Samantha Collins learned very young that there were different ways to belong to a family.
There was the way her sisters belonged, with framed photographs on the grand staircase, embroidered initials on silk robes, birthday dinners planned months in advance, and closets that expanded every season.
Then there was the way Samantha belonged.
She knew where the extra dish soap was stored.
She knew which setting on the washing machine protected her mother's silk pillowcases.
She knew Charlotte hated mushrooms, Olivia drank coffee with two pumps of vanilla but claimed she took it black when guests were around, and her mother wanted fresh white roses in the breakfast room every Monday before eight.
She knew how to polish silver without scratching it, how to remove wine from cream upholstery, how long salmon could stay under a warming lamp before it dried out, and which upstairs bathroom faucet had to be turned slightly to the left or it would drip all night.
Samantha knew the mansion better than anyone who lived there.
That did not mean anyone treated it as her home.
The Collins estate stood on a bluff above the Pacific outside Santa Barbara, California, an enormous white-stone mansion wrapped in balconies, gardens, fountains, and windows designed to catch the ocean at sunset. People driving along the coastal road sometimes slowed merely to look at it.
Tourists occasionally mistook it for a resort.
Visitors always complimented the chandeliers.
Nobody saw Samantha at six in the morning carrying laundry down the back staircase.
On the morning of her twentieth birthday, she woke before her alarm because someone was pounding on her bedroom door.
“Samantha!”
Victoria Collins never knocked once.
She struck doors until people answered.
Samantha opened her eyes and stared at the pale ceiling above the narrow bed.
Her bedroom was not really a bedroom.
The mansion had thirteen proper bedrooms, including six guest suites that were empty most of the year.
Samantha slept in what had once been the upstairs seamstress room beside the service staircase.
It contained a single bed, one dresser, a desk she had bought secondhand, and a window overlooking the roof of the garage instead of the ocean.
“Samantha!”
“I’m awake.”
“Then why am I standing here?”
Samantha sat up.
The clock read 5:41.
She opened the door.
Her mother stood outside wearing a cream silk robe and slippers trimmed with feathers. At fifty-five, Victoria Collins was still an extraordinarily elegant woman. Her short silver-gray hair was always perfectly shaped. She carried herself like somebody perpetually entering a room where everyone else had been waiting for her.
She looked Samantha up and down.
“You’re not dressed.”
“It’s five forty.”
“The florists arrive at six.”
“They have staff.”
“And I have you.”
There it was.
Samantha glanced toward the hallway.
“Mom, it’s my birthday.”
Victoria’s expression did not change.
“I’m aware.”
Samantha waited.
Nothing followed.
No happy birthday.
No smile.
Not even the uncomfortable half-hug Victoria occasionally performed for photographs.
Instead her mother said, “The blue-and-white china needs to be moved from the morning room into storage. Olivia wants gold for dinner tonight.”
Samantha swallowed.
“Dinner?”
“Yes.”
“You’re having people over?”
Victoria sighed impatiently.
“Did you not hear a word anyone said yesterday?”
Samantha had heard plenty.
She had simply hoped she misunderstood.
For the past two weeks, the mansion had been preparing for an elaborate dinner honoring Olivia and Charlotte.
Both were twenty-four, born eleven months apart because Victoria had somehow turned competitive motherhood into a scheduling achievement. They were not twins, though strangers often assumed they were because Victoria dressed them similarly as children and compared them to one another constantly.
Olivia was the elder.
Tall, glamorous, with glossy black hair usually styled in waves and the kind of beauty that made strangers become attentive before she spoke.
Charlotte was softer-featured, equally striking, and more calculating.
Victoria called them her girls.
Samantha was also her daughter.
But she was rarely included in that phrase.
“What is tonight actually for?” Samantha asked.
Victoria looked at her as if the answer should have been obvious.
“Arthur Langford and his son are coming.”
Samantha frowned.
“The hotel family?”
“The Langford family owns more than hotels.”
“I know.”
“Then stop calling them that.”
Victoria pulled the belt of her robe tighter.
“Adrian Langford recently returned from London. He’s thirty-one, unmarried, and now controls his family’s west-coast investment arm.”
Samantha stared.
“And?”
Victoria’s eyes sharpened.
“And one of your sisters may have a future worth discussing if tonight goes well.”
Samantha almost laughed.
“You’re arranging a marriage?”
“Don’t be childish.”
“It sounds pretty arranged.”
“I’m arranging an introduction.”
“You’ve had caterers here for three days for an introduction?”
Victoria’s mouth tightened.
“Some women understand that opportunity should be prepared for.”
Samantha looked down at her bare feet.
“And some women wash the dishes afterward.”
Victoria’s stare went cold.
“You’re starting early today.”
Samantha immediately regretted the comment.
That was how life in the mansion worked.