If anyone can help me clean this up, it’s my brother.
Connor’s the one who pulled our family together when our world fell apart after Da’s accident. The one who made sure I had shoes that fit. Helped me with my homework. Put food on the table. Comforted me when the house was louder than it should’ve been—and shielded me from Da’s drinking and violent behavior.
I’ve never approached him for help. Or money. I’ve managed to hold my own throughout my entire adult life.
Now, I have no choice. My professional life is on the brink of collapse and he might be the only person who can help navigate these fifty-foot waves.
Which means I’m about to admit something to him I never dreamed would come to light.
For years, I let him—all my brothers—believe I was crushing it in the bedroom. Like I had superpowers over the female orgasm or something. I bragged about technique, gave them the play-by-play—how to find the right angles, how to listen for the breathy catch in a woman’s throat right before she comes. I made it sound like I had it all figured out.
Control. Precision. Clinical bravado.
The truth?
I wasn’t willing to give myself to just anyone. I wasn’t waiting for perfection. I was waiting for someone who felt like home.
I was waiting for Marcella.
It’s embarrassing. Humbling. Not because I was a virgin by choice…it’s the lies I felt compelled to tell.
Unlike my brothers’ rockstar antics, my stairwell activities will never be wild stories of my bachelor years. I’m facing an actual reckoning—and I’ll have to look my brother in the eye and explain how my stupid reputation may end the career I’ve sacrificed everything for.
Then there’s Ronni.
Brilliant. Fierce. Fearless Ronni Miller.
She knows firsthand what it’s like to be on the receiving end of real power abuse—predators hiding behind their titles and contracts and press junkets. I may have never crossed a line or coerced anything not freely offered. Unfortunately, the optics don’t always make space for nuance.
If she looks at me differently after tonight—if she thinks, even for a second, I’m anything like the men who hurt her—it might break me.
I’ve always been comfortable in my own skin. But this? Terrifying.
Connor opens the door before we even knock, like he’s been waiting. “You’re here. Come in.”
Ronni appears behind him in joggers and a hoodie, her hair twisted up. Her bare feet curl against the hardwood as she hugs Marcella like they’ve been friends for decades.
“Kids are asleep.” She motions us to follow her. “We’ve got all night.”
The four of us settle in their whiskey den—dark wood, soft leather chairs facing Lake Washington. A room inviting confessions. Ronni pours red wine for herself and Marcella. Connor cracks open a bottle of sparkling water for me without asking.
He knows. He always knows.
I’ll never touch alcohol. Not after witnessing what it’s done to my da and to Cillian.
Today I’ve been trying to hold it together. Working all day while pretending this situation hasn’t been eating me alive. The second Connor turns toward me, eyebrows drawn—“Alright, baby brother. Talk to us.”—I feel the first thread snap loose.
So I do. I tell them everything.
From our family dinners, they already know about Caldwell and Miranda and the shift I’ve felt at the hospital after I helped Marcella—the sideways glances, the silence from people who used to seek me out. The sense I’m radioactive.
Tonight it’s full confession time about the women. Not in detail. Not everything. Enough to explain Caldwell collecting names, and how he’s about to tank my medical career.
Marcella keeps her hand on my thigh through all of it.
When I finish, the silence extends so long I start to think maybe this was a mistake.
Then Ronni speaks. Calm. Unflinching. “You need crisis PR. Immediately.”
