“Acting, yes. The spotlight, no. Your mother was a very private person, Olivia. She never wanted all the attention. The two of you are very similar in that way.”
The revelation was almost too much to process. Olivia had spent her life believing her mother loved the glitz and glamour of the spotlight—that the two of them had nothing in common because she was an introvert who’d rather die than be on camera. And here she was, finding out her mother was so similar, she was going to give up her career to raise her daughter away from the public eye.
“Grandma…”
Ruby sniffled, and Olivia would have given anything to wrap her in a hug. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. You deserve to know everything you want about your parents—both of them.”
It sounded like an open invitation, and Olivia wasn’t sure she was prepared to go from a handful of biased facts to unlimited knowledge. It might drown her.
She tucked her knees to her chest. She felt like a child. “Was my dad—” She didn’t know how to say it other than bluntly ask what she wanted to know. “Was he a good guy?”
“Darling, your father was a prince. He worshipped the ground your mother walked on and would have done anything for you.”
A vision of the famed tabloid photo of her father with his arm out shielding her and her mother appeared in her mind, and for the first time ever, she saw it in a new light.
They were a family, not a scandal.
Her heart filled and ached at the same time.
“Too bad everyone thinks the opposite,” she said with a bitterness that surprised herself. Astrid Larsson, the angelic victim, had suddenly been recast as the villain in this story.
“Yes,” Ruby agreed without Olivia having to voice her thoughts. “Astrid knows the truth of it all, and only she has the power to clear their names like they deserve. Your mother confided the truth in me but told no one else. And with the way her name’s been tarnished, no one is ever going to believe anything I say either. The silence has eaten me alive for decades. At least the public has stopped paying so much attention to it.”
Olivia felt like her head had been unscrewed, had all its contents shaken up, and then been put back on. “Until now.”
“Until now,” Ruby said. “Interest ebbs and flows like with any scandal, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it has spiked again now that you are in the spotlight.”
Olivia chewed her lip, feeling emotions that had her wantingto run away from the storm as much as she wanted to run straight into it. “This interview that the producers want me to do, what do you think my mother would think?”
Ruby paused and took a pensive breath. “I think your mother would be happy to have the truth told about her life and her love, but I also think she’d leave the decision of inviting the spotlight by sharing it up to you.”
Olivia considered. “And my father? What would he think?”
“He’d think whatever your mother thought. Like I said: smitten.” Olivia heard the smile in her grandmother’s voice and couldn’t help the small smile that curved her own lips.
“Thank you for telling me all this, Grandma.”
“Of course, my dear. I’m sorry I kept it from you for so long.”
She’d given Olivia plenty to think about. When they ended their call with promises to check in again next week, Olivia decided to make another call.
She wandered over to the back wall of the property near the pool house. The camera crew might not have been there that day, but the ceiling and outdoor cameras were still active. She now had two reasons to call her trusted resource, and she didn’t want either of them getting caught on camera.
“Hey there,” Mansi answered after a few rings.
“Hey,” Olivia greeted her. “What are you up to?”
“Oh, you know. Out to brunch with myself because my best friend is imprisoned with her ex.”
Sounds of chatter and clinking dishware leaked through the phone. Olivia assumed Mansi was dining outside both because she heard a car go by and because her friend was too classy to answer her phone in the middle of an indoor restaurant.
“Don’t tell me you’re at—”
“The sidewalk place in Santa Monica with the hot waiters? Sure am.”
“Ugh.Have a mimosa for me.”
“I’ve had three.”