left the ball and didn’t return to Lillian’s until the next morning. I spent most of the night at a bar on the outskirts of town that reminded me a bit of The Holler. If anyone thought I looked out of place in a white ball gown, they seemed to know better than to comment on it—after the first guy.

By dawn, I still hadn’t wrapped my mind around the reason that Sadie-Grace’s stepmother hadn’t wanted me asking anyone questions about my mom and the events leading up to my conception. The reason she’d insisted they barely knew each other.

She was pregnant, too.

From what I’d gathered in the chaos that had followed my mom’s revelation, the pact had been Greer’s idea—one she’d come up with after she got knocked up herself. Instead of averting her own scandal, she’d chosen to diffuse it. She’d found two other girls—girls who came from prominent families, but were a little lost, a little vulnerable.

Lonely.

Three girls. Three pregnancies. An inseparable bond. Until ­Christmas, when Greer had lost her baby and hung her friends out to dry.

I wasn’t an accident. Despite everything I was trying to wrap my mind around, that little tidbit might have been the hardest. My mom slept with her sister’s husband, and she got pregnant on purpose.

I’d asked my mom to tell me the truth, and this time, she had. Lily’s dad was my dad.

I’d thought that I understood who my mom was, warts and all. I’d thought I understood why she’d reacted the way she had when I’d come back here—but, no.

Now that I knew the truth, she hadn’t even tried to defend herself.

My mom slept with her sister’s husband, and she got pregnant on purpose. No matter how many times a person thought those words, they didn’t get any less twisted. I tried again as I parked my car on Camellia Court, and once more as I let myself in.

Lillian was waiting for me, wearing a robe, sitting on the porch with two cups of coffee.

I sat down next to her. In addition to her nightgown, she was wearing the infamous pearls.

She caught me looking at them and lifted the coffee mug to her lips. “Apparently, the police found them in the possession of Sterling Ames’s mistress. A present, she said. I hear he even wrote her a note.”

Campbell, on top of everything else, was an excellent forger.

“Davis Ames got the pearls back?” I asked.

She allowed her fingertips to linger on them for a moment. “Since his security obviously leaves something to be desired, he’s given them to me. For safekeeping, you understand.”

I nodded. I waited for the questions to come—about where I’d been, why I’d disappeared, how I’d managed to smudge my dress with such a unique shade of grime.

Instead, Lillian took another sip of her coffee. “Davis wanted me to tell you that his son has entered a plea.”

We’d hoped for a trial. A scandal. Maybe a conviction. Probably not. But a plea?

“Davis,” Lillian said softly, “is very good at getting what he wants.”

Translation: he’d made his son take a plea deal. Hell, he’d probably dragged the DA away from his house in the middle of the night to make it happen.

“He also mentioned something,” Lillian continued mildly, “about Sterling Ames not being your father.”

My eyes whipped up to hers—not because I was surprised she’d gone there, or because I hadn’t expected the Ames patriarch to tell her, but because I had to know for certain. “You knew.”

Maybe not about the pact. But about my real father.

“Ellie…” Lillian searched for the right words. “She was so angry after your grandfather died—with the world, with me, with her sister. Grief looks different on different people. My Liv grieved intensely, but she decided to do so alone, and when she came back from wherever it was she went that year… she was fine.” My grandmother paused. “She seemed fine, anyway. Ellie and Olivia never got along after that.” She pressed her lips together. “I should have paid attention.” Another slight, incriminating pause. “Your uncle did. He always had time for Ellie, treated her like a little sister, ran interference when Olivia or I would criticize her. It was obvious she had a crush, but I assumed it was harmless.”

“It wasn’t.” I stated the obvious, and I wasn’t just talking about my mom’s role in this. J.D. had been an adult, and she’d been seventeen years old. Like a little sister to him.

“Did you know?” I asked Lillian. I needed to hear her say it. “Did you know who my father was?” I swallowed. “Did you know my mom got pregnant on purpose?”

Silence stretched out between us.

