A Lie Unraveled by Constance Masters Page A

will make mistakes, and you’re going to be able to count on your family to get through them. That’s what we have to do now, we have to get through all this together, as a family.”
    Destiny had never felt so much love for Justin as she did at that moment. She could see Sophia at least digesting what he’d said. “All I can say is, honey, I’m sorry.”
    Sophia didn’t look at her mother but at Justin. “So this Lily-Grace person at school, the goody two-shoes, this makes her my sister, right?”
    “Ah, yes it does,” Justin said.
    “Does she know about me?”
    “She does now. I just told her tonight. She was excited actually.”
    “She was?” Destiny asked. That made her happy, as happy as she could be with her daughter giving her daggers every time she spoke. “Maybe we could all have dinner some time.”
    “So we’re going to play happy families?”
    “Would that be such a bad thing?”
    Sophia shrugged. “Why was Lily-Grace excited?”
    “She has always wanted a big sister, now she has one.”
    “Oh, I guess it would be okay to meet her at least but I don’t want it to be at school, maybe I better stay home tomorrow and the next couple of days until we meet up on the weekend or something.”
    “Nice try. You have to go to school,” Justin said. “How about, if your mom agrees, we swing by and pick up Lily-Grace and we all go out for ice-cream?”
    Sophia smiled at Justin but refused to look at her mother. “She won’t mind; why don’t you ask her what she thinks.”
    In normal circumstances, Justin would have liked to have told the little girl that she wasn’t going at all if she was going to be rude to her mother but these were not usual circumstances and the child was genuinely hurt. Baby steps. “You’d like to meet Lily-Grace wouldn’t you, Desi?”
    “I’d love to,” she said, her love fading a little as she saw Justin become the hero and her slipping into wicked witch mode. Maybe he had a plan.
    “You might want to go and put on some jeans or something though, Des, it’s a bit cool out there tonight.”
    “Good idea,” she said. At least that was something. Would Sophia hate her even more if she redid her makeup? She just might have to take the risk. No need to scare off Lily-Grace. God knows what else that poor child was going to have thrown at her tonight.
    * * *
    Sophia hadn’t said two words to her the whole way to the house. Destiny was riding shotgun with Justin and her daughter was in the back. She wanted to ask her what would fix this but knew that not only would Justin hit the roof if she were to try and buy her way out of Sophia’s bad books but it would be wrong. It was her fault that this had all happened and there wasn’t a way to wash away the hurt with a bribe. The best thing she could do at the moment was to ignore the ignoring and show Soph that things would be okay; they would all be okay, maybe even better in the end. Who knew? The car stopped outside Justin’s childhood home and Destiny felt like her life was spinning backwards. “We’re here,” she said.
    “That we are.” He squeezed her hand and turned to talk to Sophia. “How about we go in and you can meet Lily-Grace inside? There’s someone else who’s dying to meet you as well.”
    “Who?”
    “My mom, yours and Lily-Grace’s grandma would love to meet you.”
    “Okay,” she said, undoing her seat belt.
    “I might just wait in the car,” Destiny said. She could only take one important person hating her in one day. Justin’s mother must be furious to find she had hidden another of her granddaughters away all these years.
    “Nope, whatever we do now, we have to do as a family,” he said. “May as well start now.”
    Destiny still didn’t move, until Justin opened the door and undid her seat belt. Like she was five. Then she realized. She was the mother; if Soph had to do this, the least she could do was be right beside her. She climbed out of the car and took a deep breath; they