The Secret Sister

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)

Reader’s Guide (#litres_trial_promo)

Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

1 (#ulink_61309776-3022-5f4b-9826-ce72c0cb3c42)

MAISEY LAZAROW’S BROTHER met her at the ferry—alone. Part of her, a big part, was grateful her mother wasn’t with him. Even after ten years, Maisey wasn’t ready to confront the autocratic and all-powerful “queen” of Fairham, South Carolina. The fact that Josephine hadn’t deigned to come with Keith made it clear Maisey would not be easily forgiven. Only after her mother had punished her sufficiently would she be welcomed back into Josephine’s good graces.

Although Maisey had expected as much, coming up against that reality nearly made her balk. What was she doing here? She’d sworn she’d never return to the small island where she’d been raised, that she’d never again subject herself to Josephine’s manipulation and control.

But that was before, when she’d set off to build her shiny new life. And this was now, when that shiny new life had imploded on her. She was coming back to Fairham because her brother needed her but, truth be told, she needed Keith, too.

At least her mother wasn’t currently married. The men Josephine chose were almost as bad as she was, just in different ways.

What Maisey needed most was her father, she realized as she stood at the railing, peering through the passengers crowding the gangway. Breathing in the island air, smelling the salty ocean and wet wood of the wharf, it all reminded her of him. But Malcolm had died in a boating accident when she was ten. That was when her mother had grown even more overbearing. Without Malcolm, there was no one to soften Josephine’s sharper edges, no one to hold her in check. Not that the buffer he’d provided was the only reason, or even the primary reason, she missed him...

“There you are!” Keith called across the distance, waving to make sure he had her attention.

Grabbing the handles of her two suitcases, which contained everything she hadn’t shipped to the island in boxes, she stepped into the flow of people so she could disembark. It was too late to change her mind about moving home. She’d given up her apartment in Manhattan and depleted most of her savings, thanks to the exorbitant fees of the divorce attorney she’d had to hire.

“You look great,” Keith told her as she moved closer.

Maisey conjured up her best approximation of a smile—she seemed unable to smile spontaneously these days—and embraced him. “Thanks.” She was wearing an expensive white tunic with Jimmy Choo shoes and Chanel jewelry, but she’d never looked worse and she knew it. She hadn’t been sleeping or eating well—not since that day two years ago, the worst day of her life. It didn’t help that her brother was also going through a difficult time. Once she’d learned about his suicide attempt, she’d been so manic about selling her furniture and what she could sacrifice of her other belongings so she could return to Fairham to be with him that she hadn’t bothered to do much shopping or cooking, which had caused her to lose even more weight. Her color wasn’t good, either.

But her brother didn’t look much better. Nearly six-foot-six with a set of broad shoulders that gave him a nice frame, he could stand to gain some weight, too. And he had dark circles under his eyes—the same blue-green eyes she possessed that always drew so much attention.

“You look good, too,” she lied, and suppressed a wry chuckle. She was home, all right. The pretense was already starting. Her ex-husband’s frank honesty was one of the things that had attracted her to him, which made his actions at the end of their marriage seem especially ironic.

“How was your trip?” Keith pulled her thoughts away from the past, where they resided far too frequently.

“Not bad,” she replied. No way did she want to regale him with stories of how difficult she found it just to walk out of her apartment building. She’d spent weeks at a time holed up in bed, but he didn’t need to know that only the urgency of his situation had been sufficient motivation to get her on her feet again. “How’s Mom?”

He shot her a look that acknowledged the tension any reference to Josephine created. “The same. She might not act like it, but she’s excited to have you home. She’s had a room in the east wing prepared for you.”

The guest wing? The significance of that didn’t escape Maisey. If there’d been any doubt that she was to be treated with cool disdain until she’d done her penance, this proved it.

The anger that flared up, making her stiffen, surprised Maisey. Apparently she wasn’t completely cowed and broken. The idea of walking into Coldiron House—named after Josephine’s father, Henry Coldiron, who’d owned most of the island before Josephine inherited it—brought back a hint of her old defiance. She couldn’t cope with living there, couldn’t submit, as she would have to submit, in order to regain her mother’s approval.

“I won’t be staying at Mom’s,” she said.

Keith had started to reach for her suitcases. At this, he straightened. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I have to find somewhere else.”

He measured her with his eyes, and she found them so hollow she grew frightened for him all over again. Was he doing as well as he claimed? He didn’t seem to be particularly robust—in body or spirit.

