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Chapter 1

Adelaide Mason glanced down at the outfit she always wore when her father was around—cream-colored skirt, white blouse, and beige pantyhose—with a feeling of emptiness. Satisfied that her father would not complain, she pulled on her black pumps before heading downstairs. In the kitchen, she found her nanny, Marianne, fussing over plates of Chicken Marsala.

Most days, Adelaide’s mouth would be watering at the sight, but with her father coming home, she’d lost her appetite. She watched Marianne’s flowery dress and beige apron shift over her plump, pear-shaped body, gaining a small amount of comfort from it. a small tug of comfort filled Adelaide at the familiar sight. Marianne’s pale skin and thick, silvery hair played nicely against the fabric. The small flowers on her dress and the stormy blue in her eyes were identical. Marianne straightened and untied her apron from around her waist. A gentle smile curved her lips seeing Adelaide as she removed her apron from around her neck.

“You look beautiful, dear.” Marianne said, trying to lighten the tension filling the house. She laid the apron down on the counter, stepping in front of Adelaide. She turned Adelaide’s head side-to-side, checking the bun her long, dark hair was twisted into. Her gentle eyes filled with pride after examining her skin-toned makeup as well. “Would you like anything from the store?” asked Marianne. “I’m thinking of running out for a bit.”

Adelaide’s hopes rose and she straightened. “Can I go with you? I can help.”
Marianne’s eyebrows pulled down, and her tone changed to that of a parent speaking to a small child. “I know you would try, but sweetie, you’ve never been and—”

“That’s not my fault!”

Marianne put up her hand. “I know that. Everyone has sheltered you and even though I don’t agree with it, I’m at fault too.” She gave Adelaide a sad smile. “Besides, you know you can’t leave with your father coming home. He expects you to be waiting for him and dressed in ‘appropriate’ attire.” Marianne put up her fingers to show quotation marks as she rolled her eyes. “What girl needs makeup and pinned up hair to be near their father?”

Adelaide folded her arms over her chest and gritted her teeth. “At least you get to hide from him.”

Marianne gave her a sympathetic smile. “It’s part of your punishment for being his only child. He loved your mother so much. He just doesn’t want to see you get hurt like her. He wasn’t always this testy, but I’m pretty sure that glare of his is what makes him such a great lawyer. He could cause a serial killer to wet his pants.”

Adelaide giggled. “I’m glad you’re here, even though you and Dad don’t get along.” Adelaide blinked back tears. “Mom used to help calm him down.”

Marianne patted her shoulder. “Adela was a good girl. I’m grateful to her for ensuring my permanent employment here before she died. If she hadn’t, I’d have missed seeing you grow into the beautiful, strong, young woman you are today.”

Adelaide scoffed, rolling her eyes. “I’m anything, but strong. I try so hard to be the perfect daughter so he won’t lock me in my room and throw away the key, but I can’t keep my mouth shut half the time.”

“I think you do quite well for a young woman of twenty. You hold your tongue the best you can and when you can’t, you have an outburst. There are times I want to ring his neck, but then I remember you need me. That always helps me from saying anything.” Marianne straightened her posture and squeezed Adelaide’s shoulders. “Just keep trying to deal with him the best you can. If you keep pushing him, he’ll end up doing what he did the last time.”

Adelaide shuddered at the memory of being locked in her room for an entire day when she was nine. She could only leave the room to go to the bathroom and her meals had been brought to her. “I hate living here. Why do I have to stay while everyone else gets to experience life?”

She shook her head. “You’ll get out of here one day. You just have to be patient.”

“My patience is wearing thin.” Adelaide muttered.

“What about the college…”

Marianne’s sentence cut short with the sound of the front door opening. They cringed at Richard Mason’s voice calling out to them. Marianne grabbed the two plates off the counter. “We’ll discuss this later when he leaves.” she said in a low voice walking towards the dining room. “If he didn’t go on business trips so much, I’d shoot myself.”

Adelaide stared blankly at the wall in front of her. She knew it would aggravate him if she kept him waiting, but she also knew that he’d only scold her for it. Richard Mason didn’t hold back on some things. Luckily, for her, she could get away with this minor disobedience. Ever since her mother died, she’d learned to dread alone time with her father. Adelaide looked down at her nails, listening to her father and Marianne’s muffled voices in the dining room. Two minutes later, Marianne was marching back into the room.

