Page 128 of Marrying the Billionaire Single Dad
"Karma?" I frown. "She’s—"
"My sister." Summer nods. "She’s been holed up with her Italian hunk forever." Summer flicks her hair over her shoulder. "If she doesn’t show herself soon, I’m going to have to go to Sicily and find out what she’s hiding."
"You think she’s hiding something?"
Summer’s forehead furrows. "It was a figure of speech, but now that you mention it, I wonder if there isn’t a grain of truth to it."
"What are you going to do?" Isla asks her.
Summer wrings her fingers together. "The last time I spoke to her, she sounded odd. I asked her if something was wrong and she dismissed it, saying she was down with the flu." Summer rubs her fingers over her forearm. "As sisters, you know, we’ve always shared everything, but I simply can’t get over this niggling instinct that there’s more than she’s letting on. Know what I mean?"
No, not really. I am an only child, so I’ve always wanted the kind of relationship with a sibling that Summer talks about, but I’ve never had access to it. Which is why, maybe, I love kids and want my own family… And now I’m getting married… And hell, I am starting this chapter of my life on a big fat lie. Shit, shit, shit, I can’t stop the sobs that grip me.
"Ohmygod," I hear Isla gasp aloud, then she steps up to wrap her arm around my shoulders. "Babe, what’s wrong?"
"N… nothing," I blubber.
"Something is." Summer walks over to rub my back, in slow steady circles, "It’s okay, honey, let it all out. So much has happened in the past few days, it must be catching up with you."
"Well, I wish it had caught up with me later. I need to feel stronger, I do, but damn, if everything doesn’t seem…like…like…"
"It’s all out of control?" Amelie joins us. She holds out a wad of tissues and I grab them, dab at my eyes. "Yeah," I sniff. "I mean, what if he hates me for what I’m making him do?"
"You did the right thing," Amelie insists.
"I know, but what if he never forgives me for it?"
"He will," Isla replies. "Maybe not immediately. I mean, when did a man recognize when something good happened to him, huh? Not even when it hits him over the head, does he admit that it’s the right thing for him."
I blow my nose, then look for a way to discard the tissues. "Here," Isla holds out another tissue and I drop them in there. She wraps them up, then carries them over to the wastebasket. "Look, babe, if you don’t feel this is the right thing for you, we can call it off."
"What?" I blink.
Isla glances at Summer, who nods, "Sure, doll, you say the word and we’ll take care of the groom. Not to mention, the alphaholes in there. We’ll hold them off—"
"And the press and guests," Victoria adds. "We’ll take care of them all, if you want to leave."
"Oh," I swallow, then glance around their faces. Do I want to do that? Do I want to get the hell out of here? Out of what could be the biggest mistake of my life, or the biggest opportunity to…to find true love, to find out what makes Damian tick, to figure out how to help him, to help myself by helping him... Yeah… I know, it’s warped… But something about this man... Since I’d first seen him in person, I’d known there couldn’t be anyone else for me. I need to… Want to hold up a mirror to him, to show him the man I see, the soul he hides from the world... The words that he writes when he’s alone, the melodies that bleed from his fingers when he thinks no one hears, the… Tenderness that he has yet to show me with any consistency, but which I know is hidden under that veneer of alphaholeness he likes to draw around himself like a cloak, because I’ve seen glimpses of it… Unless I am mistaken about him? And my instinct says, no, I’m not. That things will somehow work out…Will they?
I drag my gaze across the faces of my friends, "Will it all work out?"
Victoria moves forward and wipes a tear drop from my cheek, "When I married Saint, I thought it was the end of life as I knew it, and I was right."
"You…you were?"
She smiles, a secret uplift of her lips that hints at so many things, I can’t put a name to all of the emotions. "Turned it, was the start of my best life, my only life, the dream life I wanted, but thought I’d never have. The Seven, you see… They under-promise and over-deliver."
"You make it sound like a business transaction," I tilt my head.
She chuckles. "Maybe it is. They, together, have interests in one of the biggest financial services companies in the country. Making money is a passion for them, pushing things to the very edge is their specialty, and then there is the non-profit they started together."
"Is that FOK media?" I remember reading about it in the press.
"FOK media," she nods, "the full name of which is, Full of Kindness."
"You’re kidding?"
"Nope." She laughs. "It’s a nonprofit that identifies and manages upcoming fresh talent. They extend interest-free loans to the most deserving ones, to start their own businesses.