“I understand it’ll be a bit uncomfortable for you at first.” He glanced away as if he could tell she was trying to see behind the front he was putting on. “But trust me. Mom will come around. You’ll piss her off if you don’t stay at the house, and that’ll only make matters worse. After a few weeks...”

“No.” She broke in before he could get any further into his appeal. “I can’t do it.”

He stared at her. “You’re serious. You’ve barely arrived, and you’re going to make her angry? She has too much pride to put up with the rejection.”

“She rejected me first. And I don’t have a relationship with her, anyway,” Maisey said. “We communicate through email or her housekeeper, for crying out loud. I’ve spoken to her only a handful of times over the past decade.” And when they had talked, there’d been more silence than anything. There’d even been silence when Maisey had desperately craved consolation.

“You need her,” he said. “We both do. And that means we’ll always be under her thumb.”

Although she was secretly frightened that might be true, Maisey scoffed at it. “No. I’ll help you, stand by you. I just need to...to get back on my feet, and she can only hurt my ability to do that.” The thought of walking through those heavy doors, dragging her belongings behind her, almost gave her a panic attack. At least, if she didn’t stay at Coldiron House, she’d retain some autonomy, some independence. She had to protect the little peace of mind she had left.

He rubbed his gaunt face. “So where will you stay?”

“I could rent a room from someone in town.” She had enough money for that, didn’t she? Her reserves would last six months or so...

“Here on Fairham?” Her brother shook his head, adamant. “That would provoke an all-out war.”

He was right. To maintain some semblance of peace, she couldn’t cross certain lines. She couldn’t embarrass her mother by revealing that there was any strain inside the family. Appearances were everything to Josephine. They were Coldirons, even though their surname was technically Lazarow, and they needed to comport themselves as such.

How many times had she heard that lecture?

“What if I got an apartment in Charleston?” she asked, but decided against it almost as soon as the words passed her lips. Charleston would cost too much and, left on her own, she wouldn’t recover. Being sequestered in a cheap, unfamiliar apartment would be worse than living alone in New York with the furniture Jack hadn’t taken.

“I don’t see...” he started, but she cut him off again.

“Wait.” The solution had occurred to her, and it was so obvious she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. “Why couldn’t I stay in one of the bungalows?”

“The vacation rentals? They’re on the far side of the island!”

“So?” Going back and forth to Coldiron House wouldn’t require a ferry, like it would from Charleston. And it was September, when the small influx of vacationers who visited Fairham each summer returned to their regular lives. One of the nine units should be available. “We’re talking ten miles if I take the bike path. I’ll buy a bike and ride over whenever you want me to. Or you can come hang out at my place.”

Maisey felt that would be even better. Not only would living in Smuggler’s Cove enable her to avoid their mother, it would provide Keith a place to go occasionally, a place where he wouldn’t have to deal with Josephine—meaning he wouldn’t have to resort to drugs as his escape.

“Most of them haven’t been refurbished since Hurricane Lorna last fall,” he said.

“I could’ve sworn you told me months ago that Mom was hiring a contractor.” That was well before Keith’s last big blowup with Josephine, when he’d stormed off to “live his own life.” He’d disappeared for several months before ending up on another drug binge, which had culminated in the black moment that had brought him home again—the same black moment that had ultimately brought her home, too.

“She has hired a contractor,” he said, “but she didn’t get around to it until I got back a couple of weeks ago. Construction’s just begun.”

Her mother had waited a year to rebuild? “Why’d she wait so long?”

He took her suitcase, and walked toward the sleek gray Mercedes he’d parked in the lot. It was their mother’s car. He no longer owned anything to speak of. Although he’d turned thirty-six in February, an age by which most people had managed to accumulate a vehicle and some furniture or other personal property, he’d sold everything for drug money. What he hadn’t sold, he’d given away while he was high or destroyed out of anger and frustration.

“She was in another relationship with some off-islander, so she couldn’t be bothered,” he said in response to her question. “But I’m sure she’ll tell you the delay was all my fault. As you know, I haven’t made things easy on her—or anyone else.”

Including himself... Keith had caused nothing but heartache. But it disturbed Maisey that her mother always had to assign blame. “The future doesn’t have to be a reflection of the past.” She touched his arm for encouragement. “We’ll get through the coming months together. It’ll be okay now that we have each other.”