“Would you get out there before he chews my head off?” she huffed. “The sooner you get in there, the sooner he’ll leave.”

Taking a few deep breaths, Adelaide brushed her hands over her clothes to straighten them. She walked into the formal dining room holding her head high. She saw her father check his Rolex for probably the millionth time since his arrival. Wrinkles creased his long face and stern jaw line. At 45, his hair was already white and receding from all the years of hard work.

“I’m sorry for making you wait,” Adelaide said, compelling her sincere voice to appear. She sat down at the table next to him.

Richard cut into his chicken. “So you keep telling me.”

Still not hungry, Adelaide looked down at her lunch. She thought back to her conversation with Marianne in the kitchen. She’d lost the college application not long after she’d received it. Even now, she didn’t think she had the courage to fill it out. She glanced up at her father. He was well connected in the world. If she ran, he’d find her. As much as she wanted to get away, she loved her father for the man that he used to be. She couldn’t force herself to leave and make things worse between them when he was all the family she had left. Leaving without his permission would definitely make their relationship more strained. It didn’t matter. The application was gone, along with the only thing she had left of her mother.

Richard released a deep, nasally sigh, bringing Adelaide out of her thoughts. “What is it?”

Adelaide wrinkled her forehead. “I beg your pardon?”

He chewed the food in his mouth and swallowed before speaking again. “Your behavior has worsen in the last nine months. Obviously you’re still angry over our discussion of you moving out.”

She surveyed him through long eyelashes, forcing herself to take calming breaths. “There never was a discussion. I said I wanted to go to college as a normal person and you said no.”

“Well, now I’m going to offer you a compromise.”
Her father’s unusually calm appearance and lack of eye contact irked her. Richard preferred eye contact. He’d told her years ago that everything could be read through one’s eyes, you just had to look deep enough. She tensed knowing whatever came next had him preparing for the worst.

“Mitch has become quite partial to you.” He continued. “If you marry him and give up your college dreams, I’ll let you move out.”

Her eyes widened. Mitch was a tall, lanky man with short, neatly-kept blond hair. He had a long face like her father’s, and his pale skin was in desperate need of sunlight. Not to mention the lame suit and tie he always sported, just like her father. In her raging shock, all she could process to say was, “What?”

Richard cleared his throat and, finally, looked over at her. “At lunch today, I gave Mitch my blessing to marry you. Now, you must decide if you’d rather stay here forever or go with him.”

Her nose flared. “That’s not a compromise!” Adelaide’s voice jumped an octave in her inability to control her temper. “That’s a choice between which hell I want to live in!”

“Watch your mouth.” He said. His voice was stern, but calm. “I do not see why you’re so upset about this. You wanted to go to college to get out on your own, correct? Marrying Mitch is no different.”

Adelaide’s blood pressure rose with the trembling of her body. The words that came out were a bare whisper unlike the eruption of emotions churning inside of her. “You know nothing about me. You don’t even care enough to try.” She lifted her blue eyes to meet his. “You’ve kept me as a prisoner here most of my life. To you, I’m just an object.”

“Do not be so dramatic, Adelaide.” Richard laid his napkin on the table and stood to walk out. "Mitch will be here at seven o’clock to pick you up for dinner. He will propose, and it is in your best interest to accept. You need someone that can take care of you, and Mitch is that man.”

Adelaide raised her chin, her mouth twisting in disgust unaware of the chandelier above the center of the table shaking and flickering. “Mitch is a peacock.”

“Stop this at once, Adelaide, before someone gets hurt. Be reasonable. Mitch is a good man, and he knows the ins and outs of my firm—”

Adelaide narrowed her eyes. “So, you want the person that inherits all your belongings—your firms, your house, me—to be a lawyer like you.” She scoffed. “You’re as disgusting as him.”

He pointed a bony finger at her. “It’s time you grew up and stopped pretending that life outside these walls is just butterflies and roses. I know what I’m doing is right and one day, you’ll thank me for it.”

She heard him pull the front door closed after he retreated. As if a gun went off in her head, Adelaide jumped to her feet. The chair she was sitting in slammed back into the wall, shattering. Seconds later, the crystal chandelier above the table exploded in front of her. She threw her hands up to shield her face from the glass hurtling towards her. She waited for the noise around her to dissipate before she lowered her arms. Glancing around, she found glass from the chandelier everywhere. But on her. How was that possible?

