A/N: Hello, everyone! Here's another chapter for you. This is a bit of a game-changer for the story, because suddenly, there will be more at stake here. I'm writing the last couple of chapters of the story and it hurts a bit, to see what some of them will go through. But that's enough spoilers now.

Here you go, enjoy!

There's some darkness in every story about light and this moment is part of that reality we don't always see. I hope that whoever has found themselves in this situation, can brave their way out.

***

Books, TV shows and movies would have you believe that the lives of the rich and privileged were wrought with scandals and secrets.

I thought that too, and decided that most of them probably just liked living their lives as if they were in a bad daytime soap opera—or a good one if the goal was to have a plot so full of twists and turns you couldn’t keep track of whose adoptive daughter turned out to be the forbidden love of the man who came back from the dead after his bad twin pretended to be him all this time and destroyed the real biological family of the woman who now carried the baby of a taxi driver who wasn’t really a taxi driver because he might be the long-lost heir to a large and old family fortune. 

Caught your breath? I did say it was complicated.

Anyway, I once wondered why anyone would want to live with so much drama. It wasn’t until this week that it occurred to me that the answer might be simple—the rich and privileged may just be way too busy to take the time to untangle the mess in their lives.

When a princess sat on a throne with the entire kingdom looking on, waiting with bated breath for her next command, she couldn’t really keep excusing herself to go to the bathroom so she could splash some water on her face and give herself a little pep-talk to get it together. 

Secrets, scandals, betrayals and guilt—they all had to wait for the duties that came first.

At least that’s been my excuse—the one I preferred over the other, which was me feeling terribly guilty and wimping out by avoiding everyone in the know.

Guilt is like gravity—it keeps your head down.

The weekend that followed my come-to-Jesus moment at the Maxfield’s, Brandon and I skipped the usual family brunch.

I didn’t say anything, hoping I didn’t have to face anyone anytime soon but also not wanting to deprive Brandon of his family either.

He may have noticed my reticence but Brandon said nothing of it when he declared that we were driving out to the beach house that weekend. He insisted it was going to be one of the last few quiet weekends we’d have together before the holiday madness took over. After glancing at the Championettes’ itinerary in the coming months, his prediction was spot on.

In two weeks for example, was the Arts Appreciation dinner—the first of the Society’s four big charity fundraisers in the year.

It was held the same weekend every year, with the same concept, at the same venue—the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum which was a stunning piece of architecture, aptly fitting its namesake who was a highly-esteemed patron of the arts and a philanthropist. Inspired by Venetian palaces, it housed an old-fashioned courtyard in the center of three levels of galleries that looked over it. From the glass window that streamed light into the impeccably manicured garden, to the arched balconies, to the lavish details, the place was romantic and inspired, fitting into the Championette ideal of elegance and grace.

Each year, the Society held a fancy dinner event, inviting fresh talents from all over the city to showcase their work to a prestigious guest list that was made up of the press, influential members of the city’s art foundation, and most importantly, well-paying art connoisseurs and patrons from all over the country.

The dinner venue would be surrounded with a variety of art displays, from paintings to stained glass creations to mixed-media sculptures.

Guests wrote big, fat checks to purchase a spot on the guest list, the funds going to the many art programs offered in the city. The other hope was that by the end of the evening, most of the displayed works would be sold off and participating artists would go home with big paychecks and more lucrative future commissions.

Even though Layla only got officially crowned chairwomanship of the Championettes’ this summer, she’d been prepped for the position in the last couple of years. Since she was a bit of a control freak, she’d already planned out all the major fundraisers the Society was doing this year, booking venues, caterers, event-planners and such.

While I was secretly relieved I didn’t have to start from scratch, planning events that could make or break the Championettes’ this year, it also rubbed raw that it felt like I was an inconvenient bit of baggage heaped on to the load while the rest trudged through with plans they’d already made way before I even came into the picture. 

I was already taking a crash course in socialite duties as it was but it didn’t mean I could be let out on the road on my own just yet.

The only thing I was tasked with, other than trying to keep everyone from killing each other every time we had a meeting, was to come up with the charity to champion this year through a masquerade fundraiser Layla had named Masquerade Magnifique.

Some members of the board had voiced their doubts about doing another masquerade, which was apparently an overused formula in a society who threw so many damned parties, but Layla gave them all a dainty death stare and proclaimed that it would be the mother of all masquerades because she was planning it.

In all honesty, Layla was a good planner.

But then, dictators didn’t really have a problem giving orders and putting your neck on the chopping block if you failed, which was the reason I’d been playing referee.

The board was made up of individuals with extremely strong personalities. Head-butting, I discovered, was a classic Championette-assembly style. For a bunch of people who were as thick as thieves when they were plotting for my downfall, they were just as ruthless facing off each other. I had to intervene.

I’d rather push heads apart than collect them in a bag later.

Which was why I found myself arriving at the LeClaire’s impressive townhouse in Beacon Hill, Boston’s most prestigious neighborhood. The small but historic and highly-prominent area boasted of postcard-perfect colonial row houses, brick paths and gas-lit streets.

Layla and I were going to be interviewed for a segment in the city’s top morning news show and she wanted us to rehearse our answers together.

I didn’t think it was a bad idea because the last thing I wanted was for us to do a showdown on live TV instead of promoting the Society’s upcoming fundraisers.

An aging doorman with a dour face greeted me and directed me to the sitting room to wait for Layla. I was about half an hour early so I didn’t mind but it struck me as odd that the man practically dragged me into the room and promptly left me with barely any acknowledgement or the typical offer of refreshments, which I was taught was a common courtesy an expert hostess such as Layla would never forget.

