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she knew why she’d shut down. Why she hadn’t let anyone in
or anyone close.
I never let anyone in. I never let anyone close.
She knew it. The truth of it hollowed her out. She was an
empty vessel. She had spent her life building her father’s
empire, continuing to grow his fortune and amass wealth.
Building. Always building. Creating solid structures, things of
beauty, things of wonder. All the while she was empty. She
made herself the business. Graduated from high school early
and went to college and graduated there in record time too.
She had friends. She knew she did. But not really. Not the
true kind of friends that are ever there for you or share in your
secrets. She’d had lovers, but not really lovers. The
relationships were about sex, nothing more.
Giana swayed on her feet. That headline had triggered the
memory of her sister, and it triggered a thousand others. Her
life filtered back to her slowly, not in a rush, but like a tap
being turned on and filling up a bucket drop by drop. She
stood there, one hand gripping the edge of her desk. It all came
back, like lifting the curtain on her past. Her heart was a stone.
An aching, horrible stone. She didn’t allow people to get close
because she didn’t want them to see that she was ruined under
that veneer of shiny power and control. That she was,
ultimately, empty. Nothing. That she’d been nothing since she
as fourteen years old.
And that woman in her bed upstairs…
Whoever she was, they hadn’t had a relationship.
Giana had never felt so reckless or out of control. She
blazed through the house, storming upstairs and throwing open
her bedroom door so hard that it thundered against the
