As the afternoon passed by, Daniel got even more nervous for his speech later that night. He had decided to go up to his mother's observatory to write it down all over again – for the fourth time. Everything and everyone inside the house were deadly quiet and the only sound that he could hear was from the waves breaking on the beach. He had spent a good couple of hours going through his new draft but even so, there were still so much he wanted to say and so little words to write it down with. He was so focused with his work that he didn't even notice that Charlotte was standing by the door watching him over for more than five minutes before she got off her balance and raised his attention.

"Sorry." She said as she got closer to him. "You looked really focused and I just came for the view…"

"It's probably a sign that I should stop obsessing over this." He said as he folded the paper and put it inside his back pocket.

"It's weird how nothing seems to have changed around here…" Charlotte said as she approached the edge of the balcony.

"For me, nothing is the same." He said as he went beside her.

"What happened, after all?" Charlotte asked when she noticed that his gaze was on Emily's house. "I mean, between you two."

"I don't know." He forced a smile at her. "In one moment we were good, in the next, everything is falling apart."

"Isn't it always like this?" Charlotte gave it an annoyed laugh. "We should be used to that."

"I just don't understand it." He stared at the horizon. "She admitted cheating on me and even so I can't get her out of my head."

"That's why you're up here, right?" She smiled at him. "The maids told me that you've been spending a lot of time up here."

"I just need to know that she's fine." He looked over at Emily's house.

"Do you still love her?"

"If I told you that I don't, I would be lying even to myself." He laughed. "It's hard not to."

"I never actually told you… But I really like Emily." She turned to face Emily's house. "I was actually looking forward to your wedding."

"Really?" He smiled at the words of his sister. "It's crazy how apart this family have become on the past year. I could've been getting married and we never had this conversation."

"I think that Emily was a good for you. I may have been away during the time you were together but I could tell that she brought something different in you." She looked at her brother. "And I really liked the idea of having a sister."

"I don't know where we are standing right now." He sat on the edge of the balcony, facing his sister. "It's confusing. I miss her, she knows this. She misses me and I know this. But we both know that we can't go back together, not now at least…"

"There's Ashley." Charlotte interrupted Daniel. "What's this about?"

"It's silly. It was something to boost the image of the company through boosting my image. Ashley thought it was a good idea; dad thought it was a good idea and I was willing to help."

"And why is it still going on if it's silly?" Charlotte was smarter than people took her for. She could always come up with questions that couldn't be answered on situations like this one.

"Because it's convenient." It was really the best that Daniel could put as an answer, just so that he didn't sound defeated.

"Well, it was just as convenient for mom to keep the secret that David Clarke is my father and you saw how it ended." Charlotte watched out for the tone in her voice, so that what she had just said didn't come up as a low play by her. She had learned to live with it. "What I'm trying to say is that sometimes, convenient is just not enough or even right."

"When did you become that wise?" Daniel gave her a laugh to smooth the mood. "And what you did to my little sister?"

"Someone on this family had to learn a thing or two after the year we had." She gave in to his joke.

"Sometimes I think that I should just accept that I lost Emily." He said after being quiet for a moment. "I've made my choice to stay by dad's side. I just hadn't realized that it implied on losing her."

"Didn't you say that you both miss each other?" She smiled at him as if she had figured out the simplest thing ever. "And you have a past and an intense past, actually. You can't forget that you've been engaged to her."

"We were supposed to be getting married this month." He recalled for the first time. "But none of this is easy."

"Or, both of you are just making it harder than it should be." She had maintained the same voice tone. "She cheated on you, ok. But we all make mistakes, Danny. You should know this better than all of us. She said that it was in consequence of having second thoughts about how you behaved but now you have to tell me… is she right?"

Daniel remained in silence. He didn't have an answer to that question nor wanted to answer it, since he wasn't sure of it. His family name had saved his life, twice. He owed to it. But it looked like it wasn't easy for someone who hasn't been there to understand it.

"Whatever." She sounded more like his sister right now. "Just don't forget to be yourself."

Daniel smiled and looked away once again. He stayed quiet for a few minutes until he gathered up his things and turned to Charlotte.

"We should go inside." He said as he pointed to an area over the ocean where clouds begun to get bigger and darker. "A storm is in the way. The first one of the summer."