It was my first visit to the LeClaire household so I didn’t dare make any presumptions as to how Queen Layla ran her kingdom. 

The thing about being in a lion’s den is that manners don’t matter as much—not when you’re about to be served for dinner. Yum.

I wasn’t scared of Layla but I was nervous for some reason.

This house was like a crypt—too quiet and too empty you could almost hear the ghosts walk.

I had just sat down and started leafing through a large coffee table book about rare diamonds in the world when I heard a small scraping sound in the other room.

I was just kidding when I thought about ghosts.

I paused and held my breath, and the scuffing sound of shoes filled the stretch of silence.

I got up and poked my head through the archway that led to what looked like another sitting area, catching a short, lanky figure hovering by a bureau decorated with picture frames and small art figures. 

“Hey, you!” I said, narrowing my eyes as I watched the boy, somewhere between ten and twelve, shove something into the pocket of his oversized black hoodie. 

Gasping, he snapped his head up and caught sight of me. His eyes were wide with alarm and panic, his hand shoving deeper into his pocket.

With his worn sweater and jeans, he didn’t look like he belonged in Layla’s museum-like house. He looked a little too rugged—and a little too guilty.

I tensed, aware that I was alone in the room with a possible underaged burglar. “Listen. I think you—Hey!”

He bolted into a run and zipped past me, knocking over a small side table that sent a few glass displays crashing to the floor.

“Now you’ve asked for it,” I muttered right after a hissed curse as I took off running after the little rugrat.

As I headed for the main hallway, I heard a woman’s shriek and a man’s shout echo down the grand staircase.

I couldn’t tell who they were but they probably just realized that the house had been broken into.

More determined to catch the kid who was probably dragged along into this heist, I broke into a run again, nearly crashing with the doorman who came out of nowhere with a stupefied look on his face.

“Call the cops!” I practically shouted in his face before I steered him out of the way to continue my pursuit of the young boy.

I was in dressed in a casual pair of low-heeled ankle boots, brown wool tights and a sweater dress which were just comfortable enough for me to race my way out of the hallway and down the front steps of the townhouse.

“Hey! Get back here!” I yelled, before lunging for him as he paused in sprinting down the brick sidewalk at my shout.

His eyes widened as he stood frozen for a moment, when he realized I was coming down on him like a freight train. 

I groaned and hissed as my knees and elbows made contact with the ground but I didn’t budge an inch as I held the boy down with my arms and a crooked leg.

He was a few inches shorter than me, his frame slight and scrawny but he was flailing his arms around like a bug on its back. I kept my eyes on his hands, briefly remembering to check if he had any sharp objects he could slice me up with. So far, so good.

“Hey, kid. Stop wiggling!” I told him as I loomed over his ashen face. “I’ve had to wrestle down men easily three times your size before when they were so drunk they thought they were in a petting zoo with a free pass. You’re not going anywhere until I let you go and that’s not happening until you hand over what you filched.”

The boy kept trying to twist free and I looked up and down the sidewalk to see if we’d attracted attention.

The LeClaire residence was in a quieter street in Beacon Hill and while there was an endless line of cars parked along the narrow street, the area was relatively empty. The perks of a weekday afternoon.

I glanced down at the boy again. “Hey, I don’t want to turn you in but I will if you don’t return what you stole. I know life is tough but the first thing you need to learn is that crime isn’t a way out—it’s a way in. A way in into one of those horrible orange suits, a way into your new home of concrete and steel bars with thugs for roommates, a way into a fate worse than the one you’re imagining today.”

I looked into his frightened pale blue eyes and my voice gentled. “So give it up, whatever it is that you stole. It’ll never be worth your entire life.”

His chin trembled and his eyes watered but he pressed his lips together in a valiant effort to hold back his tears. “I didn’t... I’m... I...”

There was hardly anyone walking down the sidewalk right now but I couldn’t pin the kid down to the pavement forever without drawing attention so I sighed out loud and reached into the pocket of his hoodie. “Fine. If you’re going to play hard to get, you leave me no choice but to…”

My voice trailed off and I frowned as my hands wrapped around a small square shape.

I pulled it out of his pocket, my brows drawing together in confusion as I stared at a small, palm-sized wooden frame with a portrait of Layla in it. The frame was nice and pretty but it wasn’t worth a fortune.

“Okay. Now, this is just weird." I looked at the boy but he wasn’t paying attention to me.

Tears were making their way down his face as he squeezed his eyes shut, muttering, “...should’ve never come here... he always gets mad... But we came back early...”

“Hey, kid!” I told him with a hard tug on his elbow. “What in the world is going on with you?”

He kept shaking his head, biting his lip as he tried not to cry. 

In that instant, I knew there wasn’t a burglary.

I eased off him and grabbed him by the elbow to help him up. He pulled himself up to a sitting position on the curb, burying his face into his hands as his shoulders started shaking with silent sobs.

I stared at him for a long moment, watching but saying nothing as he cried. I eventually crossed my legs together as I sat next to him on the sidewalk. 

I propped up my arms on top of my knees and stared at Layla’s smiling face on the picture frame. She looked very pretty but as I stared longer at her expression, it became easy to see that her smile didn’t quite reach her pale blue eyes.

“If I give you the picture back, will you stop crying?” I asked the boy, gently nudging him on the arm with my elbow. 

