They had taken the truth about us, replaced it with a lie, and left us to grow up ashamed of the very thing we should have been proudest of.

Getting that back — my grandfather’s real name, the honest reason he lost everything — turned out to matter to me almost as much as the shipyard itself.

And then, years later, when I had grown up and taken my seat at the head of what remained, a polished, patient, attentive man named Callum Merrick had appeared in my life.

He had courted me without hurry.

He had won my trust honestly, or what I mistook for honestly.