household staff while Serena remained upstairs in a suite overlooking the gardens.
Not this time.
Margaret finally summoned the house manager.
“Move Serena’s things into the east guest suite.”
Ethan swore under his breath.
I started upstairs.
Behind me, Serena thought, I hope she loves the room. Maybe if I give her enough, she’ll stop seeing me as the enemy.
But beneath the sweetness, I heard something new.
A quick, vicious flash she had not meant anyone to catch.
She took my room.
I paused on the stairs.
Serena smiled up at me.
I smiled back.
At dinner, my father finally came home.
Charles Whitmore ran Whitmore Medical Systems, a company whose name appeared on hospital equipment across the country. He carried himself with the confidence of a man accustomed to having rooms become quieter when he entered them.
Serena served him roast chicken.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” he said.
Ethan grinned. “Dinner’s better when Serena’s here.”
My father looked at me.
“We’ll need to work on Claire’s manners.”
I had been seated near the end of the table with a mismatched place setting someone had apparently found at the last moment.
Serena’s thoughts came smoothly.
Claire probably doesn’t understand formal dinners. She didn’t grow up like we did. I hope Dad doesn’t embarrass her by correcting her.
Charles sighed.
“Your mother told me about the purse.”
“Did she tell you why I took it?”
“Stealing is stealing.”
“She also told you I hadn’t been in school for three years?”
“You’ll need tutoring before we discuss school.”
I remembered those words.
In my first life, “before we discuss school” became months.
Then years.
I put down my fork.
“I want to enroll at Hawthorne Academy.”
Ethan laughed.
“Hawthorne? You?”
Serena’s thoughts drifted through the room.
I wish she could come. But the students can be cruel. If they learn she was a thief, they’ll humiliate her. Maybe keeping her home would protect her.
My father nodded slowly.
“You aren’t ready.”
I looked at Serena.
She gave me a sympathetic smile.
That smile had once ruined my life.
So I reached across the table, picked up the serving spoon with my bare hand around the bowl, loaded Ethan’s plate with green beans, and said brightly, “Here you go, brother.”
He recoiled.
“What the hell?”
“You said Serena was thoughtful for serving everyone.”
“With the spoon, you lunatic.”
“Oh. So when she does something, it’s charming. When I do it badly because nobody ever taught me, I’m disgusting.”
“Enough,” my father snapped.
I stood.
The room quieted.
“You brought me here because the press found out the daughter of Charles and Margaret Whitmore had spent years living below the poverty line while another girl lived in her place.”
Margaret went pale.
“You sent investigators, lawyers, and a police officer to bring me here because leaving me where I was had become a public relations problem.”
“That is not true,” she whispered.
“Then prove it.”
Serena’s thoughts rose in mournful protest.
She only cares about the money. She thinks Mom and Dad owe her everything. I wish she understood how much they suffered too.
My father slammed his palm down.
“You will not speak to us this way.”
“I want school.”
“You need discipline first.”
“And if I refuse?”
“No Hawthorne. No public appearances. No access to the family accounts until you learn how to behave.”
In my first life, that threat had broken me.
This time I pulled out my phone.
Charles’s expression changed.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving this conversation.”
“You recorded us?”
“From the moment I sat down.”
His face drained of color.
I held up the phone.
“Whitmore Medical has shareholders, doesn’t it? Imagine the headline: Healthcare executive denies education to biological daughter recovered from abusive home.”
Margaret whispered my name.
Charles stared at me.
“You wouldn’t.”
I thought of the girl I had once been, scrubbing the Whitmore basement floor while Serena attended graduation parties upstairs.
“Try me.”
Then I walked away.
Halfway up the staircase, Serena’s inner voice followed me.
I have to get that phone.
Tonight.
