Page 61 of Love Me Tomorrow

One bronze shoulder, gleaming with a golden sheen from one of her favorite beauty oils, hikes up in a halfhearted shrug. “He texted me earlier this week.”

Not nearly the same thing as letting your daughter hear your voice when you apologize for outright lying for twenty-seven years. Frustration boiling deep, I drag a hand over the top of my head. “What did it say?”

“It was screenshot of a plane ticket.”

My jaw goes slack. “What?”

“Actually, that’s not quite right. It was aone-wayplane ticket from Rome to N’Orleans.”

It’s official: Edgar RoseIVis the most clueless man to ever breathe life into his lungs.

“So,” Amelie goes on, a satisfied gleam brightening her eyes, “I decided to head north. Can’t use a plane ticket out of Rome when I’m in Croatia, am I right?”

Eight months ago, if someone had claimed that my sister wasn’t actually related to Edgar Rose, I would have laughed in their face. They’re two peas in a pod, brandishing identical stubbornness and too much pride for their own good. Honestly, it’s enough to make my head hurt. Amelie might not be Dad’s by birth, but she’s more his daughter than I am in every other way.

“You know I support you, Am. You want to live in Croatia, I’ll ask for a cot when I visit. You want to come back to N’Orleans and open that art gallery you’ve always wanted, and I’ll be right there with you, helping to build it from the ground up.”

“I know,” she says quietly.

“I have your back, always, but I can’t—” I shake my head, not even knowing where exactly I’m going with this. All I know is that striking back against Dad doesn’t do anything to repair the fracture in our family. Hasn’t there been enough hurt already? “I gave Pops shit for him not reaching out to you, and he deserved that,” I tell her, my voice thick with emotion, “but you picking up and traveling to Dubrovnik, of all places, just because you want to stick it back to the old man that you can’t use the ticket he bought for you, is just as immature as his silence for all these months. Y’all are playing some weird chess match and I’m not sure I want to stay on the board anymore.”

“Savannah.”

“I don’t mean to sound harsh.” Guilt threads through me as I watch my sister sit down, her back to the balcony and all that pristine water. “I know you’re processing everything. You have the right to go at your own pace.”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” Amelie murmurs, shaking her shaved head. The day she cut off all her beautiful, natural curls, my mother cried big, fat tears. I’ve never seen her so worked up, at least not until Dad spilled her secret. My sister’s shoulders inch upward, like she’s steeling herself. “I wasgoingto say that I didn’t ask you to step on the board at all.”

Shock has my head snapping back. “I’m your—”

“Sister. That’s exactly it, you’re mysister. Pick me up when I’m down, laugh with me five years from now because you’re still scarred over Pablo’s hairy ass, but you don’t need to be in the trenches withme every second of the day. I’m twenty-seven, Sav, not seventeen.”

Letting my palm land on the desk, I stare at Amelie’s familiar face like I’ve never seen her before. Part of me feels that way. From the day she was born, I’ve felt like her protector—but the woman staring back at me, with her brown eyes drawn and a little disappointed, is not the newborn Mom placed in my eight-year-old arms so many years ago. My sister is gorgeous in a way that most people will never be. High cheekbones like a goddess, full lips that the boys in college all wanted to kiss, a sharp jawline that belongs in a fashion magazine. Had she actually shown up onPut A Ring On It, she would have knocked America dead on their feet.

My back collides with my chair as I slouch down. Feeling antsy, I balance the chair on its hind legs. “I feel like you just kicked me off the island.”

“Never. We’re just going to get you a new island right next door.”

“Does it have a pool boy?” I ask wryly, trying to roll with the punches. Prospective neighboring island notwithstanding, I feel like I’ve had the wind knocked out of my sails.

“Only if the pool boy gets to be Owen Harvey.”

I nearly go down.

The chair squeals as I do, too, and it’s only by some miracle that I manage to right myself before toppling over. Pablo—the cat, not Mr. G-string over there—eyes me like I’m a public embarrassment. He’s not out of line in assuming so.

Gripping the lip of the desk, I croak, “Did you just say Owen Harvey?”

The look Amelie levels me with is all droll, sisterly affection. “I’m in Dubrovnik, Savannah, not the middle of the ocean without access to the internet. I saw the two of you inTheNew Orleans Daily. Great dress, by the way. You looked beautiful.”

I swallow, hard.

I didn’t even realize there had beenan article of us in the local newspaper. Has Owen seen it already? My heart pounds so forcefully that it seems unsustainable for long.Heart attack, here I come.Wetting my lips, I graze my thumb along the edge of the computer keyboard. “I wanted to tell you myself. That’s why I called.”

“I thought you called because you love me.”

My eyes widen. “Yes! That, too. Obviously.”

Amelie laughs, her head thrown back. “I’m messing with you. I know you love me.”

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