The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

Emma had been trying to get over it for ten years. She lured men in. Not just any man—never good-looking men like Cooper who, if they could see past her looks, would be turned off by her personality. No, Emma went after older men. Men who were old enough or desperate enough or horny enough that they didn’t care what she said, if she was nice or not. Men who would choose her over a woman like Laura, who was all smiles and sweetness. Emma wanted to be Laura, if only for an evening. She wanted to be the preferred one. So she sought the easy men out, enjoyed the attention, enjoyed watching their eyes light up with the possibility of touching her. She enjoyed a weird sense of victory when those men chose her. Not Laura. Her.

Of course that behavior came with consequences. The thrill of it ended when she allowed the man to catch her. Anything that came after—sex, if she had to, less if she could get away with it—felt dirty and cheap and empty. The moment the men chose her, the thrill was gone, and Emma felt so disgusting that she willingly left a piece of herself behind, then took something of theirs to remind her of how she’d been the one. If only for a night, she’d been the one.

The behavior had become habit now. She didn’t think it had much to do with Laura and Grant anymore, but something so deeply rooted that it would take an axe to cleave out of her.

Sick, sick, sick.

Who could ever love her? She couldn’t even love herself.

With ten years of hindsight, Emma knew that the blame lay with her dead father. She knew if he hadn’t come into her life when he had, if he hadn’t played on her young emotions and her desperate hope that he would really be the father she dreamed of having, none of it ever would have happened.

But that didn’t make it any easier to be around Laura, or her betrayal any easier to accept. It didn’t make it okay for Laura now to pretend that Emma had always been unreasonable, had always tried to make trouble for her. It didn’t make it okay that in the course of family holidays, Emma’s mother and stepfather preferred to sweep it under the rug and let it go that Laura had been fucking a middle-aged guy who just happened to be Emma’s father.

Eventually, Emma stopped going to the Fourth of July barbecues and the Christmas parties. She retreated slowly from her family, tiny fragments of her leaving each day until she’d retreated so deeply from them and from herself that she didn’t know how to make her way back even if she’d wanted to.

The night Emma unexpectedly encountered Laura, she realized two years had passed since they’d met. Laura had been as gorgeous as always with her dark auburn hair, her sky-blue eyes. She was more fit than Emma remembered her, toned and sleek. Her date was a real estate broker, one of the high rollers who appeared on TV shows about flipping houses.

Laura had smiled warmly when she saw Emma. “Wow, I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

Emma hadn’t known what to say. And as she’d searched for something, Laura had touched her hand. “You look great,” she’d said. “Really great. You must be doing well.”

“Ah . . . okay, I guess,” Emma had stammered. “You look good, too, Laura.”

Laura had beamed at the compliment. “Thanks! My trainer is Godzilla. He really works me,” she said. “Hey, I’m starring on Days of Our Lives. Have you seen it?”

“Ummm . . . I haven’t seen it.” Emma’s mother gleefully kept her informed of Laura’s glam life.

“The storyline is so hard to follow. Did I or did I not kill my husband?” Laura said with a flippant roll of her eyes. “Let me introduce you to Josh Hyland,” she said, and without taking her gaze from Emma, she reached to her right, touching her date’s hand.

Josh Hyland turned toward Emma, and with a flick of his gaze, he made a quick appraisal of her and smiled appreciatively. “Who do we have here?” he asked, his eyes sliding to her breasts and up again.

“Josh, this is my stepsister, Emma.”

“Well, well,” Josh said, his gaze now taking her in like she was some fatted calf at market. “I don’t know what’s in the water in Orange County, but it’s impossible to believe there are two women like you out there. But of course, you’re related.”

That salacious look of his, that smile, had flipped a switch in Emma. The hatches closed, the shutters came up. “We’re not related. We’re stepsisters.”

“I meant, you came from the same house. So you share the same space, basically. Two gorgeous women sharing the same air.” He winked at Emma, as if she should be happy with that assessment.

“We really don’t share anything, to be honest,” Emma said. “Well . . . except my father. I guess you could say we shared him.” The words fell from her mouth before she could stop them.

Laura’s mouth dropped open; she glared at Emma. “I don’t believe you,” she said, so softly that Emma scarcely heard her. Or maybe Laura had shouted it—Emma couldn’t hear over the rush of blood in her own head, the result of being appalled by what she’d just said.

“Sorry—”