He shook his head, his face still buried in his hands. “Give it back to her. Tell her I’m sorry. When he finds out... he’ll be m-mad. Tell her I’m sorry...”

If the world had altered in the last ten minutes, I just realized it now.

“What’s your name, kid?” I asked, waiting patiently as it took him a moment to lift his head of shaggy white blond hair, his cheeks flushed and tear-stained, his winter blue eyes even more luminous with a fragile sadness.

My heart squeezed. The kid looked like a damned lost cherub who found himself cast down to the filthy earth. It was heartbreaking. 

“Riley,” he murmured, his voice slightly hoarse from sobbing. “Riley Anderson.”

“I’m Charlotte Maxfield,” I told him with a half-smile, handing him the frame. “I’m sorry for tackling you to the ground but I thought you were a thief.”

He didn’t take the picture frame—just stared at it with deeply sad eyes. “I did steal it. I didn’t mean to. But the one I had—Curtis poured grape juice over it. It’s ruined and she wouldn’t give me another.”

Why this boy had Layla’s picture in the first place got my mind whirling with a few dozen theories but the glue that held this young Humpty Dumpty in one piece didn’t seem strong enough for me to test with interrogation.

“What did you do to Curtis?” I asked instead as I flipped the frame around and carefully loosened the panel that held the picture to the glass. 

“N-nothing,” Riley said flatly. “He’s in seventh grade. He’s big. And he’s mean.”

I cocked my head to the side to look at him for a moment. “And I suspect that it’s all he’s got going for him. Otherwise, he’d be doing better things than dousing pictures with grape juice.”

“He’s always picking on me,” the boy grumbled.

Looking at the kid, the way his lower lip thrust out in an effort to hold his suffering back, the stubborn hunch of his shoulders that didn’t want to curl in with defeat, the resentful furrow of his brows as he contemplated his fate and the nameless, faceless person he wanted to blame for it, I saw the child I was less than a decade ago.

When you’ve been weaned on fairy tales, superheroes and happily-ever-afters only to find none out in the real world, you feel a little bit betrayed. You either become another villain or you rewrite your part in the world so that heroes may exist. At least that's what I told myself.

“I bet he does,” I told him as I slowly slid Layla’s picture out of the clips that held it in place. “Bullies do what they do because it gives them satisfaction—satisfaction they may lack in some other aspect in their lives, or simply just the satisfaction that they can do what they like.”

“And while I can sympathize with some people’s problems, there’s no reason to end your misery by starting someone else’s,” I continued, holding the photograph up in the light. Layla was beautiful in it—beautiful but surprisingly sad. “But people don’t always see it that way and sometimes, you’ll have to show it to them.”

Riley surprised me with the understanding in his eyes. “It’s hard to do that when they’re holding your head down to the floor and beating the crap out of you.”

My heart clenched as anger and compassion surged through me in equal dose. “I know it’s hard to hang on to your dignity when you’re face down on the dirt. The goal is to eventually learn how to never find yourself held beneath anyone ever again.”

The boy swiped some snot off his face and wrinkled his nose. “Sounds easier said than done.”

I laughed. “Oh, it definitely does. It took me years to figure that out. I used to get my face submerged in a bucket full of dirty mopping water. One day, I tossed the bucket at the girls who used to corner me in the bathroom whenever I was cleaning. It messed up all their pretty shoes and socks. I told them that the next time they get in my way, the bucket was going to end up on their heads. Thinking about it now, I don’t really think I could’ve managed it considering they were all taller than me but I think at that time, I was so sick of it I believed I could do anything.”

“Did they stop tormenting you?” Riley asked, his eyes wide with expectation.

I smiled. “They did. Not because I scared them off with my threats. I think, in a way, they just finally realized that I was taking away permission. It’s all about permission, Riley. People can hurt you many times in many ways but they can’t break you if you don’t let them. And when they realize they’re beating down a stone wall that’s forever sealed to them, they’ll turn around and go away with their swollen hands and bloodied knuckles with nothing to show for them except for time they never noticed passing, and time they will never have again.”

We were quiet for a long moment before I handed him the photograph. “You must have a perfectly good reason why you want this picture.”

He stared at it for a while before carefully reaching for it. “Do you like the stars?”

“I do. They’re very pretty.”

He nodded. “My science teacher told me they’re part of where we’d all come from, once upon a time. The explanations aren’t really clear as to why they’re out there while we’re stuck here on earth but somehow, they’re always a part of us—a part of our history.”

“You’re a science geek,” I teased him with a small laugh although a part of me sensed the old soul in him. “The stars are billions of miles away, you know.”

Riley smiled, his blue eyes brightening. “They are, but I can see them. Sometimes, just knowing where you come from helps—even if you can’t come home. Even if you can only look at it from afar.”

Oh, Layla. What did you take away from this little boy who already doesn’t have much?

I swallowed the lump in my throat as I watched him carefully slide the picture into his pocket. “Where’s home, Riley? Maybe I should get you back. Your parents might be looking for you.”

He looked up at me with unblinking blue eyes from underneath thick, pale gold hair falling across his forehead. “I don’t have parents. I live with my Uncle Danny. He always drinks though so I don’t like staying in the apartment. He always shouts and falls and blames me for it.”

“You have no idea how well I can sympathize,” I told Riley with a wince I could hardly conceal, remembering the same torturous experience I had living under the same roof with my father who just drank more when he wasn’t passed out on the floor yet from being overly inebriated. “How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

Only twelve—too young to be too old a soul.

