Chapter 1
"The most valuable things my father left me."
"Gold?"
"No."
"Jewelry?"
She smiled.
"Nothing that simple."
The Costa estate sat north of Manhattan behind iron gates and old oak trees.
By the time Abigail entered its enormous marble foyer that afternoon, six suspicious children were waiting on the staircase.
Samuel walked beside her.
That alone created tension.
Julian stepped forward first.
Tall like his father, he had already developed the guarded expression of someone who had been forced to grow up too early.
"Who's she?"
Leonardo removed his gloves.
"Abigail Turner."
"Why is she here?"
"She's going to live with us."
Bianca stiffened.
Felix muttered, "Oh, great."
Leonardo finished the sentence.
"She's considering becoming my wife."
Silence.
Then Julian laughed once.
It contained no humor.
"We already have a mother."
Abigail looked directly at him.
"You're right."
Julian had clearly expected an argument.
He didn't get one.
"You have a mother," Abigail continued. "You will always have one. I am not here to erase her, replace her, compete with her, or ask you to stop missing her."
Bianca's expression softened for half a second.
Julian recovered.
"Then why are you here?"
Abigail glanced toward the enormous dining room.
"At the moment?"
"Yes."
"To cook dinner."
Felix rolled his eyes.
"We have three chefs."
"Then you won't mind if I borrow the kitchen."
She spent the next hour doing something the professional staff had stopped doing years earlier.
She asked questions.
Bianca loved tomato soup because Serena had made it during snowstorms.
Theo secretly liked baked macaroni and cheese but had stopped requesting it after overhearing an adult call it baby food.
Felix liked steak cooked darker around the edges than anyone considered respectable.
Flora hated onions.
Samuel wanted another birthday cake.
Ellie wanted pink frosting.
Julian insisted he wasn't hungry.
Abigail didn't prepare a grand meal.
She prepared seven small ones.
Tomato soup.
Macaroni and cheese.
Roasted chicken without onions.
Steak with deliberately crisp edges.
Fresh bread.
And a slightly crooked birthday cake that Abigail insisted Samuel decorate himself.
When Samuel misspelled Eleanor's name in icing, one of the chefs moved to correct it.
Abigail stopped him.
"Leave it."
"But it's wrong."
"No."
She looked at Samuel.
"It's perfect."
Ellie hugged her brother when she saw it.
Dinner became the loudest meal the house had experienced in three years.
Only Julian's chair remained empty.
Leonardo expected Abigail to confront him.
May you like
Instead, she quietly placed Julian's meal in the warming oven.
"If he....?"
