ountry clubs and debutante balls may have been my mom’s native language, but she was also fluent in shut-that-down, in-your-face bartender. What she’d just said about my father definitely qualified.

Charlotte Ames suggested that I might want to run along and find the other young folks. I ignored her. If my mother was going to say something—anything—about my father, I was damn well going to be there to hear it.

With a slight smile, my mom snagged a glass of champagne off a nearby tray and lifted it to her lips.

“I think Walker and Campbell went in search of eggnog,” Lucas commented, nudging me toward the edge of the group. “But you didn’t hear it from me.”

“Go on,” my mom said lightly. “Have fun.”

I wondered again why she had come tonight. Had she given up on silent treatment–ing me into coming home? Was she missing me, because it was Christmastime?

Or was she here for something—or someone—else?

“Go on, baby.”

I wanted to stay. I wanted to make her tell me the truth. But I also knew her. I knew that while she might take great pleasure in throwing her scandal in their faces, she wouldn’t say another word with me present.

So I went. I made it about a quarter of a way around the perimeter of the room before I was accosted.

“Hide me.” Sadie-Grace stepped out from behind one of the oversized curtains and grabbed my wrist.

“Hide you from what?”

Sadie-Grace lowered her voice, even though the buzz of a hundred or more people chitchatting meant that I had to strain to hear her. “Greer.”

I was about to ask why Sadie-Grace needed to be hidden from her stepmother, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw Greer step into the room and scan it with military-like precision.

Sadie-Grace edged back toward the curtains. “I’m on the verge of an arabesque,” she whispered urgently.

I pivoted and stepped sideways to block her from view. Unfortunately, Sadie-Grace was several inches taller than I was. Greer spotted her. She’d made it halfway toward us, beaming at ­Sadie-Grace with near-lethal determination in her eyes, when help came from an unexpected source. My mom approached her from the side and laid a hand lightly on her elbow. Greer turned, clearly intending to “enthusiastically” greet whoever had stopped her and then slip away.

But when she saw my mother?

Even from across the room, I could see her go ashen.

“Greer has been redecorating our house,” Sadie-Grace said beside me, oblivious to anything but the fact that she’d received a reprieve. “She keeps saying that she’s going to get all the pictures of my mom reframed.”

I thought back to what Lillian had told me about Sadie-Grace’s mother.

“Let me guess,” I said, watching my mom and Greer. “Your dear stepmother hasn’t found a set of frames she likes yet.”

“Greer says she wants them to be perfect,” Sadie-Grace replied quietly. Her hand was beginning to flit gracefully back and forth by her side. I stilled it for her, and she let out a long, labored breath. “There’s only one picture my dad hasn’t let her touch.”

Across the room, Greer appeared to be trying to extract herself from conversation with my mother, but as I watched, my mom leaned forward and whispered something directly into her ear.

Greer let out a light peal of laughter in response. I couldn’t hear it from this distance, but I knew exactly what it would have sounded like, just like I knew that it was 100 percent and without doubt fake.

“What’s the picture your dad won’t let her take down?” I asked Sadie-Grace, forcing my eyes away from the understated melee playing out between my mom and her dear old friend.

“It’s a photo of the three of us.” Sadie-Grace nibbled on her bottom lip. “My mom, my dad, and me—in front of the Christmas tree.”

I knew without asking that she was talking about the tree at this party, just like I knew that Greer was probably determined to take a family Christmas picture of her own.

There’s trying, Aunt Olivia had said the first time she’d mentioned Greer, and then there’s trying too hard.

Across the room, Sadie-Grace’s father ambled into the conversation his wife was currently having with my mom. My mom’s eyes met his. Greer’s hand snaked out and took up a possessive perch on her husband’s chest.

I wanted to stay there. I wanted to keep watching.

Instead, I turned back to Sadie-Grace, who was practically trembling. “Got any ideas about where to hide?”

We ended up in the room where the staff had set up a few dozen gingerbread houses for kids to decorate. Cloth-covered tables ran the length of the room. There were literally hundreds of dishes full of every kind of candy imaginable on the tables.

It was chaos.

“Gingerbread?” A waiter approached us from behind with a plate that smelled of nuts and cinnamon.

“Yes, please.” Sadie-Grace helped herself to a piece, then turned to tell me, in exactly the same tone that John David had used, “It’s the food of the gods.”

Four pieces of gingerbread later, I’d almost managed to forget the way that Greer had reacted to seeing my mother. She may as well have slapped a PROPERTY OF GREER sticker on her husband’s forehead. I thought back to the memory book in the attic, to all of the pictures of Greer and my mother together.

What were the chances that Greer knew who my father was?

“Are you okay?” Sadie-Grace asked me. The two of us had taken up position at the end of one of the long tables. There hadn’t been many gingerbread houses left to claim, so we were sharing. Her half looked like something out of Candy Land. My half looked like it had been made by a four-year-old.

Probably because I kept eating my building materials.

“I’m fine,” I told Sadie-Grace, popping a lemon candy into my mouth. “It’s just been a while since I’ve seen my mom.”

That was just the tip of the iceberg. My mom’s reappearance had cemented in my mind the realization that if she’d wanted to come back before now, she could have. She’d always said she’d hated it here, but she didn’t seem upset to see Lucas Ames—or Charles Waters.

Swallowing the sour-sweet remains of the candy, I glanced at Sadie-Grace. “If I asked you for a weird favor, would you do it?”

“Does it involve tying bows?” Sadie-Grace asked seriously.

“No.”

“Duct tape?”

“No,” I told her. “It involves hair.”

“I can’t French-braid.” Sadie-Grace made that admission as if it were her greatest secret shame.

“Not my hair,” I clarified. “Your father’s. If I asked you to bring me a piece of it, would you?”

Sadie-Grace wrinkled her forehead, clearly perplexed. I’d told her this was a weird favor. I could see the exact moment that clarity hit her. “Are you making voodoo dolls?” she asked suspiciously.

“No,” I said. “I’m running paternity tests.”

Given how Lily had responded to the fact that I’d circled Uncle J.D.’s picture, I knew that this could go badly. Sadie-Grace’s father had married her mother before I was conceived. If I were in her position, I would have wanted to believe that they’d been happy.

“Do you think my father might not be my father?” Sadie-Grace was horrified at the prospect.

“No.” I put her out of her misery. “I think he might be mine.”

Cue blowup, I thought, in three… two…

Sadie-Grace launched herself at me and nearly bowled me over. This wasn’t a tackle—it was a hug.

“Far be it from me to interrupt a moment…” Walker Ames dropped down into the open seat beside us. “But Sadie-Grace should probably get back to the main dining room.”

Sadie-Grace, eyes sparkling, whisper-babbled something incomprehensible in my right ear. The only word I could make out was sister.

I extracted myself from her steely, aggressively affectionate grip. “Why is Sadie-Grace’s presence needed in the dining room?” I asked.

I expected a flippant response, but Walker’s expression was measured. “Because,” he said gently, aiming the words more at Sadie-Grace than at me, “her stepmother just announced to the whole room that she’s pregnant.”