“It was only later, in her new, darker rooms above the banking house, that she realized it didn’t matter how loud she screamed or how violently she wept. Her parents would never come to her because, being dead, they didn’t care anymore.”

“She had spent days balancing on the edge of a choice. A choice, she had suddenly realized, that was never truly a matter of selection. It was what Damien had seemed to know from the start. The only choice she could make was to ignore the demands of her heart and her spirit, both of which she had tried to ignore no matter how loudly they had screamed at her. In truth, there was no choice. She was meant to be his, and he was meant to be hers. She had searched day after day for outside proof of this, only to realize that there was none, and never would be. The proof was stamped in the desires of her soul. It was the instinct that had been born in her, flipped on like a switch, the moment it had flipped on as brilliantly in him. Only he had seen the light, and she had been blinded by it.”

“And even if she could discern what future she wanted . . . How would she bear it if that future didn’t want her?”

“Elise ran back to her room to freshen up. Just because she wasn’t looking for a boyfriend didn’t mean she couldn’t look nice enough to inspire some wank bank fantasies for Brody.”

“He held her like a new womanand what she feltfelt almost as good as love had,and each of them called it lovebecause precision didn’t matter anymore.”

“Angelica didn’t care if she was forbidden from doing something because she relished in the challenge of finding the answer. She needed to know everything because a lack of knowledge terrified her. Angelica was forever afraid of things she didn’t know or didn’t understand. Thus, she opened the attic door…”