Scandal

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

I needed a break from my life. I still hadn't decided what the heck I was going to do with my life now that I had left my father's company . . . hell, my company. I decided to take a mini vacation to see my brother James. Well, he was actually my stepbrother—I had a few of those because of my father's many marriages. This brother was the son of the woman from my father’s previous marriage. I really liked Marie, but I had never once seen anything wrong with his previous wife. I had a hard time seeing anything wrong with any of my father's previous wives. I was starting to think it had been my father all along who had no idea how to keep a marriage together. And to think he had been my idol for so long. Like him, I had always thought it was best to treat women like things I could throw away when they no longer suited my needs. But Sasha had been different, and it made me realize just how wrong I had been about all of it.

The thing that I most enjoyed about James’s family was the fact that it was a family. He was only a few years younger, and yet his life was so much fuller than mine. I couldn't figure it out, but it was true. He was happy living such a simple life—and I loved watching it.

He had been married just a few years ago, and they already had a one-year-old son. Here was James—younger, married, and already with a child. Something I had never even thought about because I was too busy having one-night stands. How stupid could I have been?

The fact of the matter was that James’s wife Christie adored him, and he was gloriously happy. Their child was just the cherry on top.

How had James gotten it right when he had grown up in the same turbulent type of family environment that I had? Why were we so different? Was it only because he had decided against working for the family business? Was that the thing that separated us? James had somehow found his freedom and claimed it, while I was the one tethered to a man who controlled my life.

No, I was determined. My life was going to be about something, be for something, even if it killed me. I was going to somehow find the life that James had. I wanted the same thing for myself.

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