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“You never saw him?” I leaned toward her “Not once? You never heard his naone?”

Jacqueline gazed ather features “No Never We didn’t even know she was in Sand Valley until several years after she left, and we didn’t learn Leonard’s name until after she died What is this about, Talia?”

“Nothing Just wondering”

I sank back into rand into me, but I didn’t look back at her

My father—the randparents He had certainly neverhere himself

It was possible he had lived here, that he’d met my mother here, and that he’d kept all that from me It was possible he and my mom had been in some kind of hidden relationship, and that she’d moved aith him when she’d left California and her family behind

But wasn’t it also possible that my dad—that Leo—hadn’t talked about Roseland because he hadn’t known about it? That someone else had been the father my mom had refused to name?

Jacqueline had said it herself—Adahter and her friends

So ould otten her pregnant?

Chapter 16

I stayed for dinner at Philip and Jacqueline’s house, but I called Elijah before we ate to invite hi me around—they insisted on it, actually—but I felt like an assholeto take me back to Oak Park

That didn’t ease any of h

I wasn’t sure how much Jacqueline had heard about the Princes from the Roseland rumor mill, but I was positive she’d picked up at least snippets of the shit that Adena had broadcast to the world And considering Jacqueline’s tendency to judge people al, I was more than a little afraid she’d be a bitch to Elijah

But she obviously didn’t know that his parents had threatened to transfer his inheritance to his younger brother, because she treated hi royalty And Elijah knew just how to handle her, how to handle the serving staff and the fancy silverware and all of it Sorooular purpose of upholding the family name

No fucking pressure or anything