Riley woke up earlier than usual and figured that she won't be getting anymore sleep so she decided to roam around the house. To memorize the house from a tiny corner to the attic.
While she was walking around she tried to clear her head. To try to reason with herself why she would seek Vincent's validation.
Maybe it's because she has been validated by everyone in her life and Vincent- her birth father- didn't, maybe that's why she was having mixed reactions. If it was anyone else she wouldn't even bat an eyelash before calling the cops on them.
Who cares if he knew he was 'slightly' neglectful or not? He was neglectful and he should've been aware of what was going on in his house. To his daughter that too.
To her sister that too.
Deep in her thoughts Riley accidentally bumped into someone.
"Watch where you are going." A male voice grumbled out.
"Why don't YOU watch where you're going." Riley said, clutching her nose in pain and looked up at the intruder.
Her eyes widened as she realized who it was. Max, her biological brother. She'd recognize him anywhere having seen him multiple times in events she attended.
He carried himself in a confident way that just made others turn their head towards him when he entered a room.
But he was arrogant, she could say that much with the way he just talked to her.
"You are?" He asked, annoyed with his eyebrow raised.
Riley couldn't believe he didn't recognize her. WTF?
"Lillian." Another voice emerged slightly far away from Max. Unlike Max the voice was merry.
Max didn't break eye contact with Riley and looked at her as if looking deep into her soul.
It spiked up Riley heart rate.
"Your name?" Max said once again, accentuating the two words with slight pause inbetween.
Riley didn't understand his behavior. Why was he doing this? Didn't the woman- that is now standing beside him, looking at him confused- just say her name.
"Ri- Lillian." Riley was shocked when she almost spilled her real name but internally heaved a sigh of relief when she caught herself.
Riley looked at him cautiously, hoping he didn't catch that slip but it was hard to read what he was thinking.
"We heard you lost your memories." He said slowly, folding his arms over his chest.
There was a glint in his eyes, slight anger. She didn't even have to look at his female companion to know that they knew she was lying.
Guess Vincent updated them on what happened.
"Yes, that's right." Riley said making Max clench his jaw.
With that, Max and the woman left her behind and walked straight to God knows where but she managed to catch the woman give her a disapproving look.
Riley sighed. Well, that was intense.
But she noticed that she didn't have mixed feelings about him.
'It really was because he was the first person to treat me so coldly.'
~~~~
The family of five was seated around the dining table and it couldn't have been anymore awkward. The tension in the room could be cut with a knife despite how much ever they tried to ignore it.
"Where's Adrien?" Laura was the first to break the ice. She thought her husband or son didn't know what to say since Lillian showed up out of nowhere all of a sudden.
"He's at school." The female companion- Lucy- answered. Adrien is Lucy and Max's 5 year old child.
"So Lillian." Max said the name in such a way Riley got goosebumps, wondering whether he figured out she wasn't Lillian. "What have you been doing so far?" He asked with a slight smile, as if to appear welcoming but his eyes begged to differ.
"I-" Riley paused thinking about what she should say, should she talk about herself or Lillian. "I'm an accountant." She said settling on Lillian. She was pretending to be Lillian after all.
Laura eyes glowed in excitement when she heard that.
"I was an accountant too. I used to work for your father, he never once noticed me until I had to do quarter year's total and found some cash missing. I talked to my supervisor about it, but he offered me money if I were to keep my mouth shut so I barged into an important meeting your father was holding. It was embarrassing, he then asked me to wait in his office while he ended that meeting. I liked doing the pie charts the most since they were easy, what about you?" Laura rambled on her eyes finding her husband's as they looked at each other warmly.
Riley didn't think Vincent was capable of looking at anyone that warmly then gulped trying to think of an answer. Should she say statistics? No, that's for stock analysis. She didn't even know a thing about accounting!
"Uh yea, but it proved to be harder than I initially thought so now I'm a detective." She said cheerfully and digged into her food so they wouldn't ask anymore questions but she didn't miss the look the father and son duo shared.
They were suspicious.
"Are you free this Thursday?" Vincent asked.
His voice gave goosebumps to Riley.
Riley thought for a second and affirmed she was. She had a masquerade to attend but she doubted her parents would say anything if she missed it.
"Do you wanna come with us to a masquerade ball?"
Riley stopped the hand that was holding the fork to bring a piece of food to her mouth, appearing shocked. She wasn't aware anyone else was holding a ball so it had to her father, but why would he invite Vincent?
"Who is hosting the ball?" She asked in a tight voice which was slightly above a whisper. She couldn't mask her tone since she was shocked her father would do such a thing.
"The Kings'."