We were quiet for a long moment, sitting by the curb and looking up at the overcast skies, absently searching for the stars we knew were out there even though we couldn’t see them.

Hope is not about seeing something you want within reach—it’s trusting that it’s there when you can’t see it at all.

I was no longer a helpless, hapless kid who couldn’t escape the cold prison of my life before. I could help Riley and set him on the better path—the way others had done for me when I stood at my own crossroads.

It took only but a moment for my decision to be made.

I took a deep breath and glanced at the boy’s pensive face. “Come on, kid. We should get you—”

“Riley! Riley!”

We both glanced up at the sharp bellow of a very familiar female voice.

Here we go. Showtime.

Layla was running down the sidewalk, looking disheveled for the first time since I met her. She was wearing dainty house slippers with her slightly creased powder blue dress and knit wrap, her hair bouncing around her shoulders in careless disarray.

I got up to my feet and helped Riley up, planting myself between the two of them in case Layla was about to wring him in the neck for breaking into her house.

Squaring my shoulders, I opened my mouth to tell Layla to, first of all, stop screaming the entire neighborhood down, but when she finally came up close, my throat seized up in an instant.

Even without her usual polish, Layla was still quite lovely—except for the angry red handprint slightly swelling on her left cheek.

I blinked, shaking my head slightly as if to clear the unexpected sight.

The welt still looked as crude and brutal on her porcelain skin as it appeared on first glance.

“You!” she sputtered incredulously. “You’re not supposed to be here until twenty after!”

My brows went up. “Really? That’s the first pertinent thing you want to discuss right now?”

She looked like she was gritting her teeth but the slight shifting from Riley pressed up behind me caught her attention.

“It’s a bit early for the Halloween make-up, don’t you think?” I blurted out even though I must’ve known the truth because I did my best to block Riley from the view of a story he would understand too well.

Layla’s blotchy face tilted my way again as if she just remembered I was there. Her red-rimmed eyes still glassy with tears, and her pink, runny nose told me that this was no Halloween make-up. 

It was one of those horror stories some of us lived with every day of our lives, the kind we didn’t tell a soul about.

Because until we say it out loud, it’s not true. Until then, we keep hoping it’s just a nightmare we can wake from.

“Riley needs to go home,” Layla’s voice cracked as she spoke but her eyes quickly darted behind me, craning her neck around for the boy who was cowering behind my back. “He needs to go. I have to make sure he gets home and—”

“We’ll get him home safely,” I interjected firmly, pulling off the rose pink cashmere scarf that had been loosely wrapped around my neck. 

My anger slowly set in at the sudden clarity of the situation, and if I didn’t want to drag Layla to the nearest police station or explain to a twelve-year-old boy why her face resembled a salami, I had to find a distraction. “You might want to cover up though, if you don’t want to show up on the tabloids tomorrow sporting a handprint on your face.”

Without giving her a chance to protest, I slipped my scarf around her neck, draping a part of it over her head like a veil. It didn’t completely hide her injury but it made her less recognizable.

“Um, thank you,” she mumbled faintly as she clutched at the scarf around her throat, her eyes lowered. 

“I’ll ask for explanations later but are you hurt anywhere else?” I muttered under my breath, in a voice so low I had to lean in so Layla alone could hear me. “Do we need to get you to a hospital?”

She couldn’t conceal the anguish that flickered across her mottled face quickly enough but she gave a quick shake of her head. “No, I’m alright.”

My lips pursed in a frown. “No matter how many times you say it, it’ll never quite feel like the truth.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Charlotte,” Layla hissed at an admirable attempt at indignation. “I had a little accident.”

“Right, an accident,” I said with a roll of my eyes, unable to help the edge in my voice. “What, did you accidentally run smack right into Don’s hand? Did his fist accidentally make contact with your cheek?”

Layla’s eyes flashed with anger. 

Of course, she’d be angry. 

When you know that you deserve better but let yourself endure the abuse anyway, you always get angry because you couldn’t understand why you let it happen—over and over again.

I was angry a lot for a while. I probably used a lot of the same excuses Layla did.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Layla replied in a low, warning tone. “I just want to make sure my—that Riley gets home okay.”

My eyes narrowed at her near-slip. 

For someone who meticulously counted every ounce of breeding and poise as the measure of a person’s worth, Layla cared very little about the messed-up half of her face or the fact that she was standing in the immaculately-manicured sidewalk of her very prestigious neighborhood in a house dress and slippers. 

Her sole focus was on the boy who raced out of her house after stealing a picture of her, of all things.

I decided that even though I needed to confront her about the truth that was literally on her face, there was something else at the heart of this entire bizarre situation.

Something like a twelve-year-old boy with the same pale gold hair and angel-blue eyes as Layla.

“What’s wrong?” I heard Riley pipe up as he stepped around from behind me before I could stop him.

I bit my lip hard as I listened to Riley suck in a sharp breath when he saw Layla’s face.

“He did that to you?” The young boy’s voice wavered with a choked mix of tears and outrage. “He hurt you?”

Layla was quick to shake her head in denial. “No, no! Riley, it’s—”

“Was it because of me?” the boy demanded, flushing in anger even as he blinked back the tears glistening in his eyes.

Layla sank to her knees, her trembling hands settling on the boy’s shoulders. “No, Riley. It has nothing to do with you at all. Don’t think that.”

The kid sucked in his lower lip as he drew a shaky breath, his hand reaching out to gently touch Layla’s cheek.

