Page 23 of Perfect Satisfaction

Less than a minute after my heated outburst, I feel the warmth of each of their hands land on my shoulders. Brendan murmurs, “Tell us what you need and it’s yours.”

One word comes out. Until now, I didn’t realize how much of my life was a veneer over the taste for it, how long I’d set it aside. Before I can hold the word back, it escapes, “Forgiveness. I need to forgive myself for loving him.”

“Still?” Brendan wonders.

“Always.” Loving Arek is my biggest weakness. It’s what tethers me to this plane—a self-inflicted punishment I’ll never be able to rid myself of.

The syllables hang in the air between us, but my brothers understand me without further elaboration.

They were there in the aftermath when I fled New York.

They know how devastated I was and why.

They know I need to be forgiven for loving a man who is just as awful as our father.

After all, we might have secrets against the rest of the world, but not from each other.

Never from one another.

Brendan tightens his fingers.

JB clips out, “It’s long overdue.”

My relief at their understanding causes my weight to sag. They each reach for me, both willing to catch me as I fall. They don’t agree with the burden I carry, but they’ll help me endure it until I can cast it away. Even as I weep, I wonder,Why does everything about love come down to money?

I know better than to try to reason out the answer to that question. Instead, I gratefully push out, “Thank you.”

They don’t answer, but they don’t need to.

I don’t know how I’ll begin the process for extraditing myself from the pain I’ve caused by bringing the man I still love into my orbit. Some may say my penance is enduring his happiness, his ability to flaunt his joy as he moves on while my heart is still held hostage.

The vows I took were meant forever.

For him, they were for a bloody moment—a moment that’s obviously past.

When I find the strength to end it all, I’ll step onto that path of forgiveness. I’ll be able to accept falling in love with a man so toxic. I’ll never be able to leech him fully from my system. He’s like a drug, a narcotic so powerful I’ll always crave him.

But I won’t let myself succumb to the dangers of him.

Not ever again.

Regaining my footing on my sky-high heels, I deliberately turn my back away from the image of West Moore—the man who taught the three of us everything about how to hate as equally as forcing us how to learn how to love. “Now, let’s get this farce done and over with. Bring the lawyers back in.”

CHAPTERELEVEN

Supermodel Liza Hina, who recently broke the heart of newly proclaimed billionaire Joshua Basset, walked down the red carpet at the film premier ofChristmas Islandwith Arek Ronan—owner of StellaNova.

Staring her equally famous sister, Kendra,Christmas Islandtells the story about two individuals eschewing the holiday spirit in favor of licking their romantic wounds while they travel over the holidays.

If Liza and Arek’s reaction after they left the theater is anything to go by, the movie is guaranteed to be an enormous hit.

—StellaNova

October

“I used to believe falling in love was all I ever wanted.”

“You did that.” A strong arm wraps around my shoulder. Long black hair flows in the breeze as we sit at the end of the jetty behind my grandfather’s home off the coast of Maine.