A knock on the door jolted her out of her depressing thoughts and took her straight into some terrifying ones.
She wasn't ready to face them. Not at all.
"Mindy?"
With a sigh of relief, Tori leapt to her feet and opened the door. Piper stood there with a breakfast tray in her hand and a smirk on her face that told her someone in the palace filled her in on what had happened last night.
Tori's cheeks went up in flames. "I don't want to talk about it."
Damn the palace gossip mill. That guard who had let them into the private wing likely had a big mouth.
Piper strode in. She was still in her casual but chic loungewear. She set the tray with coffee and Danishes on the counter. "Too bad because I want the scoop."
And Tori really needed coffee. Well, maybe telling her sister would be good practice. She sighed and poured herself a cup. "There's no real scoop to be had. It was a nice night. Someone should have told me about the plug though. I wasn't ready for that."
Brazen. That's what she'd be. She would plow her way through with confidence.
Piper's eyes lit up. "Oh, the plug never ends. Damn Doms. They really know how to get to a girl. Which one is the alpha Dom? It's Rory, isn't it?"
"Callum." Everyone had followed Callum's lead. It had been a revelation to see that side of him. "If I had to put them in order, Rory's next. Surprisingly, Oliver is the softie."
Piper grabbed herself some java. "I would never have guessed. So tell me what's up with the Little Miss Jaded act?" She frowned. "Tell me you're not going to pretend it meant nothing."
Her sister knew her too well. "It can't mean anything since I'm not going back to England. I've decided to take a job in Dallas."
"You're taking the Black Oak job? That will bore you to tears. Those men are solid pillars of the business community. They don't need anyone cleaning up their scandals because they don't have any."
The James brothers were happily married to their wife, Hannah. They were extremely careful and private. They were living a life that should make headlines. How had they managed it? Maybe keeping their secret would be part of her job.
It shouldn't be too hard because the James brothers got along. They were happy together. She would bet they'd never thrown a punch or gotten into a fight. They were a cohesive unit and the Thurston-Hughes brothers were a gorgeous, super-hot mess. And she loved them so much, her heart ached.
"I know. It's a peach of a job." She schooled her features. The last thing she needed was Piper to think she was lying. "I can concentrate on the company and not the employees. It's going to be good to get back to Texas."
Away from the three men she would spend a lifetime trying to forget.
Piper gracefully sat on the settee. "Do they know you're planning on leaving them after one night?"
Somehow her sister managed to make that simple question seem very accusatory. Or maybe Tori responded to her own shame. She didn't want forever with them. She didn't want forever with anyone. Not anyone she loved with her whole heart. Losing them after a lifetime of love would be too horrible. She'd already endured that moment when she'd felt as if her life was over. She would never choose to go through it again.
God, she was lying to herself now. She wanted everything Oliver, Callum, and Rory could give her, but she wasn't brave enough to take it.
"I never promised them a thing." Her appetite was gone. She wanted to go to bed. Her own bed. She would pull the covers over her head and try to pretend she knew what she was doing. She would try to forget that dream where Callum had been taken out by his former lover while Rory and Oliver nearly stood over the corpse and killed each other over her.
"They came together for you," Piper said quietly.
She shook her head. "It was just sex."
It was all she could allow it to be.
Piper stood and set the coffee mug down. It looked like her sister talk wasn't going the way she'd planned. "I don't understand what's going on and I don't know that I even want to, but I'm going to ask. Are you ashamed of me?"
What? Tori could barely fathom the idea. "How could you say that? Piper, I love you. You've been everything to me. My sister, my mom, my best friend. Why would you ask me that?"
"Because I can't figure out why else you wouldn't want to be with them when it's so obvious you love them. I think it has to be that you don't approve of the life I lead." Tears shone in her sister's eyes. "It's not like I haven't heard it before. I have. I've seen the tabloids. I've been called a whore many times."
Rage welled up. "I sued the holy fuck out of some of those tabloids."
Piper nodded. "But still you don't want it for yourself. I'm trying to understand why."