“She told you that?” Maggie was impressed.
Blaire pointed a finger at herself. “Therapist face. It makes people want to open up and spill all their secrets.”
“Thank you for coming to check on me,” Maggie said.
“I had to have Breonna put Silas in a choke hold to keep him out. I figured since you two haven’t had a chance to talk yet, him running in to confront your father wouldn’t be as helpful as he thought it would be.”
“Oh boy.” Maggie took another sip of her drink.
“Are you okay?”
Blaire was right. There was something about her face, the lack of judgment, the presence of sincere interest, that made Maggie want to spill her guts. But she owed those guts to Silas first.
“I am. At least I think so. It’s been an overwhelming party so far, and it’s not even dark yet.”
“Is that your mother?” Blaire asked, pointing to the photo on the mantel.
“It is. That picture is actually the reason I bought this place,” she confessed.
Blaire got up to look at it.
“She brought me here on a vacation when I was twelve. We were here for a week and had the time of our lives,” Maggie explained.
“Kinship has that effect on people,” Blaire said, picking up the frame and examining the picture more closely.
“We spent the whole week making up stories about the people who lived in the big house on the hill. I’ve always kept my eye on real estate here, and when this house came onto the market, I just knew. I guess it felt like one of those signs that Silas is always talking about.”
Blaire was still staring at the picture.
“Is everything okay?” Maggie asked. She really didn’t think she could deal with another crisis or revelation.
Blaire looked up, her smile bright and her eyes damp. “Oh, honey.”
46
“Don’t do anything stupid, Sy,” Dayana warned as Silas watched Sebastian Spencer step outside, hands in pockets, surveying the scene on the terrace.
“I never do stupid things,” Silas insisted. Kevin gave his clenched hand a nudge with a cold, wet nose, offering doggy comfort. The billionaire philanthropist was too casual for his liking. In Sy’s opinion, the man should be groveling, earning forgiveness and generously providing apologies.
His anger was a living, breathing thing. It seemed fundamentally wrong to him that everyone around him was enjoying themselves while the man who had deeply scarred Maggie, the reason they were all gathered, was perusing appetizers.
“What about that time you tried to do a handstand on the bridge railing over Strawbridge Creek?” Michael asked.
“For the one millionth time, it’s ‘crick’ not ‘creek.’ You’ve lived in Idaho since you were seven. Get it right. Secondly, I was eight when I did that. This is different. I’m not going to dislocate a shoulder doing this.”
“Probably not. But you might get your pants sued off,” Nirina pointed out before turning to Dayana. “You probably shouldn’t have told him. There’s no way he’s not going to do something stupid in the name of defending his lady’s honor.”
Dayana groaned. “I couldn’t help it. I just started word vomiting to Blaire. I didn’t know he was eavesdropping.”
“You pushed me out of the way so you could talk to her,” Silas pointed out.
“He didn’t make Maggie sign that stupid NDA,” Dayana said. “My evil mother did that, and you can rest assured she will be punished.”
“What NDA?” he snapped. Kevin wasn’t a fan of confrontations and slunk off to hide under the buffet table.
Her eyes went big and she took a step back. “Oops. I thought she’d told you.”
The list of things Maggie hadn’t told him was getting longer and longer. “Dayana, what NDA?” He felt like his head was going to explode.
“Let’s maybe all just take a breath,” Dean suggested.
But Silas was locked on and stared Dayana down until she cracked.
“My mom thought she was protecting the family by having her lawyer draft a nondisclosure agreement. By signing it, Maggie agreed to never admit to anyone that Sebastian Spencer was her father. I didn’t know about it until I came here. And my father had no idea until I told him. My mother set it up to make it look like she wanted nothing to do with our dad anymore once Maggie got access to her trust.”
“Oh, shit,” Nirina whispered. “That’s diabolical.”
Silas made a move for the house, but the siblings formed a wall in front of him.