She had trained me to fear disappointment before truth.
Maybe that was why Claire had fooled me so easily. She had not needed to create a weakness. She had only needed to find the ones my family had polished into virtues.
“Then I’ll make sure she finds out too late,” I said.
Megan studied me for a long moment. “You sound like him.”
“Who?”
“Your father.”
The words startled me.
My father had died six years earlier, and in my family, his name was spoken with careful admiration, like a portrait that must never be tilted. Henry Bellamy had been warm where my mother was composed, patient where she was exacting. He had loved Megan from the first Thanksgiving she spent with us because, as he told me later, “That girl looks at you like she sees the person under the suit.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She hesitated. “After your father died, I found something in his study. A letter addressed to you. I never opened it. Your mother took it before I could mention it.”
