I grinned as I read the text from Jackie. We didn’t talk often, but we managed to communicate every few weeks. It wasn’t as good as living in the same town and doing sister brunch on the weekends, but it helped me to still feel connected to them.

My phone went off again, a different phone number this time.

I caught the bouquet. Next we’ll all be old married ladies. Love you. Miss you. Be safe. B.

My smile widened as I envisioned that and thought of how happy I was to see them both settled. Blair had been right. The Reynolds sisters—all three of us—had done well.

My phone beeped again, another message from Blair, this time a link to a video.

I pulled it up, feeling a pang in my stomach as I saw my father step into the view of the camera, my mother next to him behind the podium.

I listened as he gave up his Senate seat and retired from political life, citing his need to “spend more time with his family,” which was the ultimate joke considering he’d lost all of his daughters.

In the past few months, more details had emerged and while I knew my father was both smart enough and slippery enough to avoid any actual prosecution, his allies had begun distancing themselves from him, he’d become a punch line on evening talk shows, and his approval ratings were even more abysmally low than what was standard in his profession. There had been an investigation into Intech’s actions in Afghanistan, and somehow my father had pulled enough strings behind the scenes to pin the brunt of it on James Ryan. But even with a dead man as a scapegoat, the connection between them had been too close for my father to come out of it looking anything other than guilty. There hadn’t been enough evidence to prosecute him, but in the court of public opinion he’d been condemned, and for a politician, that dealt a killing blow.

My mother looked completely unruffled by the events, her chin tilted, that same look in her eyes that she’d always had, as though no matter how low they’d been brought, she’d still forever be looking down on the world. My father didn’t look defeated or broken; he sold the story in a way that nearly had me believing that he was stepping down to spend time with his family.

But because I was his daughter, and like it or not, I had just enough ruthlessness in me to understand, I saw the anger hiding in his eyes behind the faux love for his family, and knew that this was in its own way, justice. He’d lost his power; he’d lost everything.

I stopped the video midway through and took a moment to breathe in the salt air, to revel in our victory, and then I responded to my sisters’ texts. When I’d finished, I set my phone down and looked out at the water, at the sight of Matt surrounded by all that blue, a speck in the giant ocean.

I walked down to the beach to join him with a smile on my face and the peace of knowing that all was right in my world and that of those I loved, leaving my past behind me and stepping into my future.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the awesome team at Berkley and InterMix—especially my fabulous editor, Kate Seaver, and publicist extraordinaire, Ryanne Probst. Thanks to my wonderful agent, Kevan Lyon, for her advice and support. Big thanks to my amazing husband and my family and friends for their love and encouragement. And thank you SO much to all of the bloggers and reviewers who have taken an interest in my work and, to you, the reader, for reading my books and making my dreams come true. I couldn’t do it without you!

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