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A sob caught in my chest.
Sully pulled me in tighter. “It’s okay, babe. You can tell me now.” I looked over his shoulders for my sisters as I shook my head. I had to keep it together for them.
“While you were sleeping, I told Tanya to take LeAnn home for a while,” he said into my hair.
I pulled back, mostly in shock. “And she listened to you?”
Sully smirked, so stunning, so perfect. “Turns out you Collins girls are a stubborn bunch. She did warn me she’d cut off my balls if I hurt you first. But LeAnn needed a break, so she gave in.”
I smiled wanly. It sounded like Tanya. And then my lip trembled again, and I couldn’t hold it back anymore.
I dug my face into his shoulder and sobbed. “Reba,” I wailed into his shoulder. “She’s only twenty years old. She hasn’t even lived yet! I was supposed to get her a kidney from the Order but I even screwed that up.”
Sully didn’t hush me or tell me to stop crying. He just nodded and asked me more about it. Turned out he could be a really good listener when he wanted to be. He listened to how I’d always been Mom after Mama died and Daddy ran off. How sometimes it all got to be so much I’d dreamed about running off in my worst moments. But Reba was the best of us and the least deserving of the shit serving life had dealt her.
And somehow Sully listened and didn’t do the thing I hated when guys did—he didn’t offer suggestions on how to fix it or immediately try to give ten different ways he would have done things differently.
He just… listened.
And then, after I was all talked out and he was still holding me, he told me about his sister.
Turned out we’d always had so much more in common than we’d ever imagined.
“Funny how much we are alike even though we are also very different. I had a dad my entire life. He didn’t run out on us, well, at least not the same way yours did on you. But my father worked all the time, and when he wasn’t working, he was at the Oleander. The Order of the Silver Ghost meant more to him than my mother, my sister Jasmine and myself combined.”
“I’m sure that had to be hard,” I said.
“It was what it was. But I sure as hell wanted to get away from it all as soon as I could. And I did. I literally went West until I reached the sea and couldn’t get any further. California was my sanctuary, but even miles apart couldn’t keep me from this shit. He died, and I had to return.”
“Why?” I asked. “I get the feeling you hated your father. So why did you feel the need to come back for him?”
“I didn’t come back for him, or his funeral.” He released a deep breath. “Yes, I hated my father. He was a selfish son of a bitch who cared about himself and his prestige only. Nothing I, or my sister did, was good enough.
“He never hit us or anything, but I would have taken a physical beating over the verbal one we got each day he blessed us with his occasional presence. I came back to offer support for my sister, and I suppose if I was being honest with myself… I even came back for my mother in some sick way.”
He shook his head. “My mother wasn’t much better than my father. She was more concerned with parties and her charities than her own children. Both my parents were self-absorbed and did very little in raising us. You can thank the constant flow of nannies for my lovely personality.” A small smile quirked his lips. “But my sister was different. Jasmine had a pure heart, her love for me was the only genuine love I ever truly felt growing up and even now. She was like me. She didn’t ask to be born into this silver spoon-fed nightmare, nor did I.”
“It’s better than poverty. Trust me on that.”
He nodded. “Maybe. I wouldn’t know. But I’ll tell you this. I hate money. I hate what it does to people. I hate the thirst, materialistic need, and all-consuming greed that surrounded me my entire life.”
“Then why did you even want to try to become part of the Order?”
“For my sister. I need to complete the Trials in order to get the family business. VanDoren Enterprises does not automatically get passed down to me. It’s in my father’s will. A member of the Order must own the business. I have to become a member or lose it all.”
I watched how even talking about this bothered him. His jaw locked; his eyes seemed to darken with every word. “I don’t understand. You just said you hated all that. So why would you want the family business?”
