It was ten minutes before seven when Isla’s cab dropped her at her parents’ two-story Tudor home. While all their neighbors already had their Christmas decorations up, with either festive wreaths hanging on their doors or strings of Christmas lights curling around the bars of their fenced gates, the Bouchard residence stood proudly in stark isolation, with not even a single red stocking in sight.

Home sweet home, Isla thought, and a dreadful feeling started in the pit of her stomach.

She had been stunned but cautiously optimistic when she received a text from her normally uncommunicative father with an invitation to join the family for dinner on Christmas Eve. A cynical voice in her mind had warned Isla against saying yes, but a mixture of loneliness and desperate hope had her texting her father back to accept his invitation.

It had been three days since she had left Sean, and every minute of those days had been a torment. She couldn’t stop thinking of him, and even when she closed her eyes to go to sleep his face was all she could see.

When she had stumbled across the draft of the divorce agreement, Isla’s first instincts had been to run away and lick her tears in private. Sean had lied to her, just like Jonathan had. Sean did not love her, just like Jonathan hadn’t. And Sean had intended to leave her, the way Jonathan had.

All of these things should have made her fly into a rage, but instead it had Isla locking herself in the bath and sobbing her heart out. Because all of those things had made her realize something else, and it was that she was in love with Sean.

And with Sean, it was so much worse than how it had been with Jonathan.

Jonathan had never been her whole life the way Sean was.

Jonathan had made her dream of white weddings, but Sean had made her dream of a happy-ever-after.

Sean was everything, and there was no loving another man after him.

And so she had wiped her tears and told herself she would make Sean love her. She would be patient, she would work hard – she would be a good little girl in hopes that Santa would come down the chimney and reward her with Sean’s heart.

Or at least that had been the plan, but she had underestimated how much it would hurt, knowing that the man lying next to her in bed was only pretending to love her.

And so she had left.

Before he could hurt her even more, before he got tired of playing the nice guy and ask her to leave, before she could hate him for something he couldn’t help –

Why can’t you love me?

Why? Why? Why?

She had left.

* * *

Isla was nervous but hopeful as she pressed the doorbell button while balancing the Christmas gifts she had bought for her family. There was a Hermès scarf for India, a Chanel purse for her mother, and a Louis Vuitton wallet for her father. It had burned a hole in her already depleted savings, but Isla didn’t care. Christmas meant new beginnings, she thought firmly. Money could be earned back anytime, but the love of one’s family was priceless.

Thomas Bouchard opened the door and gave his older daughter a distant smile. “You’re here.”

“Merry Christmas, Dad.” She reached up to kiss her father on his cheek, but either by design or accident Thomas had turned away by then, and Isla’s cheeks flushed as she pulled back.

The rest of the family was already waiting for her at the dining table. “Merry Christmas, Mom, India. I, umm, brought gifts.”

“You didn’t have to,” Isla’s mother said stiffly. “You know we don’t celebrate Christmas.” And with that, the gifts she had spent over an hour meticulously wrapping were disregarded.

As Isla took her usual place on the table, she noticed belatedly that the table had only been set for four, and as soon as she lifted her gaze, India said carelessly, “Jonathan and I have broken up.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” As Isla spoke the words, she realized that she truly did mean it. “Maybe things could still work out---”

India threw her older sister a look of contempt. “Can’t you drop your goody-two-shoes act for one minute? You thought you had us fooled, didn’t you?”

Isla was genuinely confused. Where was all this hatred coming from, and what did India mean that she had them all fooled?

“I should’ve known there was more to those boring business conferences you insisted on attending,” her younger sister sneered.

Isla could only stare at the younger woman. “I have no idea---”

“Oh, please. None of us are idiots here. You only pretended to be heartbroken when Jonathan dumped you---”

“You mean when you and Jonathan cheated on me,” Isla interrupted flatly.

“And you didn’t cheat on him?” India retorted. “We read People’s coverage on your fairytale romance. You met Sean Northwood in a conference last year, and you had been exchanging emails since then.”

Isla’s mouth opened and closed. Too late she remembered the story that Charlotte’s agency had subtly fed to the press.

“You can’t deny the truth, can you?” India challenged maliciously. “The truth is, you just kept Jonathan around because you weren’t sure if you could nab someone like Sean---” India let out a nasty laugh. “I’d give you props for sheer cheek. What did you do to make him propose to you? Offer your virginity on a silver platter?”

