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She puts her hand on my chest. “This morning, but it doesn’t matter. I realized that I’ve been letting old history come between us. She was so sweet to me this morning, and I kept thinking about that. How many times has she tried to be my friend and I’ve pushed her away? I’m tired of hiding because I’m scared of being vulnerable around her.”
I swallow but there’s no moisture in my mouth.
“She even agreed to not tell anybody she’s my sister. And it’s only afterward I realized it must hurt her. It’s like I’m rejecting her, and I shouldn’t do that.” She tips her head to the side, looking so earnest it hurts. “We’re going to have a girls’ night tonight,” she says. “The kind of night we should have had years ago. Just us and some face masks and cocktails. We’ll watch a stupid romcom and giggle and I can’t tell you how excited I am about that.”
“That’s good,” I mutter.
“Yeah. We’re picking up the stuff on the way home.” She looks so excited.
And I realize I can’t tell her about the way Isabella came onto me. Because she’s so damn excited that she’s getting her sister back.
And I want that for her. My family is pretty much everything to me. She deserves to have the same experience with her sister and brothers. I’m not going to be the one to mess that up. Especially since her sister doesn’t know we’re together.
If she did, that would be different. But she made an innocent mistake.
She’ll probably laugh about this once everything’s out in the open.
“I’m glad you’re reconnecting,” I say, deciding to keep the details about her sister to myself for a few more days. “Family is important.”
“Yeah.” She nods. “I’m starting to see that.” She loops her arms around my neck, her warm eyes catching mine. “Thank you for helping me understand how important they are.”
“How did I do that?” I’m genuinely confused.
“Just watching you with your brothers. Seeing how they plastered your cabin with that photo. It’s just…” She shakes her head. “It just means something. Having people who are always on your side.”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice thick. “It does.”
She brushes her soft lips against mine. “I’m going to miss you tonight.”
“I’ll miss you more,” I tell her.
“Can I call you later?” she asks. “When you get back from dinner?”
I curl my hand around her neck and kiss her hard. “You’d better.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
MACKENZIE
“There,” Isabella says, lifting the mirror to show me her handiwork. “You look perfect.”
I blink at the reflection staring back at me. I look like me but… almost beautiful. Not as gorgeous as Isabella, because I’ll never have a nose that straight or lips that full, not without surgery anyway, but I look good.
And I feel good. Not just because we’ve shared a bottle of champagne tonight.
“Thank you,” I tell her.
She beams at me. “I wish we’d done this years ago,” she says. “I don’t know why we didn’t.”
“Because you were busy practicing and competing, and I was either looking after the boys or at college.”
And then there was the other stuff. The things we don’t talk about. Danny and the way he pulled us apart.
The stupid guy we both fell for and let come between us and neither of us had the guts to talk it out.
“You’ll have to show me how you applied this eyeliner,” I say. “Every time I do it I look like I’m Koko the Clown.”
“It’s all about a steady hand,” she tells me. “You can have all this.” She waves her hand at the bag full of high end cosmetics. “I’m given so much I can’t use it all.”
