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“Not you. You’re fucking this up, Sin.”
Sin laughs.
“I told Will that the showing was meant to be a game, but it wasn’t only about that. I wanted them to see you. You’re the best thing—” My throat begins to close, but I force more words past it. “I was proud to have you. Prouder than I’ve ever been of anything.”
“And he wanted to see if you liked us better.”
Daphne blinks. Once. Twice. “What?”
“You’re a bastard,” I tell Sin. “You’re a complete prick.” My little painter is still shocked. “Daphne, I wanted you to have a chance—any chance—to decide if a less…complicated person would be better for you.”
Truly, I’ve never seen Daphne so shocked. She’s appalled. Deep red appears high on her cheeks, and she holds her collar like a string of pearls. Daphne fumbles for words with her dark eyes wide, her expression exaggerated to the point it becomes genuine again.
“They weren’t. Oh my god, Emerson. I mean, I liked it. I’m not going to stand here and say I didn’t. How could I not like it when you were—but choosing someone else? Over you? No. No. No.”
Sin bursts out laughing. It takes him forever to stop. Tears line his eyes when he’s done. “You were right, Daphne. It was good for all of us. And Emerson’s not going to let anyone near you again.”
Daphne flushes a deeper pink. To my surprise, to my astonished relief, she doesn’t frown or pout. She just comes across the kitchen and kisses my cheek.
“I’m going to paint,” she says. “I’ll be upstairs when you’re done.”
Sin watches her go, his eyes amused. “I don’t know why you ever thought she’d want someone else.”
“What was the point?” I ask him.
He hasn’t forgotten what he was saying before my little painter entered the room. “The point is, you have two brothers. It’s okay to act like it. In fact, I’m going to insist that you act like it.”
“By doing what?”
“By being honest about when things have escalated for you.” Sin looks me directly in the eye. “It hasn’t been this bad in a long time, Em. I’m not asking you to tell anybody else. I’m just not willing to lose you because Dad’s a fucking asshole.”
I know what’s different now.
My emotions are not just artwork, displayed on a gallery wall. They’re closer now. More available. Not particularly threatening. And this one—
I don’t know what it is.
I swallow past a sudden tension in my throat. “You don’t have to worry about that. I have Daphne.”
For now.
“You scared the fuck out of Will, offering him a piece.”
Will didn’t say anything else about it to me. I sent him photos so he could choose, and he did. I’ll send the piece itself when I have a spare minute. It’s possible he stayed worried and I didn’t notice.
Sin is, unfortunately, correct. Guilt squeezes at my chest. Denial is a survival strategy. It’s most effective when a person is alone. I’ve thought of myself as alone in the world for a long time. The tension in Sin’s face says otherwise.
If it wasn’t for Daphne, we might not be having this conversation. For many reasons.
“I made the offer because of Daphne, too.”
Sin nods. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “Is she more than art now?”
“Much more.”
“So it’s forever.”
“Leblancs aren’t made for forever.”
