“Oh, she doesn’t know.”
I looked at Grant.
He looked equally confused.
“Know what?”
My mother stared at me for a long moment.
Then she spoke the sentence that split my life in two.
“I’m not your mother.”
Nobody moved.
I heard the monitor beside my bed beep.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
I laughed because I had no other possible response.
“What?”
Diane’s eyes looked glassy.
“I raised you. But I didn’t give birth to you.”
Brielle stared at her.
“Mom?”
Even she hadn’t known.
My pulse climbed so quickly that the nurse stepped toward the monitor.
“That’s a lie.”
Thomas Vale closed his eyes.
And that was when I knew it wasn’t.
I looked at him.
“You knew?”
He nodded slowly.
“Not until this morning.”
Grant stared between us.
“What the hell is going on?”
Thomas removed another document from his folder.
