The Heiress' Return: No More Pretending novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Curve

Ronan's POV

I got to the coffee place on Sunset an hour early, so I could be sitting with my back to the wall before anyone watched me come in.

The only way in was a side ramp past the bins.

I took the corner table, ordered a black coffee I didn't want and turned my phone face down.

That morning Gill had stood on my drive with her arms crossed and said, "Come back with all of it."

I had said I would.

Camille walked in at noon.

She wore a gray sweatshirt and sunglasses, with her hair scraped back and no makeup, and out at the curb the driver in the gray suit stayed behind the wheel.

I had known her since she was eighteen, and I had never once seen her without something to hold up in front of her face.

She sat down across from me and looked at the door.

"Is she here?"

"No. She's at my house."

"You swear."

"I swear, Camille."

She took off the sunglasses.

Her eyes were swollen, and she didn't try to hide it.

"I was driving," she said.

"I know."

"I know you know." Her voice cracked and she pushed through it. "I need to say it to you once, out loud, where nobody is writing it down."

"Go on."

She put both hands flat on the table.

"At the engagement dinner I had six glasses of champagne, because the waiters kept pouring. Afterward I went down to the parking structure to find my coat, and a woman in a cleaner's jacket was standing by my car."

She stopped.

"She said, 'I'm your mother.' She said Gordon and Adele Hollister's real baby was a girl named Gillian, and Gillian is Gill. She said she put her in a home in Bakersfield and sent money every month so nobody would ever ask."

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