The woman who never left home without putting on her cool, if not icy, exterior, looked nothing she usually did as her eyes fluttered close at the boy’s almost reverent touch, her lips pressed together in a clear effort not to burst into sobs.

“I’m sorry,” Riley whispered as he withdrew his hand. “I’m sorry I made him angry at you.”

The sound of a car buzzing by broke the spell and both Layla and I looked around at the reminder that were out in public for anyone and everyone to see.

“I’ll call my driver and we can drive Riley home,” I told her as I whipped out my cellphone to speed-dial Gilles. I paused and glanced at her. “How about you?”

Layla got up to her feet and pulled Riley toward her, her hand resting on the boy’s head. “I’ll come with you, if you don’t mind. I just don’t want him to go home on his own.”

I sent Gilles a quick text instead before facing Layla squarely. “And once Riley’s home, where do we drop you off? I don’t think you should come back here, Layla.”

“Nonsense,” she said dismissively. “Of course, I’m coming back. This is my home.”

I glanced at Riley whose head hung low before meeting Layla’s eyes directly. “It’s no home if you’re not safe. It’s just a pretty prison.”

Layla straightened her shoulders and gave me a defiant look. “I’m a grown-up woman, Charlotte. I can take care of myself. I don’t need a child like you to tell me what to do.”

So the old Layla was still there.

In spite of myself, I actually smiled. “You’re right. No one can tell you what to do. You need to figure that out on your own.”

She said nothing more just as my phone sounded off with a reply from Gilles who turned out to be at a coffee shop only a few blocks away.

“Sit down for a little while,” I told them, gesturing to the front steps of the townhouse behind us as I texted Gilles its description so he could easily find us. “The car will be here in a few minutes.”

I watched as Layla led Riley back to sit on the front steps, inwardly amazed that I wasn’t the only one with secrets, and that from the grim looks of things, my secret seemed like nothing to the bomb that Layla had strapped to her body.

Gilles arrived promptly and asked no questions as he held the door open in the backseat for Layla and Riley.

I got into the front seat and kept my own mouth shut as we headed to Dorchester where Riley lived. 

While my house was in an older, cheaper area in West Roxbury, a half-hour commute or so from downtown in normal traffic, it was at least a cheerful neighborhood with charming white picket fences and small but pretty gardens. 

Where Layla directed us was in one of the rougher projects, the neighborhood full of tell-tale run-down apartments and the occasional commercial strips showcasing some slightly questionable businesses like adult video stores and leery cash advance places. The place was hurting for a good gentrification project but the difficulty with making unattractive neighborhoods attractive again was that there was slim picking for businesses who wanted to be the first to come in so that others may follow suit.

Why get your hands dirty tidying up the place when you can go somewhere nicer, right?

I couldn’t see Layla’s face behind me but it made me curious how a seemingly pampered princess like her found her way into this neighborhood. But then, with everything that I’d stumbled on about Layla in the last hour or so, nothing about her now was exactly as it seemed.

We pulled up in front of a four-story apartment building with peeling, dull beige paint and browned, dry weeds growing around the front steps.

I got out of the car and watched as Layla walked Riley to the door, leaning down to murmur something to the boy who nodded diligently. 

He glanced over his shoulder at me, his gaze intent as it locked with mine for a long moment, before he gave a small wave and pushed the door open.

I waited until Layla made her way back into the car before I slid into the backseat next to her.

We were both quiet for a long time as Gilles started our drive back. 

It was hard to know exactly where to start but it had to start.

I pushed the button for the privacy panel that sealed off the backseat from the front of the car.

“Riley is your son, isn’t he?” I finally said, bracing myself for the backlash I was surely going to get from that bold claim. “He’s got your blue eyes and same blond hair.”

“Was that all that gave it away?” was her surprisingly calm answer. 

I arched a brow at her. “I don’t imagine you’d just go running out of your house dressed like you are right now for anyone. I’m not exactly an expert on maternal instincts but I know it when I see it.”

Layla’s face, despite now swelling on one side from the ugly lump on her cheek, was inscrutable as she stared out of the car window. 

“I did what every knocked-up fifteen-year-old had to do without having to abort her baby,” she said in a distant voice, glancing at me with a half-smile that didn’t make it to her eyes. “I gave him up.”

Even though I guessed the truth, my mouth still rounded in surprise as I stared at her for a moment. “Why?”

The laugh that escaped her lips was dry and hollow. “Why? Funny you’d ask the same question that’s been branded into my brain in the last twelve years. But the answer is quite simple really.”

She directed flat, blank blue eyes at me. “I had no choice.”

“I think we’ve all borrowed that excuse one time or another,” I said with a shake of my head, remembering my own secrets. “It’s a climactic, pause-for-extra-drama one-liner that arrests the audience and pulls in their sympathy for you—until they’ve had a moment to realize that there is always a choice. We just have ones we prefer—say, making a little confession over having your fingernails pulled out with pliers.You know, that kind of thing.”

Layla’s blank expression didn’t improve so I kept going. “When one outcome is substantially more impacting than the other, it feels like the choice is obvious.”

When she still didn’t say anything, I shook my head and dared touch her knee briefly. “What I’m trying to say is that I understand, when you say you had no choice. It often feels like it even when we do have another choice. Sometimes, there’s really only one that we can live with.”

Layla finally blinked, shaking her head slowly, a fleeting smile ghosting over her lips. “And sometimes, what you can live with at fifteen, can be very different from what you can live with at twenty-seven.”

I reached into the built-in cooler in the backseat of the town car and took out a chilled bottle of water, handing it to Layla with a gesture to her face.

