Princess and the Player (Strangers in Love, #2)

by Ilsa Madden-Mills

I watched my father fist his hands over and over, spewing cruel words toward her. Whore, slut, bitch, psycho.

My mom wasn’t any of those awful words he called her. She told fantastical stories. She called me her sunshine. She played the cello with such emotion people wept.

Fate is a tenacious bitch.

“Hearts don’t forget.”

“Some cultures believe in reincarnation, like a wheel of rebirth, and then there’s the whole karma thing. Basically, your next life may depend on the way you lived your past life. When you’re reborn, whether it’s ten years later or a hundred, the people around you might be past family members or lovers, and you’ll be faced with the same struggles. If you’ve been horrible, you might be an animal or a plant.”

I bet if you made a map of Manhattan and took yarn and traced your steps and mine, they’d overlap over and over. It all piles up, layer by layer. Little pushes. Nudges. Leading us in a certain direction. Sometimes there are too many coincidences to call it a coincidence, yes?”

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiving is an attribute of the strong.