Part 1: The Facade of Gratitude
The Blackwood Manor was alive with the sound of crystal clinking against crystal. The dining room, with its vaulted ceilings and portraits of dead ancestors glaring down from the walls, was bathed in the warm, amber glow of the chandelier. It was a scene of perfect, opulent domesticity.Except for the sweat running down my back.

I was in the kitchen, balancing two heavy silver platters of roast beef. My belly, swollen and tight with twins, pressed painfully against the granite countertop. My ankles were swollen to twice their normal size, throbbing in rhythm with my heartbeat. I was twenty-eight years old, nine months pregnant, and I felt like I was eighty.

From the dining room, I heard the laughter. It was a sound that excluded me.

“To Isabella!” my mother-in-law, Karen, chirped. Her voice was high and thin, like a bird that had swallowed a diamond. “For saving the Blackwood legacy! God knows what we would have done without you. Unlike some people, she understands the value of history.”

My husband, Ethan, laughed—a rich, hearty sound I hadn’t heard directed at me in months. “She’s a keeper, Mom. Beauty, brains, and a bank account that could buy a small country.”

“Oh, stop it, you naughty boy,” Isabella giggled. I could imagine her batting her eyelashes, checking her reflection in the back of a spoon. “It was nothing, darling. Truly. Pocket change. Daddy always said, ‘If you see something beautiful being wasted on the poor, buy it and rescue it.’”

I took a deep breath, braced the platters against my hip, and pushed through the swinging door.

The conversation didn’t stop. It didn’t even pause.