India’s eyes glittered viciously when she saw the faint color that painted Isla’s cheeks. “Oh my God, you did, didn’t you? And it didn’t work.”

The pleasure in her sister’s voice made Isla’s fist clench under the table. All her life, she had done her best to show India that she loved her, but the younger girl had never seemed to care or even want her sister’s love.

“Why are you such a bitch?”

It was only when India turned red and she heard her mother gasp that Isla realized she had blurted her thought out loud. She started to apologize right away, appalled and ashamed, but Isabella beat her to speaking.

“How dare you?” Her mother’s voice shook with resentment. “How dare you?”

Isla paled. “Mother---”

“You’ve always been selfish and unreasonably jealous about your sister, but what you did to us – I never thought you could be so vindictive! Do you know how horrible the past month was,” Isabella demanded coldly, “having people laugh at us behind our backs because we had no idea about your engagement?”

And so her mother went on and on.

Isabella had always liked to blame her firstborn for every little thing that went wrong in their lives. Isla knew she should be used to it by now, but she wasn’t. The words still hurt, and she had to bite her lip hard to keep herself from answering back.

Waiting until her mother paused to draw her breath, Isla said tonelessly, “I’m sorry for causing you trouble, but it didn’t work out between us anyway---”

India’s evil laugh cut her off. “Of course it didn’t work out. Did you really expect it to?”

Isla didn’t answer.

“I can’t say I’m surprised.” Isabella’s lip curled. “You were a fool to think that someone like you could hold the interest of a man like him.” There was a pause. “But it’s possible for India to do so.”

Pain and shock exploded inside of Isla at her mother’s words. She turned almost blindly to her father, wondering if just this once he could show her compassion. At this point, she would even settle for him acting the voice of reason – as a lawyer like him should – but in the end, Thomas acted the way he always did, his gaze avoiding hers, his silence telling.

“India has suffered so much since her marriage to Jonathan.” Isabella’s hard voice drew Isla back to the women in her family. “It’s only gotten worse since their breakup, and your whirlwind engagement certainly didn’t help. As her older sister, you owe it to help her.”

Isla’s whole body turned cold.

“You already had your chance with the billionaire anyway, and it didn’t work out. If you had consulted me over this, I would have saved you grief and told you so. But what’s done is done…” Isabella shrugged. “We can only move on.”

Isla dug her fingers into her palms. Please don’t say it. Please don’t. Please.

“I’d like you to contact your former fiancé. Make up some excuse – I don’t care what it is. Just be sure to have him meet your younger sister, and India will do the rest.”

Her younger sister let out a trilling laugh. “You make it sound so innocent, Mother.” She cast a spiteful look at Isla. “But just so we’re clear, I intend to seduce him, and trust me, sweetie, he’ll fall for me the way he didn’t fall for you.”

Isla felt sick. How could India be so cruel? And why were her parents letting her get away with it?

The haunted look in her daughter’s eyes had Isabella bristling and hiding her guilt behind a cold veneer of rage. “You have no right to look at any of us like that,” she snapped. “You owe it to us, do you understand?”

“What did I ever do to you?” Isla asked tremulously. “Why can’t you love me?” She hadn’t planned to say the words, and she wanted to weep as soon as she spoke the words. Was she fated to ask this question over and over? Was it time to accept that no one could love her?

Isabella furiously rose to her feet at Isla’s words, and the loud thud of her chair falling to the floor masked the sound of the front door opening. “A parent will always put her own child first,” Isabella spat. “Do you understand it now, or are you such an idiot that I have to spell it out for you?”

Isla jerked.

“We were forced to adopt when we thought I wouldn’t be able to conceive naturally. The writing was always on the wall, but you just didn’t want to see it---”

“Then why didn’t you just give me up,” Isla asked brokenly, “when you had India?”

“Oh, we wanted to,” Isabella assured her coldly. “But our hands were tied. We didn’t want people to talk.”

And that was all that mattered to them, Isla thought dully.

Emptiness filled Isla as everything became clear. Her whole life, she had worked so hard to earn a place in this family – and they had let her even knowing it could never have been possible. They had never wanted her, and they never would.

As Isla shakily stood up, she heard a distinctly familiar voice say, “I’d like to speak with Isla privately, so can you all get the fuck out?”