I loosened my grip on the towel and forced a smile. “Everyone would change something if they could.” I still tasted ash on my tongue. I wanted to spit it out and drown it with beer, but I couldn’t do that without raising suspicion. “Do you still talk to anyone from your family?”

It was the only topic I could think of that would divert Sloane’s attention. She was sharp enough to pick up on the shift in my mood, but I didn’t want to discuss the reason with her or anyone else. Ever.

As expected, her face shut down. “When I have to. Have you talked to your father recently?”

Touché.

She wasn’t the only one who considered family relations a taboo subject.

“No. He’s not exactly in the right state for friendly phone calls.” Even before he’d fallen sick, he hadn’t been a great communicator. With his business partners and friends, yes. With his only son? Not so much.

Sloane tilted her head, obviously trying to gauge my true feelings regarding my father’s illness.

Good luck, considering even I didn’t know how I felt.

He was the only direct family I had left, so I should have felt strongly about his potential death. Instead, I only felt numb, like I was watching an actor who looked like my father wither away on a movie screen.

My father and I had never been close, partly because he blamed me for my mother’s death and partly because I blamed myself too.

Every time he looked at me, he saw the person who’d taken the love of his life away—and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it because I was the only piece of her he had left.

Every time I looked at him, I saw disappointment, frustration, and resentment. I saw the parent who’d taken out his anger on me when I’d been too young to understand the complexities of grief, who’d given up on me and made me give up on myself before I even started.

“He’ll pull through,” Sloane said.

She didn’t try to comfort me often, so I didn’t ruin the moment by wondering if, maybe, things would be simpler if he didn’t.

It was a terrible, ugly thought, the kind only monsters harbored, so I never uttered it out aloud. But it was always there, festering beneath the surface, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Sloane’s phone lit up with a notification. I glimpsed a telltale email icon before she snatched her cell off the ground and the moment collapsed around us like a sand castle at high tide.

“No work,” I reminded her.

“It’s not work, it’s…” Her skin took on the hue of bleached bone.

I straightened, concern washing away the remnants of unwanted memories. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She stood, her expression frozen. “I’ll…I’ll be right back.”

Did she just stutter? Sloane never stuttered.

She walked away, leaving me to stare after her and wonder what kind of message was possibly bad enough to throw Sloane Kensington off her game.

CHAPTER 10

Sloane

Your sister is pregnant.

Four words shouldn’t have the power to nauseate me, but they did.

I reread the email for the dozenth time. Soon after I received it that afternoon, Xavier’s friends decided they’d had enough of the cove. They’d wanted to sail to another beach, but I’d convinced Xavier to drop me off at the resort first. Thankfully, he’d done so without comment.

Now here I was hours later, sitting in my bed and staring at the first piece of direct correspondence I’d had from my father since the day I walked out of his office and out of my family.

Of course he would break his years-long silence for Georgia. She was my full sister, but we’d never clicked the way I did with Pen.

And now, she was pregnant.

I’d known it would happen eventually, but I hadn’t expected it so soon.

The smoothie I’d forced down for dinner sloshed in my stomach as I read the rest of his message again.

In true George Kensington form (and yes, my sister was named after him), the message was stiffer than a freshly starched tuxedo at the Legacy Ball.

Sloane,

I’m writing to inform you that your sister is pregnant. Given the circumstances, it’s time you make amends and release your childish grudge against an incident that occurred years ago. Pettiness is not an attractive trait.

Regards, George Kensington III

I thought my indignation would’ve run out of fumes long ago, but it intensified with every reread.

It’s time you make amends and give up your childish grudge.

Childish grudge? Childish grudge?

The phone creaked from the force of my grip. Trust my father to still pin the blame on me instead of his favorite.

Part of me recognized the clichéd irony of my situation. Poor little rich girl wasn’t as loved as the golden child, the one who could smile and dance and charm anyone in the room. Georgia could cry like a normal human and act like the perfect socialite. She was the daughter my father had always wanted, and I was the disgrace.

If I were watching a movie starring me, I would scoff at myself, but this wasn’t a movie. It was my life, and as much as I pretended it didn’t bother me, my broken relationship with my family would always be a sore spot.

I tossed my phone on the bed and stood.

If I thought too hard about Georgia’s present life, I’d start thinking about the past, and if I thought about the past…

No. I wasn’t going there.

Determination hardened my nausea into steely resolve.

Fuck Georgia, fuck the past, and fuck my father’s attempts to guilt me into apologizing for things they’d done wrong. It would be a cold day in hell before I crawled back to them.

I was doing just fine without them, thank you very much.

Pressure built behind my eyes, but I set my jaw and ignored it as I rifled through the closet for something to wear.