Chapter 7

• I’m sitting at the dining table staring into space. It’s Sunday night and we’ve just eaten dinner. My two brothers are on either side of me, while my father is at the head of the table. They’re all talking, but I’m miles away.
• I’m dreaming of a life where I didn’t have to worry about what people thought of me, where my family’s reputation doesn’t matter, and one where my brother wouldn’t have a broken heart.
• It kills me to see him so hurt.
• My eldest brother Edward is to take on the estate and the family empire when my father dies, because he is the oldest son. The universe clearly prepped him for his destiny before his birth, too. He is strong—an alpha—and a leader. Being cold, ruthless, and domineering, he will definitely fulfil his duties well.
• My other brother William is the opposite. He’s pure perfection—my best friend and more like me than anyone on Earth.
• William is a doctor, and our mother’s death rocked him hard. I don’t think he’s recovered yet. Do any of us ever recover?
• William fell desperately in love with a woman not long after our mother’s death. He worshipped the ground she walked on. She was the life and soul of the party, a high society girl, and my father knew her parents well. The wedding was an extravagant affair, on every society page, and an absolute fairy tale.
• The two of them had a baby; a son named Harrison. He’s four now and he’s their world, making their lives perfect. That was until my brother came home one day from a work trip early and found his wife in bed with another man. The affair had been going on for months.
• It broke his heart. Ours, too.
• My father banished her from the house, and from our lives. We only see Harrison when William brings him over now, and that’s rare.
• Edward, my oldest brother, hates William’s ex with such a passion that I fear he would run her over in the street if he saw her. This rocked our family to its very core. How do you deal with infidelity, especially when he is still married to that person? Still with her to this day, actually.
• He stayed with her because he didn’t want to leave his son. He didn’t want to be the one who ended the marriage, and she promised him the world if he stayed, blaming her indiscretions on him for working all the time.
• But the worst part, the very worst part of it all, is that he still loves her.
• He loves her so much that he would give anything to make her happy.
• I see it in his eyes every time I look at him. I see how deep his hurt runs. He’s dying a slow death, knowing that the woman he loves doesn’t love him with the same purity as he loves her.
• She never loved him and the whole world knows it.
• It’s a whole new level of torture for everyone.
• It was the money that she wanted—the designer lifestyle to go with her designer cocaine. She got her way, too. Now they live in Switzerland in a huge mansion that she definitely doesn’t deserve.
• I hate her.
• I hate her so much that it eats away at me day and night.
• My mother would be rolling in her grave if she saw what William is living through.
• It’s a hell that he never deserved.
• Her name is Penelope—the walking, talking devil.
• I’m pulled out of my thoughts by my brother’s raised voice.
• “I don’t know about this!” Edward snaps.
• My father exhales heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You know we have to go.”
• “Why can’t you just come back here?” Edward asks William. “It’s six weeks.”
• “Because I can’t get time off. Not everyone works for Dad, you know.”
• “Huh?” I frown. “Hang on, what are you talking about?” I ask.
• “Edward and I have to go to America for work. We’ll be away for six to seven weeks while we do the tour of the casinos. We want William to come back and stay here while we’re gone,” Edward tells me.
• I look between them, confused. “Why?”
• “You are not staying here alone, Charlotte,” my father says.
• “Wait, what?” I frown. “This is about me?” I sit back, offended. “I’m twenty-four. I can look after myself.”
• “No!” Edward asserts. “You’ll have to come with us.”
• “I can’t get time off, and I’m not leaving my job, Edward.”
• “For God’s sake, isn’t it about time you left that job and came and worked for the family business, anyway? We have a family empire that you should be working on. You don’t need to work in philanthropy.”
• “This is our mother’s dream that I work on,” I hit back. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Edward, or where to work. And besides, Wyatt and the staff will be here. I’m completely capable of looking after myself, you know?”
• “Don’t tell her to leave her job. Why do you think you have the right to tell her what to do?” William snaps in my defence.
• Edward turns, and I can see his anger rise to the surface. “You want to talk about leaving jobs?” He points at William. “Yes, let’s do that. When the fuck are you going to live up to your responsibility to this family and come and work in the business?”
• “Edward.” My father sighs. “That’s enough.”
• “I’m not,” William growls. “I never will. Casinos and making money aren’t life goals of mine.”
• I close my eyes, resting my fingers on my temples. Here we go again.
• “Why is that?” Edward growls back. “Because you’re hiding in fucking Switzerland with that whore.”
• My eyes widen. He did not just say that.