Swept Away by the Venetian Millionaire

A noise, movement, something had her looking back towards the door to find Cormac leaning in the doorway. Watching her.

When their eyes met he smiled. Just the slightest tilt of his mouth, but it filled her with butterflies all the same.

She felt her forehead tighten into a scowl.

For she’d been hanging out for this moment, this reunion   with her flesh and blood, her heart and soul, her Lola, for so long.

And he—with his history, his link to the Chadwicks and his knowing eyes—was ruining everything.

“Oh, hi, Cormac!” said Lola as she crawled to sit beside Harper on the bed, before leaning on her like a puppy. “I didn’t see you there.”

He tilted his chin and gave her a wink, his stance easing, his eyes softening, his entire countenance lightening.

“Have you two been getting reacquainted, then? Chatting about the good old days?”

“Not sure we had much in the way of ‘old days’, did we, Harper? You were—what, a year or two below me at school?”

“A year below,” she said, her voice admirably even. Then, with a deliberate blink and a turn of her shoulders, she cut him out of the circle.

She took one of Lola’s hands in hers and pulled it to her heart, then pressed her other hand against her little sister’s face. And she drank her in like a woman starved.

The last time she’d flown Lola to holiday with her in Paris, she’d still had apple cheeks. Now they were gone. New smile lines creased the edges of her mouth. Her hair was longer too, more structured, blonder.

And shadows smudged the skin beneath her bright blue eyes.

Late nights? Not enough water? Or some deeper concern?

When their family had fallen apart all those years ago, Harper had done everything in her power to shield Lola from the worst of it. Taking every hit, fixing every problem, hiding every secret, so that Lola might simply go on, having the blessed life she’d have enjoyed otherwise.

Meaning Lola knew nothing about the part the Chadwicks had played in it all.

Here, now, seeing her sister in the flesh, Harper knew—it was time. It was time for Lola to know the truth.

“How you doing, Lolly?” Harper asked, her voice soft, her expression beseeching. “Truly.”

At which point Lola’s bottom lip began to quake and she burst into tears.