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Too many secrets remain.
And it’s the only thing that keeps me from being truly happy.
How can I feel such joy when my brothers are all falling apart?
“They’ll come around when they see who Jay really is,” she comforts.
And that’s what ultimately allows me to sink into my joy. I can trust Jay. Sophie sees who he really is too. As does Cynthia. If she didn’t, she’d never allow him near our daughter, no matter that he’s her father.
The people who really know Jay see how real our love is.
As for Cash, all I can do is wait for him to dig himself out of his depression. He needs to see Grace for who she really is, or he needs to move on. I can’t do those things for him any more than Sophie or Cynthia could have healed my heart all those years ago.
There’s a reason I never moved on, and that reason is holding our daughter close and dancing before me on the tiny screen, lighting a fire in my belly and easing the ache in my heart.
From: [email protected]
October 24, 2022
Subject: I miss you
Jay,
I wish you and Chloe could have come to Fashion Week. I miss you both so much. Show her these pictures of Sienna’s latest designs. God, that woman is a freaking genius. And Lucy Montgomery even made an appearance. Her designs are to die for. I want her in our spring edition.
I love you.
Cat
From: [email protected]
October 25, 2022
Subject: Re: I miss you
Kitten,
Come outside. I brought you a surprise.
Love you.
* * *
Hoveringover the mockup for next month’s edition, I comb through page after page, racking my brain for what’s missing. My mind is still buzzing with ideas days after Fashion Week. And they aren’t all work-related ones. Spending a few days away from Chloe and Jay was much harder than I anticipated. I’ve spent the better part of the last decade alone, but after only a few weeks with Chloe full time and dinners with Jay most nights—and quality time in bed at night—I’ve gotten used to the noise. The quiet was impossibly lonely.
Then Jay went and stole another piece of my heart when he flew Chloe to New York to surprise me for the weekend. Sitting at a fashion show with her, hearing her thoughts on every design, will never get old. And Jay’s take on every outfit never disappointed. He had both of us giggling as he told us how the lines of a design wereso amazingor later at night when he walked the “catwalk” of our hotel room, proving that he could model better than what we’d witnessed hours earlier.
We ate at an upscale restaurant and clinked glasses of champagne while Chloe gave us her critique of every dessert. The following night, we went from one pizza place to the next, trying a slice at every stop until we declared a winner. It was the perfect weekend with my two favorite people.
“Maybe we could get a few quotes from Sienna,” I suggest to one of our copy editors. “The story is missing heart. Her designs are gorgeous, but our readers want to know why she became a designer rather than going into the family business. They’d be more interested in what she had to give up and whether the sacrifice was worth it.”
Her story speaks to me at a cellular level. There aren’t many women who have done what she’s done. Who have forgone the easy path and forged their own. Sienna could have had any position she wanted in her family business, but sports didn’t interest her.
And she didn’t use her family’s money to build her career like many suspect. Yet her business skyrocketed anyway. There’s a story there. What did Sienna have to do to get to where she is?
