Page 1 of Gravity of Love
1
Frankie Costas was cursed.That was the only plausible explanation. As a proud half-Greek, half-Italian woman, she believed in curses the same way she believed in humidity, sunburns, and stilettos—they were inconsequential injustices she, as a five- foot-nothing, fair-skinned, naturally wavy-haired redhead, had to deal with on a daily basis.
This particular curse, however, had plagued her for twenty-five of her twenty-nine years. For two and a half decades, every cell in her body seemed to have been fundamentally, inescapably doomed to orbit Sterling men. She thought she’d escaped, but now… now she feared she was forever trapped in the gravitational pull of male Sterling DNA.
“Frankie, are you there?” her mother’s voice warbled through the speaker in her phone, staticky and distorted by the thousand miles and emotional chasm between them.
Frankie blinked and lifted the phone back to her face, not realizing that in her shock, she’d lowered it. “Sorry, Mom. Yeah, yeah I’m here.”
There was a pause, during which Frankie could practically hear her mom’s mind spinning out, trying to anticipate whatFrankie was thinking, what she would say, how she would react, the way she always did.
The only thing Frankie was thinking was, “Wake up.” This has to be a nightmare. There is no way my mom is dating Dr. Sterling.
It was the kind of plot twist that made her want to call up the universe’s showrunner and demand a rewrite.
“Are you okay? Are you shocked? Are you upset?” her mother’s questions came out rapid-fire.
No. Yes. Yes.
“I’m fine,” she lied.
“Oh, okay, well, listen, I don’t want you to think that…” As her mom’s voice dissolved in a flutter of apologies and awkward explanations, Frankie’s mind drifted to the cursed, perpetual loop of her romantic misfortunes.
Frankie spent her childhood and teen years with a hopeless, desperate, all-consuming crush on the eldest Sterling brother. Her experience was not unique. Every female, and male who was so inclined, that encountered Liam Michael Sterling suffered with the same affliction. He was the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome. He had thick brown hair and mesmerizing green eyes that were both piercing and intense. His chiseled jawline gave him a rugged, masculine appearance, while deep dimples added a boyish charm. He was the brooding, strong-silent type. Sexy with a bad boy edge. Oh,andhe rode a motorcycle and had a serious problem with authority. Liam broke rules and rebelled yet still managed to graduate high school top of his class with an AA degree and get into Stanford. He was first-crush kryptonite in human form.
Frankie, being four years younger than Liam was placed in the little sister box at best and seen as annoying tag-along at worst. So naturally, her adolescent obsession was unrequited, aone-way pining that spanned her youth. But the Sterling curse hadn’t stopped with her wasted, heartsick, juvenile infatuation.
At twenty, she packed up and moved across the country in hopes of a romantic-reboot, a love-fresh-start, a heart-clean-slate. After receiving a full-ride scholarship for her junior and senior years at NYU in art history, she was ready to break free from the Liam Sterling spell she’d been under. Her plan was a success. It took two years to get Liam out of her system, to exorcise him from her soul. Her cleansingwasassisted by the fact that after his mom’s passing nearly twelve years ago, Liam ghosted his entire family.
No sooner had she rid herself of Liam’s stronghold than another Sterling man re-entered her life. Tristan Sterling, Liam’s little brother, showed up at Frankie’s NYU graduation as a guest of her twin brothers.
Tristan was a different Sterling species altogether. Two years younger than Liam, he was his opposite innearlyevery sense of the word. Outgoing to Liam’s brooding. He was the life of the party and flirty to Liam’s strong, silent, and sexy. They did share brown hair, green eyes, athletic builds and when they walked into a room,everyonetook notice, the difference was Tristanthrivedon the attention, Liamhatedit.
Within six months of graduation, Frankie found herself not just in love but cohabitating with Tristan. A year after that, he took a page out of Beyoncé’s book and decided that he liked it so much he put a ring on it. They got engaged. Thankfully, they never actually made it down the aisle because three weeks ago she discovered he cheated on her. Frankie took that ring off, determined to be finished with Sterling men once and for all.
Never in a million years could she have predictedthis. Her mom calling to tell her she was dating their father, Dr. Sterling. The third and final act of the curse. It had to be. There were no Sterling men left.
How was this happening?
The eldest Sterling, never saw her as more than a sidekick little sister. The youngest Sterling thought it was okay to put his penis in other people when he was engaged. And now this. Now her own mother had inadvertently rubbed Sterling salt in the wound, as if fate itself had run out of ideas and decided to remix the original track with a vengeance.
“Are yousureyou’re okay?” her mom asked for the dozenth time since she’d dropped her relationship bomb.
“I’m just… processing.” Frankie tried to swallow over the lump of disbelief lodged in her throat, every word a struggle to escape. “I think I just?—”
“It’s weird, right?” her mom interrupted, words tumbling out like the change from an overstuffed wallet. “It is. I know it is. I’msosorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen… Eddie didn’t mean for it to happen.”
Eddie?
Hearing her mom call Dr. Sterling—Dr. Edward Tristan Sterling III—by anything but his formal, four-syllable title made Frankie feel uncomfortable. Physically uncomfortable. As she sat in her grandma’s kitchen, looking out the window at one of her favorite views, she felt a weight crush her chest. Every breath was heavy and forced.
Hoping to get out of her head, she focused on downtown Hope Falls. Main Street was populated with tourists and locals visiting the mom-and-pop shops whose doors were accented with colorful awnings. Black vintage lampposts lined the wooden sidewalks with string lights crisscrossing the street from post to post. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, her upper body felt like it was being squeezed with an invisible vise as her eyes scanned the backdrop of the majestic stony range of the Sierra Nevada dotted with lush green pines and yellow and orange aspens.
“I was in Paris,” her mom continued, “and I ran into Eddie randomly on the street.”
Okay, so Eddie was definitely a thing now.
For twenty-five years, her mom had worked for ‘Eddie.’ She was his staff. Not to mention the fourteen years she’d been Mrs. Sterling’s right hand, assistant, and, in the end, nurse and closest confidant. Frankie could still remember Mrs. Sterling’s laugh echoing through their house, the soft clink of her jewelry, and the perfume trail she left in every room. Her mom had been the one beside Mrs. Sterling through her illness, the one who held her hand when hospice came, all the way to the end, when ‘Eddie’ was nowhere to be found.
