Chapter 3

The night of Everard Henson's wedding.

My father knocked on my door in the middle of the night.

In the dim light I couldn't quite make out his face.

I could only hear the edge of anxiety in his voice.

"Vivi, why did you stop me from doing a reading? Do you know something?"

I braced myself against the doorframe.

I thought of the last life, of my parents' bitterness before I died.

Even though I was the one born to them.

Even at that final moment, the one still on their minds was Eudora, the adopted daughter.

They regretted ever bringing me home.

I regretted coming back to this family even more.

In the Simmons family, not one person was willing to acknowledge who I was.

In their eyes, Eudora was the true firstborn daughter of the Simmons line.

As if my appearance had stolen everything that should have been hers.

My nose stung, and I pulled in a hard breath.

"I don't know anything. I just don't want to marry Everard Henson."

In the dark, a sigh.

"I just did a reading of your fates."

"Dora, she doesn't have that kind of fortune..."

The streetlight outside the window was faint, but it lit the first-floor hall in a wash of gold.

The life we had now depended on the business dealings with the Hensons.

If I told him the truth about Eudora's fate now.

The Hensons would probably turn on us and pull every cent of our family's investment.

I reached out and caught my father's sleeve.

"You're only a fortune-teller. You can't change fate."

"At a moment like this, if you say the truth out loud, you can imagine how it ends for Eudora and for this family."

The next day, Eudora brought Everard back for the first visit home.

The same false smile hung on Eudora's face.

"Sis, from now on, wherever I am, could you just stay out of the way? You know what kind of fate you carry, and you still want to live under the same roof as me. Isn't that a little much?"

I said nothing and lifted my cup for a sip.

Everard smiled and smoothed it over.

"Come now, today's the day Vivi married that unlucky brother of mine. How could we not come home?"

"We could hardly pick up the bride off the side of the road."

Just as the two of them finished their little back-and-forth, the phone on Everard's lap rang at the worst possible moment.

I set my cup down, settling in to watch.

A cursed fate was no empty saying.

On the other end, the voice came fast and tight.

"Young Mr. Henson, this is bad. The project you invested in the other day has lost everything, and you're actually in the hole to other companies for hundreds of millions."

Before that was even sorted out, the line clicked over to another call coming in.

"Young Mr. Henson, come back quick, Mr. Henson collapsed at the pool, a heart attack, he's not going to make it."

Everard's face changed completely. He couldn't get a single word out.

His palm trembled as he listened to the voice on the phone.

I thought that would be where it ended.

I never expected Mrs. Henson's phone to call next.

But the one who spoke wasn't Mrs. Henson.

"Young Mr. Henson, the missus had a car accident on the way to the salon. The car's burned to nothing but scrap."

That last call shattered what was already left of Everard's breaking heart.

He turned to go, and didn't even know where to head first.

Until Eudora calmly caught hold of him.

"Everard, I understand now. It has to be because of Annette."

"Wherever she shows up, something bad is bound to happen."

The two of them turned together, facing straight at me.