A Reborn Bride Pearl Emerging from Dust by Sally Garcia

"Lisette, since you brought it up, we'll just be honest with you," Horatio said, not bothering to sugarcoat it.

"Yeah, we've already moved your stuff into the smaller room. We thought you'd put up a fight, honestly. Didn't expect you to go along with it so easily. That's great!” He nodded, as if this was a perfectly reasonable arrangement.

Valerian chimed in, "From now on, you'll have the small room. Horatio's room will go to Callie. It's not really fair for Horatio to squeeze in there, so you two are swapping."

"Lisette, you're so mature about all this," Monty added, looking at her with what he probably thought was a proud, fatherly smile. "We should've checked with you first, though. You're not upset, are you?"

Lisette just stood there. Upset? Was she even allowed to say she was upset? She wasn't their real daughter. She knew that if she acted out of line, they'd just see her as ungrateful.

She forced a smile, though she felt sick inside. "Of course not. Why would I be upset? It makes sense for Callie to have the bigger room. I'm just grateful you all took me in at all. I mean, I'm adopted, having a small room is no big deal."

of sympathy from any of them. But no one's

soft and a little shaky, "Honestly, I'm the adopted one. I probably shouldn't even be living here. If

known it'd be like this, maybe you wouldn't have adopted me. Then things would be

looked at Callie,

whisper. "I'm sorry, Callie. This is really my fault. Don't blame Dad and my brothers for being kind to me. It's just... they felt bad for me because I didn't have a

it always made Monty and the boys feel guilty, like they owed

Monty and the others were starting to look a little guilty, Callie finally spoke up, voice sharp from her spot on the

family hasn't been good

being adopted? Haven't we all treated you like family? Or is that still not enough? What do

least treat us like it. Even blood relatives don't always go this far. You act like nothing we