Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)(73)

The morning sun rose in the sky, and soon they reached their father’s resting place. Michael read the engraved words out loud, as he always did when he came here with Shan. Thomas Darren Paige. Loving father.

“He was,” his sister said.

“He was.”

Shannon set the flowers at the base of the headstone, then kissed the granite. Michael’s throat hitched, watching his sister. He kneeled down briefly and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close as tears streamed down her cheeks. She’d always been emotional; she was even more so these days while pregnant. Michael couldn’t fault her for it, either.

Soon she rose, wiped her hands across her cheeks, and plastered on a smile. “I’m all better now.”

He smiled back and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Course you are, Shannon bean.”

“So tell me about Paris…”

“Ah…the elephant in the room.”

But he found he needed to talk about this black hole in his heart, and Shan was precisely the person who’d understand best. As they stood by the grave, arms crossed over chests, a cool fall breeze rustling the leaves, he shared the fears that had bubbled to the surface the last night in Paris.

“And I think I might be a total * who has no perspective, since I’m jealous of a dead guy,” he said, with a forced laugh as he finished the story.

She rubbed his arm reassuringly. “No, you’re not. You’re just in love, and it’s hard, but I don’t know why you’re so worried she can never love anyone but her husband.”

“How is it even possible for her to love like that?” He gripped his chest, as if grabbing at his heart. “I’m so f*cking crazy for her I can’t imagine ever feeling this way about anyone else. How can she do it? She is the great love of my life. How will I ever be anything to her that comes close?”

Shannon parked her hands on his shoulders. She was tiny, and he towered over her small frame, but in that moment, she was the strong one. “You are my big brother who I have always looked up to, leaned on, and relied on. You’ve been like a watchdog, looking out for all of us. But you’ve forgotten to take care of yourself.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he said, not denying it. “But what does that mean?”

“You’ve got it wrong, Michael. Because you understand love on this powerful, intense level. That’s your strength, but it’s also your weakness. To you, love is an all-or-nothing proposition.” She moved her hand back and forth like a pendulum. “You love Dad; you don’t love Mom.”

He scoffed. “Of course I don’t love her. How could I?”

She sighed and squeezed his arm. “All I’m saying is you feel everything in your bones, in your marrow. And it’s not conceivable to you that love can be more than one person, more than one thing. Like how you felt about Brent and how angry you were with him.”

Michael flashed back to his reaction when Shannon told him she was together again with Brent. He hadn’t been happy, and he’d told Brent as much. But he’d softened eventually. He’d welcomed Brent into the family because of the man’s deep love for his sister. “But we’re good now. Brent and I get along.”

“And I am so, so glad. But my point is this—right now with Annalise, you’re stuck in All-or-Nothing Michael Land. You’re the Michael who hated Brent and only saw him one way.”

“And what way am I seeing things?”

“You think it’s either you or Julien. But the fact that Annalise loved her husband is actually a damn fine thing,” Shannon said, staring pointedly at him. “It says something about her character that she never strayed from him, and had the strength to turn away from you and give him all she had during their marriage. But you’ve somehow twisted that positive into proof that her heart is finished, and she can’t possibly care for you.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, flashing back to what she’d told him about the photos of him. The album of their days together long ago, and the new pictures too. And while Annalise had shared so many moments with her husband, she’d shared so much with him too. Michael had been her first love, her first kiss, the first person to make her soar in pleasure. “Maybe I have. But still…”

She raised a finger, stopping him. “You have, and what I hope you can start to see is that it’s possible to love two people deeply, madly, and truly.”

He narrowed his eyes. “How? How can you say that?”

Her next words came out in a soft breath. “I love two people deeply.”

He arched an eyebrow in question. As far as he knew, Brent was it for her—her one and only. Her first love and her last love, and she hadn’t fallen for anyone in between. “Who?”

“Brent,” she said, raising her chin, saying his name matter-of-factly. “I loved Brent in college for who he was then—a goofball, a funny guy, my sunshine hero. He’s the same man, and yet he’s also completely different. And I fell in love with the man he is now. A strong man, the guy who makes me laugh, a soon-to-be great father, my biggest supporter. The one.”

“But he’s the same man,” Michael said, trying to make sense of his sister’s strange theory.

She nodded. “I know. Of course he’s still the same person, and yet…he’s also not. He’s different now than he was the first time we were together, and I loved him then, and I also fell in love with him again. With the man he is today,” she said, stopping for a beat.