“I wanted to make certain before I told you anything, but that guy who called you was on to something.” Pacing the living room, she dragged her fingers through her dark hair. “Are you reading it?”

Gripping the pages with both hands, I cleared my throat. “This is the exact same document I looked at in Scott’s office the day I came to L.A. to meet Margaret. Pen, I—”

“Flip to the other stack,” August spoke up, his deep brown eyes pitying. Taking his advice, I turned to the second set of stapled documents.

It was almost identical to the first—there was my father’s name again—but instead of Margaret Manning-Emerson peppering every page, another name glared up at me.

Gemma Angelina Emerson.

Gemma Angelina Emerson.

My name.

My head was spinning when Pen spoke up, but her words broke through the barrier. “August had a friend compare the signatures to your parent’s marriage certificate and your birth certificate. It looked legitimate because Michael Scott was your dad’s attorney and the witnesses’ names were there, but even their signatures didn’t match up to the original. The one with your name.”

I mumbled something—words that sounded like gibberish to my own ears—but my best friend must have understood because she bent in front of me, nodding slowly.

“The will Margaret and that douchebag attorney filed—it was a forgery. Gemma ... you were screwed. Just about everything that woman has laid claim to is yours.”

Part 3

Truth

noun  \ tro͞oTH

The quality or state of being true.

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”

-Oscar Wilde

Chapter 16

The truth hurt.

The truth, even though it worked in my favor, burned with so much fury it nearly demolished my small body, making me want to crawl back into the shadows.

Several minutes after Pen’s revelation, I sat on the floor in my bathroom, my knees pressed up to my chest and the back of my head tilted against the door. I could hear snippets of my best friend’s and August’s conversation on the other side, but I wasn’t even paying attention. I was desperate to wrap my head around this new truth.

Why my stepmother and Michael Scott would do something so horrible to me.

I’d been a child when she screwed me over, and then she’d had the audacity to offer me a settlement when I approached her for help surviving alone.

My lips parted, and I exhaled brokenly.

I’d been a child, but she hadn’t cared that I was the daughter of her dead husband. She had been more interested in what my dad had left in trusts for me. I hated her for that.

And every tiny shred of humanity she’d shown in the last month couldn’t fix that loathing. I didn’t even want to try and let it.

Scrubbing the heels of my palms over my eyes, I swiped away the salty tears that scalded my lids and cheeks. I had what I wanted—the truth—but now I needed so much more.

I needed to know why Margaret and her attorney—the attorney my father had obviously trusted—had done this to my dad, to me?

Fisting my hands, I swallowed back the weakness, willing myself not to bow under the invisible blows of defeat pummeling my body, but it was hard. So damn hard, my stomach churned.

“Don’t crumble now,” I told myself. When that day came—if it came—Margaret would fall right alongside me.

I dried my eyes and picked myself up off the tan tile. With shaking hands, I fixed my appearance in the mirror, washing the mascara that streaked my cheeks—three ragged lines on each side.

Gripping the counter, I leaned close to the mirror and glared at the delicate face staring back at me. “Uncover, expose, and get the hell out of there,” I whispered. And though my brown and amber eyes were bloodshot from crying, the terror that was there my first day at Emerson & Taylor was mixed with something new.

Determination.

Anger.

Combing my fingers through my platinum hair, I exited the bathroom and returned to the living room. August and Pen were on the couch, their heads bowed together as they studied something on his laptop. When she noticed me, Pen snapped the computer shut and leaped to her feet.

“I figured it was best not to bother you—” she started, but I interrupted instantly.

“What do I need to do to take this bitch down?”

Wiping her palm over one of her peacock tattoos, Pen worried her lips together. She looked over at her shoulder at August, who’d started returning his laptop to its bag. Turning back to me, she took a tentative step closer. “There are a couple avenues we can take.”

“Pen, I’m heading out,” August declared from behind her as he pulled the strap of his bag across his body.

She held up a finger and gave me a pleading look. “One second, I promise.”

While they whispered back and forth, I lowered my numb body to the chair and clung to the armrests. Ignoring the sound of my phone ringing from inside my purse, I stared at the stack of documents that were now strewn out on the coffee table until my vision turned hazy.

“Gemma,” August said loudly, breaking my daze. I lifted my chin to see him by the front door. Although we barely knew each other, I could tell he felt sorry for me by the way his shoulders curled forward and the sluggish shake of his head. “I’m sorry it took us so long.”

My chest hitched. He and Pen had done me a favor, solved something I hadn’t been able to even after I was placed right in Margaret’s trajectory, and he was telling me sorry?

Sagging back in the chair, I cleared the dryness from my throat. “Thank you,” I said shakily. “You have no idea what you’ve done for me.”

Turning red from my praise, he dipped his head in a nod and then looked at Pen. “If I find anything else while I’m here, I’ll be in touch. I’ll call you about that Campbell thing in a day or two.”

She crossed her arms over her breasts. “Thanks for everything.”

The moment he was gone, she locked the door and returned to me. She dragged the ottoman over to the chair. “Gem,” she started tentatively, “Are you going to be alright?”

“How do we take her down?” I asked again. I would worry about alright after this was all completely resolved. “I want to know why she did this, Pen. I have to know.”

She fidgeted her hands. “We can go the legal route. But if we do that, we’re going to have to really nail down our story because there’s a good chance we’ll be bent over if we’re not smart about it.” Jabbing her finger at the coffee table, to the paperwork, she took a breath. “That is all we have to go on, and even though I know it’s right, it’s going to be hard as hell to prove because both witnesses and your father have died. It’s our word against Margaret and a douchey attorney who was well-respected before he retired.”

“Both witnesses are gone.” I murmured, and she gave me a pained look.

“Virginia Carroll, the former VP of E & T, died of pancreatic cancer two years ago, and Nick Fairbanks passed away in a car crash a few years after your dad’s heart attack.”

“How convenient for Margaret,” I choked out, but I was thankful to Penelope Connelly for discovering all this. And I was ashamed of myself. The stranger who’d called me had been right. No matter how much I thought of my father, how much I still loved him, I hadn’t cared enough before five months ago to untangle our history.

I’d been too afraid of feeling the sharp pain of rejection again.

Bending forward, I rested my head between my knees, letting the blood flow to my face. “You want to tell Linc, don’t you?”

When she spoke, she surprised me. “Fuck. That. Crap.”

I sat upright. “Okay,” I breathed, “so since you don’t want to involve your brother, what’s behind door number two?”