Chapter 18

Vivian’s eyes reddened almost as soon as she called Adrian’s name. The past few days had been unbearable. Julian wanted her out, and meanwhile, he was spoiling Elise with new clothes and jewelry.

“Adrian, if you’d stayed away any longer, Julian really would have thrown me out.” Her voice trembled with grievance.

Adrian gave her an idle glance. A few days ago, she had asked him to stand up for her because she didn’t want Julian searching for her birth parents. But what was so terrible about being with her own parents? Wasn’t that the most natural thing in the world?

Only now did he understand why she kept finding reasons to resist. She couldn’t bear to give up the luxury of living with the Whitmores.

Julian hadn’t made it upstairs yet. Adrian’s sudden appearance surprised him. Had he rushed back to take Vivian’s side?

“What are you doing here?” he asked, without much warmth.

Elise stood on the stairs, watching her second-oldest brother. There was still so much life in his face, with none of the gloom she remembered. In their previous life, his record company had worn him down, and the debt had nearly crushed him.

Back then, he had smoked all day. She couldn’t stand it. The first time she had ever lost her temper with him, she had pulled the cigarette from his mouth, thrown it down, and ground it out beneath her shoe. She had deliberately put on her fiercest expression, hoping she could force him to quit.

After a while, that had become their routine: she would blow up at him, and he would trail after her, calling her his little sister over and over as he tried to coax her out of her temper.

“Coming home, obviously.” Adrian’s gaze rested heavily on Elise as he answered Julian.

She was wearing a white dress, her long hair falling neatly over her shoulders. Standing there on the stairs, she looked so quiet and sweet. Her dark eyes blinked at him with undisguised curiosity, as though she, too, wondered why he had come back.

As soon as he had reached adulthood, all he had wanted was to make his dream of singing come true. Family had come second. He had scarcely seen this unfamiliar little sister, much less thought about getting close to her.

He had never known she had been this sweet at seventeen. Just looking at her made his heart soften.

“We have a lead on Vivian’s birth parents,” Julian said coldly. “We’re only waiting for the DNA results now. This is going ahead. You won’t change that by interfering.”

Vivian looked pleadingly at Adrian. If he spoke up, Julian couldn’t keep trying to send her away as though nobody else had a say.

“Good,” Adrian drawled. “You have my support.”

If he hadn’t cared about maintaining a little dignity, he would have told Julian he’d done an excellent job.

Julian raised an eyebrow. “You’re not going to stop me?”

Why the hell would he? If Julian was handling it, that saved Adrian the trouble.

Vivian’s expression froze.

What was happening? It was bad enough that Adrian wasn’t stopping the search. He actually supported it? Then why had he come home? Hadn’t he come back for her?

Adrian walked past her, his eyes on Elise, and reached the stairs in two or three strides.

Elise looked at him in puzzlement.

Julian came down a few steps and casually placed himself between them. Adrian had promised to back Vivian up; as far as Julian knew, that was still where his loyalties lay. If his brother intended to say something hurtful to Elise, Julian had no objection to teaching him a lesson with his fists.

Adrian seemed not to notice him. His attention stayed on Elise.

He rubbed awkwardly at his silver hair. His gaze softened, and when he spoke, his voice was so gentle that there was almost a note of injured pleading in it.

“Ellie, I was wrong. I was blind before. Will you please accept my friend request?”

Elise stared at him.

So did Julian.

She suddenly remembered all the requests she had received from Adrian last night. She had pretended not to see them. Was that why he sounded so aggrieved now?

A bizarre thought occurred to her. Had he come all the way home just to get her to add him?

Vivian couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Adrian had come back and refused to help her, and now he was practically begging Elise for a favor?

Elise met his eyes. Usually, he looked so cocky and self-assured. Now he was watching her without so much as a blink.

He had spoken up for her on X, after all. Having ignored his requests yesterday, she felt a little guilty.

She didn’t understand what he meant by saying he had been wrong. Wrong about what? Still, accepting a friend request couldn’t hurt.

She swallowed the polite refusal she had been about to make.

