“I’m sorry for your loss.” She couldn’t imagine it. She’d never had to lose someone like that. She’d gone through a lot, but she hadn’t lost someone she couldn’t talk to again, didn’t have hopes of making things better with. Lila. God, her sister made her insane, and she had the sudden and deep desire to talk to her.

Forgiveness is the gift we give ourselves.

She’d heard the homily a million times. Sometimes forgiveness was easy. It was almost an afterthought. After she’d gotten away from her father and he’d died a few years down the road, she hadn’t given him another thought. Oh, some of the things he’d done still lived deep in her subconscious, but she didn’t think about the man himself. She’d moved on in her head.

Could she move on from Remy, her love for him only surfacing in those deep moments when everything else fell away and she was left with nothing but primal emotion? When she shed the society version of Lisa, would she mourn her choices? That she didn’t give him another chance? So much was made of perfection. Men couldn’t make mistakes because women couldn’t be doormats. Any flaw was to be culled until the perfect mate was found.

There was no such thing as perfection. None.

Seraphina looked back at her, tears in her eyes. “I wish I had another chance. I wish he’d known he had a son. I kept that from him because I was angry. Isn’t it funny how little that anger means now when I’m confronted with my son’s grace? Luc doesn’t care. He doesn’t care that I screwed up. He loves me and it’s pure and unconditional, and we can’t have that from each other as lovers. I know that. There’s always conditions on love between lovers, but shouldn’t we try for something better? Shouldn’t we hope we can love each other the way we were born to love?”

“It’s not the same.” She wasn’t naïve. Seraphina wasn’t telling her this story out of a need to share. This was about Remy. This was a sister’s plea for her brother.