“Mom and Daddy are making me marry Howard Hurley.” At my blank expression she added, “The man I had with me at dinner the last time you were here?”

Oh yeah, the guy I’d wanted to tell to run. But Howard was not the name she’d just said on her phone call. “Then who is Santiago?”

She looked sad and conflicted, and I thought she wasn’t going to tell me, as we’d never been especially close. But then the words came rushing out of her, as if she couldn’t help herself. “Santiago is my personal trainer. And I’m in love with him. But Howard works at Weston Wilshire. He’s set to become president of our overseas division and our parents think he’s the perfect match for me. I have to marry him.”

This was insanity. My sister should be able to marry whomever she wanted. “No, you don’t. I broke up with Brad. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s why I’m here. So that I can get yelled at. But they’re not going to change my mind. Mom and Daddy don’t get to dictate who you marry. You’re the CEO of one of the biggest companies in the entire country. Nobody should be telling you what to do. Tell them you’re in love with someone else and you’re not marrying Howard.”

There was a brief spark of hope in her eyes, but I saw the way she immediately squashed it. “They’ll cut me off. They’ll fire me. I’ll lose everything I’ve worked for.”

I shook my head. “Not everything. You’ll have Santiago. You have your degrees and your experience. I bet there are forty companies out there who would hire you as CEO in a heartbeat. You can get another job.” I took a step toward her, not sure what she would do. “And you’ll have me. I know what it feels like not to have any support. But that’s not your situation. I’m on your side and I’ll stand by you. No matter what decision you make. But it is your decision, hard as it may be. Someone told me recently that we always have a choice. Make the one that will make you happy. Not our parents.”

She nodded, clearly miserable, and I wondered what she would do if I tried to hug her. This was probably the most personal conversation she and I had ever had. Part of that was due to the ten-year age difference, but it was also due to our parents pitting us against one another, trying to make us compete for their affections.

Another game I was no longer going to play.

“I have to go,” she said, and I stepped aside, wishing I could offer her comfort but knowing she wouldn’t accept it. I let out a deep sigh as she left the room. My poor sister. Her personal trainer? My mother was going to break her favorite pearl necklace from all the clutching she was about to do. That image made me smile a little.

Sitting down in one of the overstuffed armchairs, I considered my sister’s fate. I knew how hard it would be for her, probably even harder than it had been for me as she’d been under their thumb for longer and was more reliant on them than I was. Her entire career, which had always been the main focus of her life, was due to their benevolence.

But that also meant they could withdraw it any time they chose. It was like having a sword hanging over your head that hung by the weakest thread. It could drop at any moment and you had all the constant stress and anxiety of not knowing when or how that would happen.

Except for today. I knew that sword was headed straight for my head.

I was a little proud of Violet that she’d found the time to fall in love. That she’d taken a risk and chosen something for herself.

Just as I’d started to wonder how long my mother was going to make me wait, another one of her favorite tactics, I smelled her Chanel perfume. She came into the library a moment later.

“Madison.”

“Mother.”

She sat down across from me, perched on the edge of her chair, her legs crossed at her ankles. Her pink business suit was perfectly pressed, her french knot elegantly done. She looked over my slouching, comfortable form and her dismissive gaze let me know I’d been found wanting.

I didn’t feel less than. She was mistaking my appearance to mean I wasn’t prepared and that I would crumble under the weight of her disapproval.

She was wrong.

My mother could bring on her own personal Spanish Inquisition. I was ready.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“You are going to call Bradford and you are going to patch things up with him.”

I wanted to sigh. How predictable. Same song, different verse. Actually, I couldn’t even say that. Same song, same verse. She made her demand imperiously, like she was the queen of her kingdom and expected all the peasants to do her bidding.

What she’d forgotten was that made me a battle-ready princess. “I will not be doing that.”

The look on her face was so priceless it made me wish that I could have taken a picture of it. “I beg your pardon?”

I knew that I had shocked her, because that wasn’t how I normally behaved with her. When she and my father were busy casting me out and disowning me, I stayed silent. I didn’t cave, I went ahead with the choices I’d made, but I didn’t talk back. I hadn’t verbally stood up for myself, just nodded and went along with their punishments.

Something else that was about to stop.

“I know you’re not hard of hearing, Mom. I’m not going to call him. This may be a surprise to you, but this isn’t the twelfth century. Your daughters are not your chattel and you don’t get to arrange our marriages.”

Somehow her back straightened even further. “I demand to know why you won’t call him.”

“Um, because he sucks and is a crappy human being?”

“I fail to see your point.”

This was it. Time to throw away my get-out-of-jail-free card. She was never going to forgive me for this, and I was okay with it. It wasn’t like I had anything left to lose. “I’m done with Brad. I’m not marrying him.”

“You say that now—”

“No. Not now, not ever. He and I are through and should have been done a long time ago. If I hadn’t been so caught up in trying to always please you and Daddy—”

Now it was her turn to cut me off. “When have you ever tried to please me? You’ve always done exactly whatever you wanted with no thought to how it affected me. Have you stopped, even once, to think about what you breaking up with Bradford would do to me?”

She was never going to get it, because she couldn’t think or care about anyone besides herself. “This isn’t about you, Mom. If you want to be connected to the Branson family so badly, you marry him. I’m not going to do it.”

That made her gasp. “After all I’ve done for you, all I’ve given you, I’m overwhelmed by the sheer ingratitude! Give me one reason why you won’t marry him.”

“Just one? Wow. That’ll be hard. I have so many.” I leaned back in my chair, considering. “There’s the fact that I don’t love him, that he makes me really unhappy. But I think if I can only pick one, I’m going to go with he can’t stop sleeping with other women.”

“Do you think you’re the only one who has to deal with that?” she snapped. “Sacrifices have to be made to have the life you want.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You should. I raised you to be smarter than this.”