the crime family who were supposedly upstanding members of the religious organization.
“I wish I had that goddamn letter,” I said gutturally.
I wanted explanations.
I wanted to know exactly why Skye had left, and what she was thinking when she had.
I wanted to find out if she’d ever given a damn about . . . me.
Maybe it was old news, but Skye and I had never really closed our relationship. She’d just . . . left.
“If it makes you feel any better, I regret getting rid of the letter, Aiden. I really do. It was instinct.”
I looked at Seth, and he did look pretty repentant, and regret was something I rarely saw in my brother’s expression.
Yeah, I got it. Maybe I would have wanted to protect him, too, if our positions were reversed. The Sinclairs watched each other’s backs. Always. We wouldn’t have survived if we hadn’t. We’d all parented each other—badly, sometimes. But we’d done our best to make sure our siblings weren’t suffering.
“Anything else you want to confess?” I asked bitterly.
“Nope. That’s about the only shitty thing I did to you that I can think of right now,” he said.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I didn’t think it mattered before. But you’ve never really put Skye behind you, have you? In all these years, I’ve never seen you serious about any other female.”
“Fuck!” I grumbled.
Yeah, I’d always wanted to see Skye Weston as just a small part of my history. But ever since she’d come back to Citrus Beach with her daughter in tow, I’d wondered what in the hell had happened between the two of us. She’d been fine on the day I’d left for a two-month fishing job. We’d been planning all the things we wanted to do together in the future, and damned if I hadn’t been missing her already the minute I’d left. She’d haunted me throughout that two-month job, and I’d been counting the days until I could get back to her.
But how could I have ever known that Skye would be gone when I got back home?
I finally answered Seth’s question. “I don’t think I ever got over her.”
“Then ask her why she left,” he suggested. “You don’t need a letter. She’s here.”
Maybe so, but Skye had a history of running, just like she’d done tonight. “I tried. She seems to think she has a reason to be angry. That’s why I wish I had read her letter. I have no idea what she’s mad about. I didn’t leave her. She left me.”
“Try again. Get her someplace where she can’t run away. I don’t think you’re ever going to move on until you get your questions answered. I wish I hadn’t destroyed that letter. I wish that you would have had those answers years ago.”
I nodded. “I have to know.”
Seth grinned. “How long are you going to stay pissed off at me?”
I probably would have punched him out if my siblings and I hadn’t learned very early on that we couldn’t afford to have one less ally. Growing up, we’d been taught not to alienate each other, even if we were furious with one of our brothers or sisters. All we’d had was each other. And Seth and Noah were protective of me since I was younger than they were.
“I’m not going to get over this anytime soon,” I warned him. “I was twenty-four years old. You were barely a year older. It wasn’t necessary to protect me like I was a teenager.”
“That instinct is never going to go away, and you know it. Jade is twenty-seven, and I still want to shake her and make sure she’s marrying the right guy.”
“We all like Eli,” I reminded him. “Hell, he’s our biggest investor and advisor in Sinclair Properties.”
“That doesn’t mean I trust him with my sister,” Seth grumbled.
It wasn’t like I didn’t understand exactly what my brother was telling me. We’d grown up protecting Brooke, Jade, and Owen. So it wasn’t easy to let go. “She’s happy.”
Seth nodded. “Which is the only reason I’m okay with her marrying Eli Stone.”
“He better make sure he keeps her that way,” I added.
Seth and I understood each other perfectly . . . when it came to our younger sisters and brother.
“So a week? Two? A month? Give me some kind of guide as to when you’re going to forget that I did something stupid,” Seth requested.
I shot him a dirty look. We’d all done dumb things to each other at one time or another. But we were