She winced slightly as the cold plastic bottle touched her swollen cheek and I worried for a moment that the reminder of the present would draw her away from the past.

But she continued.

“It was one of those silly summer flings with a cute boy I met while staying with my grandmother at her plantation home in North Carolina. My grandmother was the quintessential southern belle, born to wealth and privilege—one of those old-fashioned-minded ones who still believed in marriage alliances. She, herself, married into an equally affluent family and set the same path for my mother. When she found out I was sneaking out with a boy, she got very angry. I think it was more the fact that the boy, who was only a few years older than I was, didn’t come from a family of any significance. He was the son of one of the farmers but even though he was working on a scholarship for college, he was still less than nothing to my grandmother’s eyes. She banned me from leaving the house and I never saw my summer sweetheart ever again. As summer came to an end, I realized I was pregnant, and because my grandmother had the maids spying on me all the time, I couldn’t keep it a secret.”

Layla smoothed her skirt over her lap, her fingers catching the delicately embroidered hem and fidgeting with it. “She stopped me from going back to my parents. She summoned my mother and between the two of them, they decided that I was to stay at the plantation until I gave birth and that my baby was going to be given away. They assured me my distant cousin Danny was going to take care of my baby—he owned a real-estate firm and was happily settled down with a wife and a couple of kids.”

As Layla slowly divulged every detail of her secret past, the glacial mask that was a near-permanent fixture on her face started melting. 

Her light blue eyes were stark with a sorrow I imagined hurt her more than the large welt on her face. 

My heart twisted but I kept my mouth shut, afraid to break the fragile trust she'd given me in this rare moment of honesty.

“Two years later, after my life was back to normal, my mother died of a kidney complication,” Layla said with a mere shrug, her indifference obvious. “My grandmother followed a few years later. I was twenty-one, fresh out of college and finally free from the two women who forcibly shaped my life into the mold they chose for me. I tracked Danny down to Boston and without really knowing why I was doing it, I moved. I didn’t want to intervene but I just wanted to keep an eye on my son, even from a distance. I had some family here—Bessy and her parents took me in without questions and easily found me a place in the city’s elite social circles.”

Oh, Bessy. Not you too.

As much as the other girl antagonized me, I had a sinking feeling that just like her cousin, she was going to be, if not already, another woman Don LeClaire would use and abuse. 

As if she could read my mind, Layla met my stare with her own stony one as she continued. “That’s when I met Don. He was handsome, charming, rich, possessing of a last name that was solid and old enough to fit the husband criteria ingrained in me since I was a little girl. I married him. Things seemed to finally fall into place—I was living the perfect life I thought I’d forfeited when I got knocked up.”

She brushed off an imaginary lint from her skirt, her lips curved into a bitter smile. “But having gone through what I had, I should’ve known that happy endings were for fairy tales, and fairy tales were for fools.”

“Don found out I was looking in on Riley. When he demanded answers, I broke down with the truth, begging that he forgive me for not telling him my secret.” Layla’s face creased with disgust. “What I thought was his possessive, slightly controlling nature became my worst nightmare. He cut off all access I had from funds except for a spending allowance. He has an accountant go through every penny I spend to make sure that none of it was spent on my bastard child, as he often put it. I was young and naive when I married him. There was no pre-nup or anything that could actually protect me and my own money. The only alternative I have is to go to my father but he knows nothing about Riley or Don’s cruel side. To my father, Don was the son he never had and he’s very fond of him. Don threatened that if I disobeyed him or went to anyone for help, he would make sure my dirty secret was published to the world, that he would turn my own father against me, and that he would make Riley disappear.”

I hadn’t realized my fists were curled so tightly until a sob caught in Layla’s throat and I reached out to grab her some tissue.

It was a little ridiculous, Don’s nefarious threats, but when you’ve once had something so vital taken away from you and you barely managed to put up a fight, it was easy to believe that there was no way you were ever going to be able to fight back and actually win.

“For the next few years, I busied myself with social duties and friends—avoiding my husband at all cost and going through extreme measures to discreetly check on Riley,” she said as she dabbed at the few tears that spilled down her cheeks. “Then three years ago, my cousin Danny was divorced by his wife who left with their children and all his money. He lost his business, he lost his house, he lost his goddamned mind.”

Anger suffused Layla’s marred yet beautiful face as she crumpled the tissue with unnecessary force. “They ended up in a ramshackle apartment. I gave them what money I could sneak away but it never lasted. If Danny wasn’t off working a part-time job he could only hang on to for a few weeks, he was drinking himself to death, and he was taking my son with him.”

Whether people look for redemption or plain escape in a bottle, it’s no excuse to stick your head in and forget about the rest of the world. The first step to a better life is to want one more than you want the temporary relief of forgetting that you aren’t living it. Someone should've told my father that.

Layla thrust her chin up stubbornly. “I decided I had to intervene. I... I showed up one day, thankfully when Danny was sober enough, and I introduced myself to Riley—as his aunt. One of Danny’s cousins.”

I couldn’t help the grimace. “He knows he’s adopted. And if he’s as smart a kid as I suspect him to be after sitting with him earlier, he probably knows you’re not really his aunt.”

A big, fat tear rolled down Layla’s cheek and she impatiently brushed it away. “I can’t... I can’t tell him the truth. Not when I can’t do anything for him anyway. What good is knowing I’m his m-mother going to do when I can’t even care for him? I can’t take him in. I can’t support him. I can’t even get him out of that shit hole he lives in!”

