That was all too true. She’d been offered all kinds of fascinating positions. Some people wanted her to be a dominatrix. Others thought she should lean into the erotic dancing. Or try the yacht-girl thing at Cannes and see if she could make that into an enterprise. One of the women she’d met in the South of France had told her frankly that these days, the internet made it so easy to conduct a personal escort service without having to cut anyone else in, that any woman who didn’t make money that way was a fool.
Indy had found all of these offers and suggestions fascinating. Surely it said something kind of fabulous about her that so many people thought she could make money from an act she would have done anyway—and for free?
Anyway, she had always chosen to take it as a compliment. No matter how it was meant.
“I would ordinarily express dismay at that sentiment,” Bristol said, sounding... Not happy. Not sad either, but almost... Rueful. “But you know. Pot meet kettle and there I am in the middle.”
“Signing a contract to be somebody’s girlfriend isn’t sex work,” Indy said loyally. “Not really.”
“I think you’ll find it is.”
“Not at all.” Indy waved a hand at Stefan’s white fireplace, as if her sister could see her. “It’s nothing more than a prenuptial agreement for a relationship that isn’t a marriage. Totally socially acceptable.”
“I’ll let Mom know then. She’ll be so proud.”
“Sometimes,” Indy said, in a confiding way, “I’m pretty much positive that Mom and Dad might just be bigger freaks than we think. We had to come from somewhere. And maybe there’s a reason they’ve always been perfectly happy to stay home and settle in to that Ohio life. Why bother going out when you have everything you could possibly desire right there with you already?”
“Ew. What? No.”
“I’m telling you—I think they have a rollicking—”
“Anyway,” Bristol said loudly, cutting her off. “Why are you interested in finding a passion? I thought you always had all the passion a girl could need or want. I thought you liked it that way.”
“Men are a passion of mine, it’s true,” Indy said lightly, because it was expected.
But a bolt of something far more complicated than need went through her as she said it, because when was the last time she’d thought about men in a general sense? She only thought about one man now. And for the past two years, really. Only and always, something in her whispered.
Even as she thought that, she was aware that it wasn’t how she operated. She would have said she didn’t have that kind of possessiveness in her, but she held on to it anyway. As if it was something precious.
Only and always didn’t scare her.
Which, really, was the scariest thing yet.
“Your passion was always academics,” she said to her sister, trying to shake that off...whatever it was. But her hand found its way to her heart and stayed there. “I don’t really think that a meaningful life is built on an unquenchable thirst for socializing. We can both agree that I’ve tried.”
“You tell me, Indy,” Bristol said. “You’ve had a million temp jobs in the last year alone.”
That shouldn’t have stung. She told herself that the fact it did meant only that she was tired. And who wouldn’t be tired? The kind of demands Stefan liked to make could take whole nights to work out.
Especially because he liked to take it slow.
She shivered. “Yes, yes,” she said into her phone. “I can never settle down. I’m not serious. Lack of responsibility, careless and undependable, blah blah blah.”
“I didn’t mean that as a dig.” Bristol’s voice was even, and again, faintly rueful. “In a way, I’m envious. You’ve had the opportunity to try on a hundred different lives without having to commit to any of them. Did none of them appeal to you at all?”
“I guess I didn’t think of them as trying on lives,” Indy said, considering. “Maybe I should have. They were just jobs that I could leave whenever I wanted. It never occurred to me that someday, I might want... I don’t know. A career. Or at least a purpose.”
There was a long silence. Indy found herself sitting up straighter, her heart pounding. Because she’d just admitted something, hadn’t she? Whether she meant to or not.
Something she hadn’t admitted to herself before.
“And what exactly has prompted all of this fascinating speculation?” Bristol asked after a moment, sounding far more intrigued.
Bristol was stubbornly refusing to ask what exactly Indy was doing, and where, despite Indy breezily saying things like I’m summering on the Continent, Bristol. As you do.
That meant, as a matter of sisterly principle, Indy could not tell her.
“We all come to these crossroads, Bristol,” she murmured. “One way or another.”
And though she’d meant to sound mysterious, the words landed in her as if they’d been carved in stone.
“I can’t tell you what to do,” Bristol said, and again, there was that note in her voice. Maybe it wasn’t rueful, necessarily. Maybe it was a kind of aware that echoed a little too sharply inside Indy just at the moment. “I wouldn’t dream of trying. But I can tell you that I’ve always admired your fearlessness.”
Of all the things her older sister might have said, she hadn’t been expecting that. Indy had a sudden flashback to a particular day of playing games of make-believe with Bristol in their backyard, running around and around the old oak tree that had stood there for hundreds of years. They’d decided it was their castle.
I’m going to be the princess, Indy had announced, though really, she was looking for Bristol’s permission. As the oldest and the bossiest, it fell to Bristol to make the decisions. I’m always the princess.
Bristol had looked back at her with all the bone deep weariness a ten-year-old could muster when faced with a younger sister.
That’s actually because you
