“I don’t know. Maybe here. I could work as a stylist for someone. I’m still good at hair.”

“I always wondered why you stopped.”

“I’m probably an embarrassment to the great Olivia Han. A sister who can’t even keep a job cutting hair. But you know, you can’t pretend your past or the people who once lived in it away. You changed your name. There’s so much wrong with what you’ve done, how you live. You help others deal with their pasts, but you don’t deal with your own. Instead you send us a check and pretend us away. Dad served his time and you won’t even talk to him. Aren’t you supposed to face the crap in life? You seem to think you shouldn’t.”

Those words weren’t true. Yes, she sent her mother a check each month, but it wasn’t merely to mollify her mother or soothe Olivia’s conscience. It was because her mother had severe rheumatoid arthritis and could no longer work. It was because Neve couldn’t seem to hold down a decent-paying job. It was because Olivia now had more than enough money and wanted to share it with her family—the only two she had left, not counting the father she’d written out of her life. Even if her mother and sister were . . .

Her thoughts had started down a horrible path.

Different.

Trouble.

A burden.

“I don’t do that,” she managed to say.

Neve turned away from her. “Then why don’t you ever visit us? Why do you pretend we don’t exist? Mom and I know. We know. We hear it in the words you say to us.”

Her sister’s words tore at her. She’d never thought they wanted her around. The rare times she visited, both her mother and sister seemed nonchalant about the expensive pastries she brought, the conversation she tried to make, the stories she told. Olivia no longer felt like a part of her family. Most of the time she felt cut loose. “I don’t mean to make you feel that way, Neve. I’m sorry.”

Her sister swallowed and glanced away, but Olivia didn’t miss the sheen of tears in Neve’s eyes. The sight made her feel sick. Neve walked toward the kitchen. “I have to call Mom and check on her.”

Neve left Olivia standing in the foyer devoid of her normal composure.

She’d made her mother and sister feel small.

By her words. Her actions. Her charity.

She had never wished to do that.

The door opened and Chase appeared, looking very unlike the sullen, defensive actress she’d first encountered at the rehab center. The woman wore tight jeans, rubber boots, a flannel shirt five sizes too big for her, and a smile that made her blue eyes dance.