Limitless Love (Lotus House #4)(20)

I shook off the old wound and focused on the group in front of me. Lily was still arguing with Atlas about who got the baby when it was born as I came back to the here and now.

“Well, congrats, guys. I’m going to head out. I’ll be back with the fixings for dinner tomorrow. Give you guys a break. Monet, I can change your bandages then too.”

She smiled and closed her eyes. With her eyes closed, looking like she did not have a care in the world, she was unearthly exquisite. Maybe one day I could be the one to see that look on her face while I was lying in bed beside her.





Chapter Five





You may have a closed heart chakra if you are feeling bitterness and anger toward those you have perceived as having wronged you. In order to open your heart chakra you must release that anger, forgive yourself and others without condition, and truly let go.

MONET



I adored Mila and Atlas. Loved them. So much so I couldn’t imagine not having them as part of my life. But with my heart shredded and my psyche having taken the motherlode of hits, the last thing I wanted to see was a couple in love flaunting their happy selves all over my house.

I was wretched. A horrible friend. Downright loser material.

As I made my way through the kitchen and past the couple canoodling on my couch, I physically gagged. This was not like me. I’d always been the world’s biggest proponent of love. Finding it. Keeping it. Working hard at relationships because I believed wholeheartedly that anything worth having took work. Love was no different. And I know I did my best with Kyle. Doted on him the way a loving wife should. Only, he never returned that affection.

But when it came right down to it, I’d failed at love. Failed miserably. A shot of guilt warring with anger sliced straight through my back where a tender patch of my wound stung. Not the first painful reminder that the man I had loved more than my next breath didn’t love me back. In fact, he loved me so little he’d taken a knife to me in hate.

For what?

I lifted up a coffee cup and filled it with the nectar of the gods. My hands shook like I was a frail hundred-year-old woman. I set the cup down and rested my arms on the counter in front of me, bracing myself for the onslaught of emotions that tore me apart one flash of memory at a time.

Kyle tried to kill me.

Breathe, Moe. Calm down.

He tried to kill me for money. Money.

Anger and disgust coated my heart, and I broke out in a misting of fine sweat. I could feel a tremble start in my toes and work its way up my legs, through my body, and out to my fingertips. I gripped the rounded edge of the counter.

What was it he’d said? So the money would go to the right person? He must have been talking about my sister, Matisse.

A shiver catapulted me into the past.



* * *



Kyle entered the lawyer’s office. At first I was surprised to see him. Hopeful, even, that he’d come at such a sad time in my life. My grandparents had both passed, and I was the lone living relative sitting in their lawyer’s office for the reading of the will. I’d gotten everything. My family had not intended anything for Matisse. But I had a plan. I’d create a separate trust for her. I had more money than I needed or could ever use in this lifetime. Maybe if she didn’t have to worry about money, we could focus on building our relationship. With our dad somewhere working, focusing on himself as usual, pretending he didn’t have a family he’d left behind, Matisse was all I had left.

And then she walked in behind Kyle, holding his hand. They both stopped in front of me, smarmy grins on their faces. To say I was shocked to see Matisse with my ex-husband would have been putting it mildly. I knew he’d been fond of her, but not this fond.

“Matisse? Kyle? What are you doing here?” I questioned, tearfully watching their body language, trying to vanquish any negative thoughts before they could rise to the surface.

“Don’t be dense, Moe. I’m with Kyle.” She laid a hand over his abdomen and nestled in close. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Once he left your sorry ass, I picked up the pieces of his broken heart and made him mine.” She blinked flirtatiously.

The weight that hit my chest was devastating. “No.” I shook my head, not wanting to believe it was true. My sister wouldn’t betray me like that. Not after everything I’d done for her over the years.

Kyle smirked. “You knew I liked Matisse. Hell, I was fucking her the entire time we were married. Why did you think I always wanted her to come visit? So I could crawl between her sexy thighs while you were sleeping.” He snorted. “I had Matisse on every surface of our home before I left you to trade up for a better model. And look at her. She’s everything you could never be. Now it’s time to get her back the money she deserves. Excuse us while we talk to the lawyer.”



* * *



Vomit crawled up my throat, and I barely staved it off as I gripped the tile. My stomach churned with the vile memory.

Breathe, Monet. Let it all go. That was the past; this is the present. You don’t want Kyle. He’s not the right man for you, and if you think back, he never was.

I had pushed her, their betrayal, and every attachment I’d had to my sister to the darkest recesses of my mind the second she walked into our lawyer’s office with my ex-husband’s hand in hers. Except it didn’t work.