“Not at first,” Lillian said finally. “As soon as Ellie told me she was expecting, I went into crisis management mode. There would have been a scandal, of course, but nothing we couldn’t have handled.”

I thought back to the night of the Christmas party, when my mom had told me how Lillian had planned to handle things.

“You suggested that Olivia and J.D. raise me.”

“Ellie flew off the handle.” Lillian paused, but forced herself to continue. “She said that I acted like Olivia was so perfect, and then she asked me who I thought the father was. She told me she’d gotten pregnant on purpose, and she walked right up to the edge of telling me by whom.”

“You told her to get out.”

“I couldn’t let her say it,” Lillian said. “God forgive me, I couldn’t let her say it.”

So you kicked her out before she could.

“I should have kicked him out, of course.” Lillian sounded so matter-of-fact. “But even before she’d tried to tell me who the father was, Ellie was so clear that she’d initiated. She wanted me to know that this was her doing. That you were hers.”

I wondered if that was how Greer had sold the pact to my mom, to Ana. That if they got pregnant, if they had babies, they would have someone. Someone who would love them unconditionally.

Someone who would be theirs.

“You and Lily are only two months apart, you know.” Lillian’s voice broke for the first time. “Right before Ellie came to me, defiant and triumphant and daring me to even try to take you away from her—Olivia had come to me, too.”

“She was pregnant,” I said.

Two daughters, both pregnant by the same man.

“Did J.D. know?” I couldn’t bring myself to call him Uncle now. “About me?”

“He must have,” Lillian replied in a muted voice. “But he’s never given even the slightest indication of it.”

What kind of man does that make him?

“Why did you bring me back here?” I asked. “You practically dared me to find out the truth. If you knew, if you even suspected—why would you do that?”

Lillian sat her coffee mug down. Her posture was perfect: her spine straight, her chin held just so. In profile, she looked like she was sitting for a portrait. “You’re eighteen,” my grandmother said. “Your mama kept you from me for eighteen years, and maybe that was my penance. Maybe that was what I deserved for willful ignorance, for sticking my head in the sand. But you deserved ­better—and so did she.”

I thought about the way that Lillian had paid Trick to hold my mom’s job. The way she’d been paying him for years.

“I needed,” Lillian said, “to make this right.”

“What about Lily?” I shot back. “And John David and—”

“I don’t know.” It was terrifying to hear the formidable Lillian Taft say those words. “If you want to leave, if you feel about me the way your mama did—I wouldn’t blame you, Sawyer. I got nine months. I got to watch you flourish here. I understand that’s likely more than I deserve.”

When I’d negotiated for an advance on my trust, Lillian had negotiated for more time. Summers, to be exact, starting with this one and extending through college. But if I walked out the door right now, I deeply suspected that my grandmother would still give me the money. Contract or no contract, amendment or no amendment, I could leave half a million dollars richer. Free.

Alone.

Maybe that would have been the right choice—not just for me, but also for Lily. Thinking my cousin’s name—she’s not just my cousin, she was never just my cousin—made me remember every moment we’d spent together, every secret we’d shared, every scandal we’d averted, every felony we’d co-committed. I thought about Walker and Campbell, about Sadie-Grace and Boone and the fact that as downright insane as the past nine months had been—I hadn’t gone through any of it alone.

“I won’t hold you to my terms, Sawyer.” Lillian forced herself to spell that out. If I wanted to leave, I could leave.

But for better or worse, I had people here. Family. I also had questions—about Ana. She was just a girl in a picture, a ghost from the past. She was the situation that Davis Ames had handled. I didn’t even know her last name. I didn’t know if she’d had the baby. I didn’t know what had happened to it if she had.

But if I stayed here, I could.

“Sawyer?” My grandmother must have seen a shift in my expression.

“A lady,” I said, “always honors her contracts.”

Lillian bowed her head. Her shoulders trembled, but when she looked up again, she’d gathered her composure. She reached across and put her hand over mine. “Bless your heart.”