“…All right.”

His face relaxed at once, and a smile spread across it.

He kept looking at her, apparently determined to wait until she did it. Elise took out her phone, opened her pending requests, and tapped Accept.

His profile picture showed him from the waist up, playing bass beneath multicolored lights. The light gave him an almost dreamlike air.

She opened his friends-only feed. His newest post was from six hours ago: a meme of a cat sitting on the ground, looking lost, with the words Small, pathetic, and helpless above its head.

The caption read: I was wrong.

Elise studied it for a while. She still had no idea what he meant, so she closed the feed.

Vivian watched them, finding it harder and harder to believe. What had happened to his promise to stand up for her? He hadn’t helped her at all. Instead, he was being so tender with Elise, even pleading with her to accept his request.

Even when he had doted on Vivian, he had always been casual and laid-back about it. He had never begged her for anything like this.

He looked exactly like a husky waiting to be praised.

Vivian bit down on her lip, held back her tears, and ran upstairs.

By dinner, she still hadn’t appeared. Julian and Adrian behaved as though they hadn’t noticed her absence.

Elise remained thoroughly confused. Adrian’s sudden return was strange enough, but his attitude toward her had changed completely.

His earlier drowsiness had disappeared. He seemed full of energy now, and his spirits couldn’t have been better. His little sister had finally added him!

“Have some more meat, Ellie.” He put a piece on her plate.

Julian glanced at him. Only recently, Adrian had been determined to defend Vivian. Now he was making such a fuss over Elise. What was he up to?

Julian served Elise some greens.

“Too much meat gets heavy. Have some vegetables. They’re good for you.”

Adrian shot him a glance, then gave Elise another piece of meat.

“You need meat if you want to grow taller.”

Julian added another helping of vegetables.

After that, the two seemed determined to outdo each other, taking turns putting food on her plate. The pile kept growing.

“That’s enough,” Elise said quickly. At this rate, she would never finish it all.

They finally stopped. They exchanged a look, turned away from each other, and settled down to their own meals.

For some reason, the food at home had been getting better and better lately. Everything looked beautifully prepared, and it all made her want to keep eating.

Julian watched her with her cheeks full, looking like a squirrel, and smiled.

“The chef is new. I picked someone who specializes in the food you like. Everything here was made to suit your taste.”

The chef had won a gold medal in a cooking competition, and his specialties happened to be Elise’s favorites. That was why Julian had hired him at such a high salary.

Elise was surprised. No wonder the food had changed. She didn’t like spicy dishes, but Vivian did, so in the past, eight out of ten dishes on the table had been spicy. Over the last few days, there had been fewer and fewer, replaced by milder food.

She thought about it, then said clearly, “Thank you, Julian.”

Adrian raised his eyebrows at the warmth in her voice. Julian had only spent a little more time at home than he had. How had Ellie become so much closer to him already?

“There’s a place on the shopping street that does some really good, unusual dishes,” he said casually. “It’s every bit as good as this chef. Let me take you tomorrow, before school starts.”

School began the day after tomorrow. Elise wanted to use the time she had left to study. Besides, they had a chef right here. Why spend money eating out?

She shook her head. “No, thanks.”

Adrian pressed his lips together. For a moment, he looked hurt.

Then he thought better of it. He couldn’t blame her. He had ignored her all this time while lavishing his affection on Vivian. How much must that have hurt, when Elise was his own sister?

He had been in the wrong. It was only natural for her to keep her distance now.

Remembering something, he took a palm-sized box from his pocket.

“Ellie, I got this for you on my way back from the concerts in Australia.”

Elise looked up. Her eyes lingered on the box before she slowly reached out and took it.

His attitude had changed so quickly, and now he was buying her presents, too. Had he come to the same conclusion as Julian? Had he realized Vivian was too spoiled and finally remembered that Elise was his biological sister?

Inside the box lay a silver-colored hair clip in the shape of a fern leaf. Sparkling diamond accents covered the little leaflets, and the gently curved stem finished in an elegant sweep at the tip.

It was small and beautifully made. It would look lovely in her hair.