Marianne rushed into the room. She let out a sigh, taking in the damage and placing a hand on her pudgy hip. “So that was the noise I heard.”

Adelaide furrowed her eyebrows. “I thought you went to the store?”

“I was about to leave, but I had a feeling you needed me, so I decided not to go.” Marianne glanced around the room. “I’ll have to clean this up, but would you like to talk first?”

Adelaide shook her head and dragged herself upstairs. Her eyes were glossy with thoughts as she climbed the stairs and ambled down the corridor to the right. Living in this house since she was born, Adelaide could walk around blindfolded without fumbling. Every time she felt as if her emotions were going to overwhelm her, something bad happened. Richard constantly told her to keep her emotions in check or she’d hurt someone. Why did everyone seem to know something that she didn’t? She felt like she was living in an alternate universe, a bad dream. Unfortunately, she could never seem to wake up from it.

Adelaide leaned back against her bedroom door, letting in click closed in her daze. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. Her bad dream was turning into a nightmare from hell. Marry snobby Mitch or be a prisoner forever… Neither suited her spirit. She felt like a bird in need of flying free, but with clipped wings. She needed something more. Images of having friends and enjoying college life, maybe even a boyfriend, flowed through her mind. A smile curved her lips as her heart squeezed. She was already two year behind the rest of her class in getting to college, but she doubted any were married. They would be enjoying their youth, not planning to be tied down to someone that they didn’t even like.

Sighing, she stepped away from the door and dropped down on the edge of her bed. Out of her peripheral, she saw something on her nightstand. Wide-eyed, she pushed off the bed. In place of her alarm clock and bedside lamp sat a white envelope and a medium wooden box. How did that get there? Adelaide’s eyes scanned the room. Nothing else was out of place. She picked up the letter for a closer look, noticing no stamp or address written on it. It only had her name on the front. In her mother’s handwriting.

Marianne had given her the letter on her twentieth birthday. Then she’d lost it and the box. How were they suddenly lying on her nightstand again? Keeping her eyes glued to the envelope, she sat down in the white lawn chair on her balcony. With a heavy heart, she opened the letter.

Adelaide,
My beautiful daughter, I am sure your father has told you little of my family. It may be hard to understand, but he does it because he wants to protect you. Unfortunately, no one can protect you from what is coming. It is time for you to know the truth. Those parts of your life, like my death, that seem disoriented and wrong, are not. If you try hard enough, all that we have hidden from you will return. It’s your destiny. All these strange things are happening for a reason. Trusting your instincts will help you overcome your fears and everything will begin to make sense. Fill out the college application in this letter and give it to Marianne. Don’t worry about saying anything to your father. He’ll know where you are without you telling him. You have a rare gift that will help you survive, but in order to keep them, you must return home before your 21st birthday. I have sent a guardian to help you along the way. You will remember him when he comes to get you.
Love always,
Your mother

P.S. Do you remember the story I used to tell you before bed? This story is very important for your future, and you must hold it close to your heart.


Hundreds of questions ran through her mind, but she forced them down by closing her eyes and taking a shaky breath. She looked back down at the letter. This was her mother’s wish. Adelaide couldn’t deny the pull she felt towards discovering what her mother meant, but just like before, she was afraid to leave. This was all she knew. Going out on her own would be reckless and dangerous. But could she risk waiting any longer? Her father expected her to accept Mitch’s proposal. Even if she refused, she knew her father would bring it up again. As a prestige lawyer, Richard never gave up easily on what he believed in. He was a great lawyer. Not the best parent.

When Adelaide had asked Marianne about what the letter meant, she’d only gotten a, “you’ll go when its time” speech. It made no sense to her why the letter went missing or why it was suddenly back, but she did know that she couldn’t ignore it.

Adelaide walked back inside and pulled the college application from its envelope. She sat down at her desk. She didn’t want to marry Mitch and it was time she gave up on her hopes of her father changing his mind. It was time she took part of his advice. It was time for her to grow up and make her own decisions. Good or bad, she had to make a change. She just hoped everything went according to plan before her “I do’s.”

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