I think that you are going to want to be in a better seat to hear what I have to say," Ella said, pointing him back to the chair across from him.

"I'm fine here."

"You won't be." She pointed to the chair across from him and watched as he removed himself from the window ledge and ambled across the room. Ella smiled as he sunk down on the soft cushions propping his head in his hands.

"Thank you. Now, let me explain why I'm here."

The story that she told him was something that he would never have been able to conceive in his head. Goosebumps formed on his arms and by the time that she finished, it felt as if his head would explode. It all started two months after Calista died...

***

New York – Five Years Ago

"Calista, you're up - they're waiting on you," said Ella as she banged on her door. Ella and Calista both worked in the fashion industry in different parts of the country. But for fashion week, Ella would always fly down and help Calista with her show. There was so much noisy activity behind the stage that otherwise, she would not have heard. "Calista, come on."

The door opened, Calista stood disheveled and not dressed. She was wrapped in a red silk robe. Mascara dripped down her face and her eyes were bloodshot and puffy from crying. "My God, Calista, what's wrong?"

Calista fell into her arms and wept. There was no consoling her. Ella held her up and helped her to walk over to the sofa and sit down. She'd never seen her sister this way and it filled her with dread. Calista mumbled words that she barely understood, but one sentence kept repeating like a bad dream. "She's gone and I never got to meet her. She's gone and I never got to meet her."

"Who," Ella said, trying to piece things together. When she saw that Calista appeared to be in a catatonic state she knew that she had to get them moving on with the show. There was no way that Calista would be able to be in the last act. "I'll be right back."

Calista clutched her arm. The desperation on her face wrenched Ella's gut. "Please don't go."

"I'll be right back I just need to tell Edna that you're sick and for her to close out the show."

Ella dashed from the room and boomeranged back. Calista was bawled up on the sofa in the fetal position. She rocked back and forth weeping. "She's gone. She's gone." It took a while for Ella to calm her down. She wrapped Calista up in her arms and cried along with her. This was grief beyond anything that she'd experienced. "You've got to talk to me, baby, so that I can help you."

The wailing got louder, but Ella clung on to her and wiped the tears away. "Please God, help my sister." Thirty minutes later the torrent of rain stemmed from Calista's eyes. What was left was a shaking soul, gulping in huge breaths. When the storm passed she clung to Ella and whispered the shock of her lifetime.

"I've got to tell you something that I've never told anyone. And I mean anyone. Roman must never know. Promise me that you won't tell him, Ella."

"You can't ask me to make that promise. From the way that you're acting what if he really needs to know."

"Trust me, he doesn't need to know this. Promise me, Ella – please – I can't keep this anymore."

Damn it. Ella shook her head feeling like agreeing under these terms was a bad move. But she had to help her sister. "All right. I promise.

***

Roman's heart shattered when she finished telling the story. Calista got pregnant and gave birth a few months before her 18th birthday. A young man that she'd met while taking modeling lessons was the father of the child. He was a 21-year-old photographer that had worked with them for three years. The two of them were smitten but Calista's parents didn't approve of the relationship. They'd spent too much time and money grooming Ella and Calista for careers in the fashion industry. For as long as Ella could remember her parents had them in pageants and other similar events.

These two sisters had powerful beauty that the parents capitalized off of. They started making money in baby food ads before they were old enough to even speak. From there it was modeling for catalogs and eventually they were top-models on the runway. After they grew up they separated into different states but still kept their modeling careers, until each of them developed their own modeling company and clothing line. The sisters were two years apart, with Ella being the youngest sister. Ella and Calista were rock-star billionaires in the industry with a future as bright as the stars ahead of them...

***

Roman held his head from the intense pain throbbing through it. He rubbed his hands up and down his temples trying to absorb the shock and wonder what in the hell would this all mean for everyone involved. The story was so outside of the box – any box – that it left him reeling back and forth against the seat. He was glad that he'd taken her advice. If he had been sitting on the ledge the shock would have plunged him from the window.

"I get what you're saying but how couldn't you know that your sister was pregnant?" Roman choked out.

"My sister spent a year abroad in Paris under the rouse that she was modeling school and working with a prestigious modeling agency. They promised that I would go there when I turned 17. And they kept their promise to me," Ella said, refilling them both a glass of scotch. She laughed bitterly. "What I later found out is that they kept their promise only to keep their story clean."

"What do you mean?"

"Calista was in Paris that year, but only to have a child in a Catholic facility and offer the child up for adoption. But she was made to say that she had been in the elite modeling agency that I eventually got into."

Roman snatched out of the seat and stalked circles in the carpet. His mind was ablaze with questions and pain like he'd never known. It baffled him how anyone could keep a secret like that from her husband. But after seeing how Zara had lived her life with the effects of childhood trauma he couldn't possibly fault her for protecting the painful secret and telling no one.

Ella gulped the liquid down and winced as it burned her throat. She tossed her head back and closed her eyes. "Calista begged my parents to let her keep the child stating that she would be three months from legally grown when the child was born and that she could make her way in life. But my parents refused, saying that they wouldn't allow her to throw her career away."

"Oh - my – God!"

"They granted my sister one request. They would allow it to be an open adoption where she could see pictures of the child and get updates on her life. But she wouldn't be able to communicate with her."

"So she gave birth to a little girl?"

"Yes, and her name was Lauren."

Roman stopped and spun around feeling as if a freight train ran into him. He felt the blood leaving his head and pool at his feet. He held himself up from the wobble, leaning against the wall. Then he sunk back into his seat. "Was – did you say – was?" His heart clutched when he saw tears streaming down Ella's face. Incredible. Can this get any worse?

Silence shrouded the room for what felt like an eternity. Ella rocked back and forth in her seat. She felt the icy grip of rage in her heart remembering how her parents made Calista get an adoption. Everything played out in her mind like it was on a cinema screen. "Yes, Lauren died in a car wreck. She'd gotten the news that day and that is why she was so distraught when I came into the room. Unfortunately, she'd been texting while driving and didn't have a seatbelt on."

The vivid picture resurfaced in her mind again. This time it was just the picture she could smell the mix of their expensive perfumes competing in the air. The feel of her sister's hot tears on her gown burned her chest even now. Her soft skin wrapped in her arms as she held her so close to keep her from breaking.

She could hear the sound of the hustle of models preparing for their last walk on the runway. Footsteps running to and from while she tried to console her sister through closed doors. She could hear people asking – where is Calista? Edna raised her loud voice above the crowd telling them that she would be coming to perform the closing.

"I can't begin to imagine how devastated that she was. How did she carry this kind of weight without cracking?" His eyes searched Ella looking for her to say something that would help him to make sense of all of this. "I'm-I'm just stunned."

"We all wear our masks, Roman." Ella chuckled, bitterly. "You haven't even heard the most shocking part of the story, yet."