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Yeah, turns out he really does have the balls to say those words out loud. Fucking bastard.
I feel sick to my stomach. I can’t believe I’m being blackmailed by my own brother—actually no. I can believe it. It’s a skill he must have picked up from my parents somewhere along the way.
“You’re disgusting,” I grind out through clenched teeth. “You’re going to regret fucking with me.”
“Maybe.” He’s back to his characteristically flippant tone of voice. “But you’ll regret it more. And I’ll make sure you regret it first.”
“Why?” I ask, not that it makes a difference. “Why are you doing this?”
The door opens and half a dozen board members start to file in quietly as James looks at me with a smug, triumphant smirk that makes me want to punch him in the mouth.
“Because I can.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
ELLA
Isla and I are just finishing the short, kid-friendly ballet routine I’ve been teaching her when she fixes me with a look that’s way too serious and intense for someone her age.
“Can I ask you a question, Ella?”
“Of course.” I squat down so that I’m at eye level with her. “What’s up, kiddo?”
She glances over toward the door as if she’s making sure we’re alone. “I, um… do you remember when we talked before about things I can’t control?”
I remember it very well. I still think about that conversation a lot, probably more than I should. It was a good reminder to myself that I should take every day as it comes and not get too invested in a future that might not ever happen. But it was also the moment I learned about the weight of all these adult problems that Isla has been carrying around on her shoulders.
That weight has been put there by every grownup in her life—from her dad to her grandparents, her uncle, her mother, and even me. And while I think we all try to convince ourselves we’re shielding her from the worst, complicated parts of our lives—well, most of us are trying to shield her, anyway—the truth is that she’s a heck of a lot more perceptive than any of us are willing to admit.
“Have those things been bothering you again?” I ask. “Things that you can’t control?”
“Sometimes.” She looks down at the floor for a moment. When she meets my gaze again, there are bright tears welling up in her eyes. “How do you stop thinking about things when they’re always on your mind?”
There’s no good answer, but she’s counting on me to come up with something that might help. I’m just going to be as honest as I can while I try to teach her some ways to cope.
“Let’s go sit down for a minute,” I nod to the chairs in the corner of the room. “We can have some girl-talk and rehydrate.”
She seems to perk up a little at the idea of having girl-talk with me. After we sit down, she’s still watching and waiting with that wide-eyed wonder that only a child possesses, hanging on every move I make and every word I say while she waits for me to pass along some wisdom that I’m honestly not sure I have.
Fake it until you make it, though, right?
“So back when I was your age or maybe a little older,” I begin. “Things were kind of rough at home. We didn’t have a lot of money and it was just… not a fun time.” I’m obviously not going to give her all the details. Even if I did, they wouldn’t be exactly the same struggles she’s facing. Still, I hope she’ll be able to see some parallels.
“Did you worry about things? Grown-up things like money and stuff?”
She doesn’t know it yet, but her big, perceptive brain is going to be the best asset she has in life. It’s also probably going to be the source of a lifetime of anxiety.
God, I wish I could just scoop her up and protect her from all the rotten things in the world—not to mention some of the rotten people in her extended family.
“Yeah,” I admit. “I did worry about that stuff, even though I also knew there wasn’t anything I could really do to fix it. Sometimes it’s hard to turn our brains off when we start thinking about those things, isn’t it?”
She gives me a solemn nod that lets me know I’m hitting the nail right on the head. “It’s really hard to turn my brain off. I don’t even know how.”
“Well, it might not be possible to turn our brains off completely. We’re always going to be thinking about something, even while we sleep. But let me ask you a question—were you worrying about all of those grown-up things while we were practicing our routine?”
“Was I?” She cocks her head to the side and squints her eyes. I can almost see the wheels spinning in her head as she thinks back to a few minutes ago. “Huh. I guess I wasn’t.”
“Do you remember what you were thinking about?”