There was little of Layla’s polish and poise left.

She gripped the water bottle so hard, her knuckles were white.

I eased the bottle away from her, as careful as a zoo keeper would be when trying to feed a lioness.

In fact, she reminded me of just how ruthless wild animals get when their young was threatened.

“Sometimes, the truth alone helps,” I said gently, remembering Riley’s face when he talked about stars. “Knowing that he hasn’t been completely abandoned might be enough for him for now.”

“Are you sure?” Layla scoffed, her eyes slitting in derision. “Has it occurred to you that maybe he’s going to loathe me for abandoning him in the first place?”

I exhaled loudly and looked right into Layla’s eyes. “Tell me something. Do you think Riley’s a good kid?”

She blinked. “Yes.”

“Do you think he has a good heart? A good head on his shoulders?”

“Of course,” Layla answered indignantly even though she looked confused. “He’s intelligent and resilient. He’s a great kid.”

I smiled and sat back. “Then maybe you should trust him with a chance to understand why you did what you did. You might be surprised.”

There was a brief flash of hope in Layla’s eyes but anxiety quickly chased it away as she chewed at her lip for a moment. “I don’t know if I can take that risk. I don’t want him to hate me more than I already hate myself. What if... What if he never forgives me?”

I shrugged. “You can’t expect forgiveness if you don’t admit your faults first. And if forgiveness was always guaranteed, everyone would be doing every kind of bad thing out there.” 

The small beep indicating the microphone at the driver’s seat turning on sounded off.

“Pardon, Mrs. Maxfield, but might I inquire as to where your next destination is?” Gilles’s extremely formal, stiff-sounding baritone which he liked to use when he was in full chauffeur-mode, came through the speakers in the backseat. 

I turned off the mute button that was automatically activated when the privacy panel was raised and spoke, my eyes seeking Layla who quickly looked away. “Not sure yet, G. Why don’t we do a nice, leisurely loop around downtown for now and I’ll let you know where we’re headed to next. I promise it’ll be one round. I know what a tree-hugger you are.”

“Will do, Mrs. Maxfield,” was Gilles’s unflappable reply. “Thank you.”

I pressed the mute button again and faced Layla. 

She was now looking at me with a sardonic expression—which was a bit of a relief. While that look typically foretold a criticism or a set-down about to be cast my way, it was least indicative that Layla was pulling herself together.

Despite her half-hearted denials, she was nowhere near being completely alright, but at least she wasn’t breaking down anymore.

“How does your staff take you seriously when you don’t act like their better?” she asked with a raised brow. 

I wrinkled my nose. “Maybe by first doing away with the whole better-lesser labels. I call the shots when necessary but I like my staff and I’m pretty sure they like me. We mutually look after each other and we occasionally share a joke or two.”

Layla just looked at me for a second before shaking her head in what seemed to be resignation. “You’re unconventional.”

My lips quirked. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you put it nicely.”

I caught the slight twitch of Layla’s mouth as if she were about to smile but she straightened back in her seat instead, inhaling deeply. “You can drop me off back home, Charlotte. I’ll be fine.”

I shook my head slowly. “You know, over two years ago, I had a fractured cheekbone, a bruised spleen and a face that resembled a rotting avocado. It wasn’t until I saw myself in the mirror that I decided I really wasn’t fine.”

“Someone hurt you?” Layla asked softly, her eyes darting all over my face as if she could still find traces of my abusive past. “Who was it? A jerk boyfriend?”

“It was my father,” I told her without pause. “He started drinking ever since my Mom walked out on us when I was six. He never stopped.”

Layla lowered her gaze and spoke in a near whisper. “Don doesn’t do it all the time. Only when I make him angry. He went out of town and I thought I could take Riley out for a nice brunch today. I gave the staff the day off and brought Riley home so we could hang out for a little bit but Don came home early. He was angry at me for disobeying him.”

“We can defend him a thousand ways but could you really trust your welfare to a man who beats you broken and bloody because he can’t control his temper? Because he can’t hold his drink?” I asked her fiercely. “I don’t call it a tantrum, Layla. I don’t even call it a lapse of judgement. I call it abuse.”

“Well, we know how bold you are in calling everything as you see it,” she muttered bitterly. “Some of us... some of us can’t be that candid.”

“I wasn’t candid at all,” I told her with a pained smile. “I couldn’t tell anyone. I just decided to leave because while I couldn’t say it out loud, I could at least walk away.”

Tears started to sting my eyes at the bits of memories that started to dot the surface of my mind again but I quickly blinked them back, focusing my attention on the woman in front of me. “No one needs you to make a big proclamation, Layla. You don’t have to declare war or beat down anybody’s door. We can’t all be soldiers but we can all be survivors. You just have to get yourself away. That’s all.”

Her lower lip quivering, Layla bent her head down as she took a deep, shaky breath. “Riley needs me, right? He needs me to be strong for him. For us. For once.”

I reached forward and lightly squeezed her hand. She didn’t pull away. “You have no idea how much it will mean to him—to have someone fight their demons for his sake because he’s too young to be left on his own.”

Nodding briskly, Layla lifted her head, sniffling but shoring up her courage as she squared her shoulders. “You’re right. I couldn’t fight for him then. I can fight for him now.”

I smiled. “And as for finding them a better place to stay, I have an idea. My father left behind a house. Well, he left the house and a whole lot of debt that went against it. I managed to save it though. It’s nothing grand—just a small, two-bedroom Colonial with white siding, a cute little front porch and a small garden out front. It’s in a quiet, friendly area in West Roxbury. No one’s been living in it since I moved in with Brandon but we’ve hired a housekeeper to come in once a week and maintain it. Riley and Danny can move there. Maybe a new place can give them a clean slate.”

