“What do you want, Eleanor?” Nathan asked, his voice flat and dangerously quiet.

“I want this charity case resolved,” she said, her eyes shifting to me with disgust. “You will divorce her.”

The grandfather clock in the corner chimed the half-hour, the heavy brass pendulum swinging behind the glass.

“You will divorce her immediately,” Eleanor repeated, pointing a gloved finger at me. “And you will cast her out, along with those three orphans she brought into my family’s estate.”

“No,” Nathan said.

“If you refuse, I will walk into the board meeting on Thursday morning with that birth certificate,” she said. “I will hand it to Arthur.”

She took another step toward the desk, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor where the Persian rug ended.

“They will strip you of your title before the market closes,” she said. “An adopted child has no legal claim to the family trust under the original bylaws of my father’s company.”

I felt the air leave my lungs.

My siblings, Johnny, Paul, and Lily, were sleeping upstairs in the guest wing.