LITMIR.BIZ

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Edward, to Jason, to me. She abruptly slapped her hands hard against the table.

      “I deserved the role, not you!” she cried in a shrill voice. “I’d been doing commercials since I was a baby! I was the actress, not you. And you were eighteen by then, Diana, way too old for the role!”

      “Compared to you?”

      “I was seventeen—the perfect age!”

      “For getting engaged to my agent?” I said dryly. “The second you heard about the role, you went for him. You knew he could get you that audition, and more. He could get you the career you wanted.”

      “You make it sound sordid,” she gasped, putting her manicured hand against her chest in a fake laugh. “It wasn’t like that!”

      “Oh?” I said coolly. “So you didn’t seduce him to get him to take you on as a client, and sell you to the show?”

      “You’re jealous! It’s not my fault you gave up the audition and rushed home. The next day, when Lenny and I spent time together, he realized I was the perfect Moxie, not you. That’s all!”

      “He was fifty,” I said.

      “I loved him!”

      “You dumped him fast enough, after he got you your first movie role, and you realized that dating a big Hollywood director would help you further up the ladder. You didn’t mind that he had to break up with his wife to do it.”

      “Enough.” Jason rose from the table, his face like granite. He looked at Madison. “So I’m number five, am I?”

      “You’re different,” she whispered. “Special.”

      “I don’t feel special.” Jason looked at me. “I’m starting to think I chose the wrong sister.”

      Madison looked frightened. “Jason—”

      “Here.” Reaching into his pocket, he tossed a set of car keys onto the table. They skittered helter-skelter down the long polished wood. “I’m taking a car back to London. I’ll leave the keys at the front desk of your hotel.”

      “Wait,” she said desperately, rising to her feet. “You can’t leave. I need you—”

      He left without a backward glance.

      Madison staggered back.

      “Does this mean the wedding is off?” Edward inquired pleasantly.

      Ignoring him, she slowly turned to face me. “Diana. I know I’ve done a lot of stupid and selfish things. But I never thought you would be the one to list them out. Not you.”

      The injured fury in my heart deserted me, just when I needed it most. I rose to my feet.

      “I never thought you would attack me like that.” Her crystalline eyes glimmered in the candlelight. Her voice caught as she looked away. “You’re not my big sister. You’re just like all the rest.”

      My throat suddenly hurt as I remembered how we first met, virtual strangers to each other attending our parents’ wedding as slightly-too-old flower girls, both feeling awkward, uncertain. My mom had told me Madison’s mother died of a drug overdose when she was a toddler. So be nice to her, she’d chided.

      Seeing her sad little face, I’d wanted to protect her. We’re family now, I’d said at the wedding, hugging her over the flowers. I’m gonna be your big sister, Maddy. So don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.

      “Maddy—” I whispered.

      “Forget it,” Madison choked out. “Just forget it.”

      She turned away in a cloud of grief and expensive perfume, stumbling out of Penryth Hall, calling Jason’s name, then her bodyguards’.

      The great hall was suddenly quiet, the only sound the whipping of the wind outside rattling the glass panes of the windows.

      Edward looked at me.

      “I wondered what it would be like, if you ever really let yourself go,” he said quietly. “Now I know.”

      A sob lifted to my throat. My knees wobbled beneath me, and suddenly Edward was there, catching me before I could fall. I stared up at him in bewilderment, wondering how he’d moved so fast.

      “I was horrible,” I whispered.

      “You were magnificent,” he said softly, brushing hair from my face.

      “Magnificent?” I gave a harsh laugh. “I was so determined to list all her faults. But what I’ve done is worse.”

      “What’s that?”

      “I told her I’d always take care of her,” I whispered. “Then I hurt her like this....”

      “Seems like she had it coming,” he said softly, caressing my cheek.

      I shuddered at his touch, longing for his comfort, fighting the desire to turn my cheek into his caress. “All these years I’ve blamed her for taking the role that might have made me a star. But it was never mine in the first place. She was right. I had the chance to audition. I went home.”

      “To be with your mother...”

      “Whatever the reason. It was a choice I made.” I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “After losing my parents, and the role of Moxie, I never wanted to have my heart crushed again. It’s not Madison’s fault I spent the next ten years hiding, not letting myself feel or want too much....”

      “Until you fell for Jason,” he said.

      But was Jason the exception? Or had he just been one more example of me taking the safe path? The thought was new and troubling.

      Swallowing, I looked up at Edward through shimmering tears.

      “It wasn’t Madison’s fault,” I whispered. “I did it to myself. I chose to be a coward.” My voice caught as I turned away. “Playing it safe has ruined my life.”

      Edward said quietly, “Your life isn’t over yet.”

      Our eyes locked in the shadowy great hall. An almost palpable electricity crackled between us.

      “I have a private island in the Caribbean,” he said huskily. “That’s where I’d go if I needed to escape a broken heart. I stayed there after my accident. I needed to be alone.” He gave a grim smile. “Well, alone with a doctor and two round-the-clock nurses.” Reaching out, he gently twisted a long tendril of my hair. “No one can get at you there, Diana. There’s no internet, no phones, no way to even get on the island except by my plane.” He gave me a smile. “Want to go?”

      Looking up at him, I tried to smile back, but couldn’t quite manage. “Thanks, but it wouldn’t help.” I looked down at my hands. “Not when the person I want to escape from is myself.”

      Reaching out, Edward tilted up my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. His dark blue eyes gleamed with silver and sapphire light, like the half-bright sky at dawn. “I understand,” he said quietly. “Better than you might think.”

      “You do?” I whispered. Of its own will, my hand reached up to stroke his tousled black hair. It was so thick, and soft, just as I’d thought it would be. Five o’clock shadow traced the sharp edges of his jaw. Everything about him was masculine and foreign to me. I didn’t understand him at all. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

      He gave a sudden crooked smile. “Maybe it’s just to lure you in my bed.” His hand moved gently from my hair to my cheek. “Did you ever think of that?”

      I gave a tearful, hiccupping laugh. “You don’t have to try this hard for me.”

      “I don’t?”

      I looked up at him.

      “No,” I whispered.

      His hand

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