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“She’s what?” Gulliver shouts.
“I’m what?” I cry.
“You’re moving in here with me,” Hawthorn says, rising out of his chair and strolling toward me, his eyes daring me to argue.
“No, I’m not.”
“She can come and stay with us,” Gulliver says, pulling Izzy into his chest and wrapping her in his arms while she softly cries.
“She’s not moving in with me,” Davis says, beneath his breath but loud enough that we all hear him.
Hawthorn’s eyes narrow, and instead of reaching for me, he steps past me, pulls back his fist, and punches Davis in the face. “Enough,” he snarls. “If Izzy can forgive her, then you need to shut the fuck up. She’s apologized for what she did, and none of us have any fucking clue what it was like for them both in that house with their parents. So, you don’t get to be her judge, jury, and fucking executioner. If you can’t put your issues and your smart mouth aside, you can get the fuck out of our home.”
Clutching his nose in his hands, Davis’s eyes widen in shock as he stares up at Hawthorn like he has no idea who he is. “Fuck, fine.” Turning to look at me, Davis shrugs. “I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
Nodding, I fight the urge to tell Davis I deserve every ounce of all of their hatred, but I know Hawthorn doesn’t believe that, so I stay quiet.
“Princess, you’re moving in here,” Hawthorn says again, his tone brooking no argument. “You hate being at the hotel, I hate you being at the hotel, and we’re together now, so you’re moving in with me.”
I start to protest, but he arches his eyebrow, silently warning me to do as I’m told. A rush of heat bursts inside of me, and when he crooks his finger, I willingly go to him, letting him wrap me in the safety of his arms.
“I think you moving onto the boat with Hawthorn is a great idea,” Izzy announces, a sly smile spreading across her lips.
“You do?” I ask.
“It’s perfect,” Izzy says, flashing a conspiratorial grin at Hawthorn before turning her attention back to me. “Is that what you wanted to talk to us all about? You and Hawthorn?”
“No,” I blurt, suddenly remembering why I planned this meeting to start off with and how ridiculous it all feels in the cold, rational light of day.
“So, what did you want to talk to us about?” she asks, sitting back down beside Gulliver on the couch.
Exhaling, I let Hawthorn guide me back to the chair we were sharing, sitting down in his lap. “I wanted to talk to you about Mom and Dad,” I say quietly, feeling the tension build in the room just from the mention of our parents.
“What the fuck about them?” Gulliver growls, pulling my sister into him protectively as if he can shelter her from whatever it is I plan on saying with his arms.
“God, this all made so much more sense last night. It seems a bit ridiculous now,” I mutter, running my fingers through my hair, absentmindedly trying to make it smooth and perfect.
“Have they been in touch with you?” Izzy asks.
“No. God no, and I doubt they will,” I say quickly. “But last night, I got to thinking, and really none of this seems fair.”
“Life isn’t fair. Please tell me we aren’t here because you want us all to feel sorry for you,” Davis hisses, his lips twisted into an ugly line as he stares me down.
“Give it a rest, Davis. She’s Izzy’s sister, and Hawthorn’s girl,” Kip says, his tone an unexpected warning. “You already got a knee to the balls and a punch to the face. Why the fuck are you acting like such an asshole today?”
“Look, Davis, I know you think I deserve to lose everything, and I’ll be the first to admit that everything I’m dealing with now is probably karma’s way of getting its own back on me for all the shitty things I’ve done in the last few years. But I’m here trying to make amends, to put my life back together, now that my entire future has been changed,” I say.
“You saw how wrong things were and you started to put them right, constantly blaming yourself isn’t going to help anyone,” Izzy says, reminding us all why she’s the nice twin and I’m not.
“But that’s the thing,” I announce. “I didn’t get to run away from everything I’ve done. I’m trying to make amends while I figure out how to put my shambles of a life back together, and they’ve gotten off scot-free.”
“Who? Your parents?” Hawthorn asks.
“Yes. We were kids when all this started. I’m not trying to say it was all them, but they coached me, they drilled those rules into me over and over until they were so ingrained, I’ll never be able to forget them. Mom told me what to do, what to say, and how to behave. She conditioned me to believe that all of our lives would be ruined if we didn’t play our part in securing all our futures,” I tell them, looking between the faces of the guys in the room, before moving back to my sister.
“They did it to me too,” Izzy says, her voice quiet and meek. “They made me believe that if I stopped doing what they said, that we’d lose the money and it would all be my fault.”
“Exactly, and if we stepped out of line, they doled out consequences.”
