After I was born, she gave the pendant to me.
After the accident, I placed it around her neck and prayed it would keep her safe. It stayed there until the day she died.
And now it was a gift from my father to Julie.
"That belonged to my mother!"
"She's dead. What good is a pendant to a corpse?" My father shot me a cold glare. "Giving it to Julie is an honor it doesn't deserve."
He draped it around Julie's neck as he spoke.
Blood rushed to my head. I stared at him and forced every word through clenched teeth. "Do you even know whose child she's carrying?"
His expression froze. His eyes darted away.
That reaction told me everything.
He knew the baby was Piers's. And he'd been helping them deceive me.
"Daddy, I don't need it, really..." Julie's eyes reddened as she reached to take the pendant off.
Piers caught her hand to stop her, then turned to me with a look of reproach. "Geraldine, can't you just behave yourself?"
"Behave?" I laughed. "You steal my dead mother's keepsake, and I'm the one who needs to behave?"
I couldn't hold back any longer. I reached out and snatched the pendant back.
But my father grabbed the silk cord and yanked it hard.