Page 71 of A Billionaire After Dark

Which left the question… where did she go from here?

Before she could even begin to answer the question, the door flew open and her brothers Trace and Bronson came charging in and dove on the bed with a bone-crushing jar.

“Whassup, Sis!” Trace hooked an arm around her neck and gave her a rough rub on the head with his knuckles while Bronson took her pillow and stuffed it under his head.

“Hey, there are still stars on your ceiling,” he said.

She elbowed Trace in the stomach to gain her release, then jerked the pillow back from Bronson and hit him in the face with it. “It’s after midnight, you hooligans.”

“So? Did you expect us to wait until morning to see our big sister? We haven’t seen you since Christmas.” Trace gave her a sloppy kiss on the forehead before flopping onto his back.

As much as the twins had made her life miserable growing up, their presence on either side of her eased the tightness around her heart. “Where have you two been?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you had dates.”

Trace gave her a nudge with his elbow. “What? You don’t think your brothers are cute enough to get girls?”

They were definitely cute enough. They both had gotten Dad’s blond hair and Mom’s hazel eyes. They were suntanned and muscled from hours spent on their skateboards or surfing. And they had contagious smiles. Of course, as their sister, it was up to her to make sure that their heads didn’t get any bigger than they were.

“If they like scrawny surfer dudes that smell like seaweed,” she said. “And if you get sand in my sheets, I’m going to kill you.”

Bronson laughed. “I’ve missed you, Ed. Not the lists you used to make me of things you thought I should be accomplishing, but your badass attitude.”

“Speaking of accomplishments…” Trace moved the pillow over so Eden could share it. “How’s the newspaper reporting going? Won the Pulitzer yet?”

If Eden had ever wanted to lie, it was that moment. Her brothers had always looked up to her, and she couldn’t stand the thought of disappointing them. But lying had cost her Madison and Nash, and she had learned her lesson. Or at least she had learned it after she’d stretched the truth about the article being nothing but her journal pages.

“Actually, I got fired.” She could feel both of her brothers shift toward her.

“Fired?” Bronson said. “As in canned? Man, Dad is not going to be happy. You were the one who was going to live his dream.”

Bronson’s wording was like a wake-up slap to the face. All the hours she’d spent trying to achieve her goal, and it hadn’t even been hers. It had been her father’s. The realization should’ve made her even more depressed. Instead, it made her laugh. And once she started laughing, she couldn’t seem to stop.

“What?” Trace sat up. “What’s so funny?”

“Me,” she gasped between laughter. “They weren’t even my own stars I was reaching for. And yet I convinced Stella to hire me and wrote all those horrible stories—not to mention what I did to poor Nash.” Just the thought of Nash turned her hysterical laughter into heart-wrenching sobs. Which had her brothers panicking.

“Holy shit.” Trace jumped off the bed as if she had cooties. “Why is she crying?”

“How would I know?” Bronson said. “But you better go get Mom.”

Only a few minutes later, her mother came into the room and turned on the light. She took one look at the sobbing mess Eden had become and pointed to the door. “Time for bed, boys.” Her brothers never minded so quickly. Once they were gone, her mother turned off the light and crawled in bed next to Eden. She didn’t say anything. She just pulled her against the soft material of her Soma pajamas and stroked Eden’s hair.

“I crushed him,” Eden sobbed. “He trusted me, and I crushed him like a bug. And there’s no way to take it back. There’s no way to fix it. I should’ve told him the truth from the beginning, and instead I was too caught up in Dad’s dream that I couldn’t see that my dream was right in front of me.”

Her mother smoothed her hair back. “I’m going to assume that you’re talking about the Dark Seducer.”

Eden pulled away and tried to see her mother’s face in the dark. “You read the article?”

“Of course I read the article. I’ve read all your articles, Eden.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything? You’ve always acted like you were more interested in my chakras than my career.”

“I’m interested in every part of you—mental, physical, and spiritual.” She kissed Eden’s forehead. “You, on the other hand, are only concerned with the mental and physical. Which is exactly how you ended up trying to do something you were never meant to do. You listened to your brain, not your heart.”

Eden sniffed. “Gee, thanks, Mom. You could’ve saved me a lot of time and tears if you had told me that in the first place.”

“I did tell you, Eden. I told you all the time, but you have always been too stubborn to listen.”

Eden thought about her stubborn refusal to leave the newspaper. “You’re right.” She sniffed. “Once I get something in my head, it’s hard to get it out. I guess I just wanted to make Dad happy.”

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