Passionate Proposals: Saying Yes to the Boss. Andrea Laurence

real family we ever had. Our aunt Gerty died a long time ago, and she wasn’t really related to us. Losing Mom, we lost any connection we have to our roots. It’s been a difficult realization for us all.”

      “I understand what that can be like,” Georgia said without elaborating. “Did your mother ever speak about her family or your father to you?”

      “Rarely, and when we pushed her, nothing she said was good. She insisted that our father was abusive and she ran away from him in the middle of the night when we were still babies. She never would tell us where we lived before, his name or anything about the past. She made it very clear that she didn’t want us to find him when we were older.”

      “That must be frustrating for you all,” Georgia noted. “Wanting to belong, yet having that fear that the truth would be worse than being alone.”

      “Exactly,” Carson said with surprise in his voice. He didn’t expect her to be able to understand it all so easily. “Brooks and Graham want me to look for clues in the house. They seem convinced that the answers are hidden away somewhere. I’m not so sure, but I told them I would look. It’s our last chance at the truth. The rest died with Mom.”

      That was probably the hardest part. Carson had gotten the feeling that maybe one day their mother might tell them the rest of the story. They weren’t children anymore. She had nothing to fear from her past because the boys could protect her, no matter what. Cynthia probably thought she had time to share the whole tale about where they came from, and then it was stolen away in an instant.

      “I’ll help you find out the truth,” Georgia said.

      As Carson exited the expressway and headed toward the house in Kenilworth, he found himself nearly overwhelmed with gratitude that she was here with him. That she understood. “Thank you” was all he could verbalize.

      “I don’t know my real family, either,” she offered. “I grew up in the Detroit foster care system because my mother was a teenage runaway. She got into drugs and a lot of other nasty things and they took me away. I have no idea who my father is or anything about my family. My father’s name was left off the birth certificate. I don’t even know for certain that my last name is really Adams. She could’ve just picked that name out of the sky. Not having that link to your past and where you come from can make you feel like discarded paper drifting on the wind.”

      Carson was surprised by her confession, but it made a lot of the pieces of the Georgia puzzle fall into place. Maybe that’s why he was so drawn to her. They were both lost, anchorless. “Have you kept contact with your mother at all over the years?”

      “No,” she said, shaking her head and looking down into her hands folded in her lap. “I haven’t seen her since I was three and social services came for me. I wouldn’t really even know what she looked like if my caseworker, Sheila, hadn’t given me an old photo of her. I keep it in my purse.” Georgia reached for her bag and pulled out the photo.

      Carson turned in to his mother’s driveway just as she handed over the picture. He put the car in Park and studied the worn photograph. The blonde girl in the picture was holding a towheaded toddler. She looked very young, not more than fifteen or sixteen. The late ’80s influences were evident in her big hair and heavy makeup, which didn’t hide the dark circles under her eyes or the hollowed-out cheeks. There were purple track marks on the girl’s arm.

      “I think she looked a lot like me, but thinner. Harder. There wasn’t much life in her eyes by that point. Aside from that, I don’t have any memories of her that really stayed with me. I just remember the homes.”

      In that moment, Carson was extremely thankful to his mother for everything she’d done for him and his brothers. They hadn’t had much, but she’d done all she could to keep them safe and healthy. Georgia hadn’t been so lucky. He handed the photo back to her. “Did you move around a lot?”

      Georgia chuckled bitterly as she put the picture away. “You could say that. It was a blessing and a curse. If the family was horrible, I had the solace of knowing I wouldn’t be there long. If they were amazing and kind, I would cry every night knowing that eventually I would have to leave. The only constant in my life was Sheila. In a way, she became my family. She’s the one that helped me get into college by helping me write a million scholarship essays. She insisted that I make something of myself.”

      “That was my aunt Gerty for us. She took us in after her husband died and made us her family. When she passed away, she left enough money for my brothers and me to go to college and start our business. Our mother insisted that we become the best version of ourselves we could possibly be. Without that kick start, I’m not sure what would’ve become of us. Everything we are is because of my mother and Gerty.”

      Georgia reached out in that moment and took his hand. Her touch was warm and enveloping, like a comforting blanket. They sat for a moment in the driveway, silently acknowledging all that they’d shared.

      His mother’s home stood like a monolith in front of them. Inside were all the memories, secrets and emotions of her life. Going inside felt like disturbing her grave somehow.

      “Are you ready?” Georgia prompted him after a few minutes.

      “No, but let’s go inside anyway.”

      They climbed from his Range Rover and walked together toward the front door. Carson unlocked it and they stepped into the tile foyer. The house had always seemed so warm and welcoming before, but now it was cold and silent like a tomb. His mother had given it life.

      “Where should we start?”

      Carson looked around and pointed toward the staircase. “Let’s focus on her bedroom. If she was keeping any kind of secrets, I think that’s where they’d be.”

      “Okay.” Georgia started for the stairs, but paused and turned back when Carson didn’t follow her. Her gray eyes questioned him.

      Thank goodness she was here. He wouldn’t even have made it this far without her prompting. It was better this way. Get it done, get it over with. If Carson didn’t find anything about their family history, so be it. At least he and his brothers could move on with their lives. “I’m coming.”

      Georgia reached out her hand to him until he took it. “My past may be buried forever, but we’re going to find your family, Carson. I can feel it.”

       Five

      Carson was getting discouraged. They’d gone through almost everything in his mother’s bedroom. Drawer by drawer, box by box, they’d sorted through for any personal effects and then bagged the remaining items up. Some clothes and accessories were for donation, some things were for the dump, and others, like her jewelry, were to be split up among the brothers.

      Hours had gone by without a single discovery of interest. No skeletons under the bed, no dark secrets hidden away in the underwear drawer. They’d checked the pocket of every coat and the contents of each old purse. Nothing but used tubes of lipstick and some faded receipts. All that was left was a collection of shoe boxes on the very top shelf of the closet.

      Carson eyed the boxes with dismay. They were likely to find nothing but shoes in them. Most of the boxes seemed like fairly new acquisitions from her life after he and his brothers had made their fortune—Stuart Weitzman, Jimmy Choo, Christian Louboutin... But one box caught his eye. On the very top of the stack, in the far back corner, was a ratty old box with a faded and curling Hush Puppies label on it. There was no doubt that box had been around in his mother’s closet for a very long time. Maybe even thirty years or so...

      “There’s a shoe box in the very back corner that looks promising,” Carson said. Looking around, he was annoyed to find that it was out of his reach even with his height and long arms. “How can my mother not own a stepladder or something? I guess I’ll run downstairs and get a chair.”

      “No,” Georgia insisted. “I’m sure I can reach it. I just need