Layla watched me warily, her mouth half-open, her eyes blinking slowly as if she had trouble focusing. “And what’s in it for you?”

I tilted my head and gave her a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”

“Clearly, after all this... this heart-to-heart talk, you’ll want something in exchange,” she explained with a slight roll of her eyes. “I mean, you’ve already got half the chairmanship in the Society. I can make my support known, if you like. I don’t know, it’s up to you.”

My brows knitted together as I struggled not to smile in amusement. “I don’t really require payback, if that’s what you’re getting at, Layla.”

She gave me a disbelieving look. “Right.”

I gave a little shrug. “You’ve already trusted me enough to tell me your secret. Trust me a little more when I say that I just want to help.”

She still didn’t look convinced but she didn’t offer any protest.

“Why did you trust me with it anyway?” I asked, curious all of a sudden.

Until about an hour and a half ago, Layla and I were still technically at war. We had a temporary ceasefire, but still at war with each other, nonetheless.

Layla took her time answering—she probably couldn’t figure it out herself at first. 

Hell. I couldn’t think of any reason why she would trust her dirty little secret with me, of all people.

“I think... despite the opinion I’ve expressed about you,” she started slowly, squinting a little as if the answers hovered in the distant horizon. “You’re not going to turn around and use this against me. You had plenty of chances before to throw me under the bus—and you didn’t.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “What would have I proven to any of you if I just went and did exactly what you did to me? That would contradict my philosophy.”

Layla’s brows rose questioningly. “And what philosophy is that?”

“Never become your worst enemy,” I answered with a grin and a wiggle of my brows. “That’ll be me doing you a favor, and proving to everyone that to get ahead, I had to cross the line.”

I could tell Layla was fighting a reluctant smile. “When you’re not always hovering over the gray, it’s easy to see the black and white of things. I get it.”

“Oh, trust me. I have my moments blurred right over the lines,” I told her cheekily before taking on a more serious tone. “But more than anything, I want to help because I’ve been there, and it’s a place I wouldn’t want to find anyone alone in, even my worst enemy.”

Layla gave me an arch look, reminding me that even though she was broken, she was still a social blue blood who knew it too well. “And why trust your worst enemy to keep her mouth shut about your dark, bitter past?”

I snorted. “I may be wrong but I think you’ve got bigger monsters to fight, Layla. I think you’re smart and practical enough to know not waste your energy on me.”

“Am I supposed to feel better because you think I’m pragmatic rather than pitiful?” Layla asked wryly.

“No. You should feel better because you’re quite formidable when you want something,” I told her with a grin. “You just have to channel all that cunning and confidence to the right cause—your freedom.”

Because villains can become heroes too, when they fight for the right thing.

“I’ll do what I should’ve done long ago,” Layla said, her voice firm with resolve. “I will make things right with Riley. But it has to be on my own terms. I want to minimize the damage as much as I can.”

Her eyes sought mine with an expression I never thought I’d see from Layla LeClaire—pleading. 

“Anyone with eyes can see how devoted you and Brandon are to each other,” she said with a haunted smile. “But I need you to promise that you will not tell him about this.”

I worried my lower lip I struggled with the conflict Layla’s beseeching put me in. “Brandon can help, you know? He will offer his protection and support without hesitation.”

“Which is exactly why I don’t want him involved,” Layla replied. “He’s a decent man who would do the right thing. But Don doesn’t exactly play fair most of the time. He’s going to red-circle everyone who’s helped me in his book and I want that list to be very short, Charlotte. I’ve already caused enough people misery.”

I couldn’t help a crooked smile. “Alas, Layla LeClaire shows her infamously elusive conscience.”

Layla smiled back. “It’s been long burdened with so much of my own guilt, I’d decided not to take it with me everywhere I go. It’s heavy.”

We burst out laughing.

“I promise I won’t tell a soul,” I told her with grave seriousness once our laughter faded.

What happened that day between Layla and I was not quite a truce. 

It was even better.

It was an alliance.

===

So what do you guys think? There's a couple more surprises coming your way in the next chapters. I think, despite a large part of this story focusing on Charlotte and Brandon's romance, there's a bigger picture that Charlotte is going to be a part of. I think I knew that myself, the moment Charlotte made it her crusade to be generous and kind. And while it's one of her best qualities, it's her biggest vulnerability—one she's going to pay for and one that's going to make her ask herself a lot of questions. 

Thanks for stopping by! Until the next post! 

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♪♪♪ Chapter Soundtrack: Too Beautiful by He Is We ♪♪♪

What kind of man lays his hands on the woman he loves?
Calls her angel, but shows no remorse in her blood
He covers her body in bruises and scars
You don't understand just how beautiful you are

You are too beautiful
Your heart wants something more
Those shades of blue on that face of yours
Hides that smile that beats in your chest

When he's done with her beating
He just stands aside
Wipes the sweat from his brow
And yells over her cries,
"You don't know what I've been through!"
He yells and he says,
"You don't know what I've done for you!"
And hits her again

You are too beautiful
Your heart wants something more
Those shades of blue on that face of yours
Hides that smile that beats in your chest

She stands in the mirror
She looks less alive
She lifts up her shirt to see she has five
Branded fingers on her side
She's feeling it all now
But she doesn't cry
She doesn't cry