Guilt and duty had been her constant companions all these years. This moment brought righteous anger. Hopefully, the future would bring forgiveness.
But it was anger that gave her the strength to hold her own and say, “What would Mom think of what you did, Whitney?”
Whitney sniffed haughtily. “You mean be the best wife I could to Evan and still keep my sanity?”
“No.” Paige’s voice was sharp enough to cut through Whitney’s smugness, her eyebrows rising in surprise. “What you did to Evan was horrible. Unthinkable. Unforgivable. You lied, not just once, but three times.” She held up a finger when Whitney opened her mouth. “Oh wait, four times, when we count the tubal ligation you never told him about.”
“It’s my body. I can do what I want with it.”
“Except lie about it to your husband.” She advanced a step and Whitney actually backed up. Paige had never challenged her sister before. Never gone head to head like this. It was so hard. But so incredibly satisfying. To finally speak up with a voice that she’d held in for far too long. “Mom would have been really upset by what you did.”
“She would have supported me because she loved me.”
“You’re right. She would have pretended you made a mistake and told herself that what you did wasn’t deliberate. But I know it was.” Paige steeled everything deep inside and said the things she should have said years ago. “I don’t support you. I don’t support what you did. And I’m not giving you any sympathy. Unless you can admit how wrong you were and ask Evan’s forgiveness, I’m not taking your calls, and I don’t want to see you.”
Whitney stared as if Paige were ready for the asylum, all wrapped up in a straitjacket. “You don’t mean that.” Shock threaded her words.
“I do.” Paige crossed her arms. “Every word.”
The storm built on Whitney’s features, her cheekbones reddening, her eyes narrowing, and her lips pursing into a thin, ugly line.
“You bitch.” A tiny fleck of spittle flew out of her mouth. She crowded Paige, backing her into the living room. “He might enjoy screwing you. He might have fun being worshipped by poor little Paige who always wanted him but couldn’t have him. But do you actually think he could ever love you? Because he’ll never stop loving me.” Whitney stabbed a finger into her breastbone with an audible thud. “You’re a fool if you let yourself forget that the moment he saw me that first day, he forgot all about you. It was so damn easy to take him away from you. But you still hung around all these years, begging for scraps, always underfoot, always hoping he’d notice you. It would actually be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic. My friends and I used to laugh about it all the time.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “Poor Paige, the pathetic little puppy dog drooling after my husband. Did you really think you could steal him away from me? I can have him back with a simple snap of my fingers. I just haven’t tried. But now you’ve given me a reason to do it.”
Whitney’s gaze was rabid, her features a mottled blue-red with her rage.
But Paige’s rage was just as potent. “You knew how I felt about Evan back then?”
Whitney rolled her eyes. “I know everything about you. How you think. What you’ll do. You’re so pitifully transparent.”
Whitney had used Paige to prop up her own ego, to make herself feel superior. She’d taken Evan simply because she could. Because Paige wanted him, and Whitney couldn’t stand to let her sister win. “You never really loved him, did you?”
Whitney waved that away, as if the whole question of love was preposterous. “You didn’t deserve him. You were too weak. He needed me to push him. To help him become the billionaire he was supposed to be. Lord knows if he’d ended up with you, he’d probably be tossing a baseball to a snotty-nosed kid in a little yard somewhere.” She looked disgusted by the image. “He was meant for bigger things than just being a father.”
Paige had always known about Whitney’s ugly traits, that she could trample people like they were ants in her path. But this was diabolical.
Purely malicious.
As a psychologist, Paige should have seen it. That was part of the reason she’d chosen her career, to figure it all out. But she never had, not truly. She hadn’t been able to see the truth right in front of her. Hadn’t wanted to see, because the truth was too close. It was too difficult to admit that the monster was real, that her sister was a sociopath who had never loved anyone but herself.
Until Whitney shined a spotlight and forced her to see.
“You’ve lost him,” Paige told the woman who was no longer her family. Blood had bound them together…until poison destroyed that bond. “Not because of me, but because he finally sees what you really are.” She looked at Whitney in her designer dress and towering high heels. Really looked for the first time. “He won’t ever be back.”
Whitney laughed, a hollow, grating sound. Like the wicked witch. Then she snapped her fingers. “That’s how easy it’ll be to get him back.” She shrugged, a rude and careless shift of her shoulders. “Or maybe I’ll just take every penny he has after I prove he was screwing my very own sister behind my back.”
“Then all your friends will call you the drooling idiot, won’t they, Whitney? You wouldn’t want them to know your pathetic, puppy-dog sister stole him away from you, would you?”