Page 76 of These Summer Storms

She didn’t need this. Or them. Or the money. She had a life. Friends. A future. The inheritance wouldn’t do anything for Alice but ruin what she’d built for herself.

With it, she would always be Alice Storm Inc. Without it…maybe she would find someone to love her for more than her name. To appreciate her for more than the requirements of her birth. For more than what she could give, unlike this roomful of people who couldn’t do anything but take.

You aren’t exactly part of the family anymore.

No one had corrected Elisabeth.

Get the hell off my island.

No one had stopped Franklin.

Nothing had changed.

She might have walked out then and there, if Greta hadn’t taken that moment to speak to the floor, the words soft and broken. “Please, Alice.” Her sister lifted her gaze, and Alice saw it all—the sorrow, the grief, the frustration, the loss. Greta, whose task was the worst of the bunch. Greta, who’d never been able to walk away. Greta, who was wrecked.

For a heartbeat, unable to look away from the tableau, her sister in the foreground, and that fucking Picasso in the background, Alice wondered if they were all wrecked…a little bit…in their own way.

“Please,” Greta repeated, softly, something in the word, as though she knew she’d disappointed Alice and still was asking for help. She didn’t have to say the rest. Alice heard it anyway.

Stay.

A beat, before she nodded. Offering Greta an anchor. Because they were sisters. And it was what sisters did. At least, it was what Alice had always imagined they did. In normal families.

Whatever they were like.

Chapter

12

It might have beenfive years since Alice had been an officially recognized member of the Storm family, but she knew the basics of the job, including an essential one: When the Secret Service was coming to the house, you looked sharp.

She descended the central staircase an hour later, having used the ancient hairdryer and applied actual mascara to discover her mother, Claudia, and the rest of the Storm siblings huddled together in a way that could only be described as suspicious. As far as Alice could tell, they were looking at a painting on the wall of the foyer, which was odd on a normal day, let alone on a day when several presidents’ security details were on their way.

“What are we doing?” Alice asked, before Greta shot her a meaningful look and tilted her head toward Elisabeth.

Their mother was standing very still, staring at a painting that had hung in the rear of the foyer since before Alice was born, a Belle Époque oil of autumn in Arles, all golden poplars and sarcophagi. Elisabeth was flanked by Emily and Greta, with Sam a few feet away, leaning againstthe wall, framed by classic Victorian blue (cobalt) and mahogany wainscoting.

“Mom?” Alice prompted, confusion flaring when Elisabeth did not reply. Looking to Greta, Alice asked, “What happened?”

“Do you know why your father succeeded so well in business?” Elisabeth asked, dreamily, riveted to the painting. She didn’t wait for a reply, instead speaking to the tiny dark-clad people on the dirt path in the painting. “He behaved as though nothing mattered. No wonder people threw millions at him. He was endlessly compelling in his belief that everything would simply…happen. Like he could will it.” A pause, and then she looked to Alice. “Not you, though, Alice. He couldn’t will you to do anything. Hello.”

Weird.“Hi?”

Elisabeth looked back to the painting and spoke to the poplars. “Trees are very soothing.”

“What on earth?” Alice asked, meeting her siblings’ shocked expressions. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” Elisabeth said.

“Something is very wrong with you,” Alice replied.

“I think I shall take a walk,” Elisabeth said. “Maybe a swim.”

Greta let out a high-pitched half laugh that might have been pure panic. She was having a bad day. “Um. The Secret Service is coming for a security sweep. And Dad’s team from the company is coming for prep and pregame. We’ve got a list a mile long, Mom. Two hundred very important people here tomorrow, remember?” Greta said. “You can’t go for a swim.”

“You say that like it’s a product launch,” Alice said.

“It kind of is, if you think about it,” Sam said at a distance.