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When he doesn’t look up, I hand him his glass and tug on his foot. “Tell me.” It’s murmured—because I’m nervous.
“He’s not giving it to me.”
“What?”
He looks down into his glass. “Yep.” The word is sharp. “He told me today.”
“What the hell? How can he do that?”
He doesn’t move, not even to blink. I think I see tears gather in his eyes.
“God, Jace, I’m so sorry.” I lean in close and give him a hug, and he hugs me back, but it’s perfunctory; I can tell. When I pull away, he still won’t look at me.
“Damn. Can I ask questions? What did he say?”
“He says he knows it’s fake between the two of us. Called me the F-word. Said I can’t trick him. Unless I have a kid, he’s not giving me his company. Wealth should be passed down and shouldn’t end in…” He shakes his head, wide-eyed and gray in the face.
“Is this because we didn’t go to dinner with them last week?”
“No.” His lips press flat. “It’s not your fault. Don’t take that on. It was always going to be this way. I should have never played these fucking games with him.”
“What a bigot. Do you want to get married?”
“What’s the point?” He shrugs one shoulder. “He’s never going to let me inherit. For years it’s been these games, and I’ve done everything he said. And now this.”
“Maybe we should try, though. If we don’t like married life, there’s always divorce.”
My teasing elicits the smile I was hoping for. “I’m not joking,” I say. “Let’s do it tomorrow.”
“We should think about it more,” he says quietly.
“We’ve thought about it for years.”
He leans back against the pillows, closing his eyes. “I do love your bed.”
“I love it when you make me breakfast. There’s enough room here for both of us.”
“Who’s saying we’d live here?” He’s smiling.
“I guess that’s a good point.”
“We could live here,” he says.
“I could move in with you.”
“You could have the music room you’ve had your eye on all this time.”
I laugh, thinking of that room in his house. “Every woman needs a grand piano by her bed.”
I lie down beside Jace and wrap an arm around him. “It’s going to be okay. Let’s at least try. If it doesn’t work, you’ll move on to something better.”
“I can’t do much without the money.”
“Do you want me to get pregnant?”
He laughs, widening his eyes. “Do you want to?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You deserve more.”
“I don’t want more. I’m content,” I lie. “I’m married to my work.”
“You know I don’t believe that.”
“Believe it. You’re my best friend.”
“Thank you.”
I hold him for a while, and then he goes, claiming he’ll be fine tonight and doesn’t need to sleep here. I look at the ceiling, at the sky lights cut between the wood beams over my bed. Then I unlock my phone, open a new app, and check the camera view of Luca’s driveway.23Luca“You pretty sure about the IP it’s streaming to?”
My brother bites the inside of his cheek as he nods down at his phone. “It’s your girl.”
“She’s not mine.”
He shrugs, looking very James Bond in his tailored suit as he stands at the granite counter in my kitchen.
“When do you think it got put there?”
His brow furrows. “Looks like the camera started exporting data from here…twenty-eight days ago.”
That’s the day after the Sunday I said goodbye to Elise at her cabin.
“Modern Perimeters? Or is it Jack and them at LamCam?”
He snorts. “Nobody in Brooklyn’s fucking with your house.”
“Then who was it? Do you know?”
“Test run from this device to her IP was done in New Rochelle. Not sure of the name yet. I can find it later. Could have even been an individual. I’d think the surveillance companies around here wouldn’t take you on.”
I button up my starched dress shirt, giving him a skeptical smirk. “Me?” I’m trying to tease. But Soren doesn’t tease. He lifts his eyebrows. “Yeah, you crazy motherfucker.”
I grin. “I’m a perfect gentleman.”
“And I’m a law-abiding citizen engaging in the intellectual delights of the interwebs.”
I snort, grabbing a pack of gum out of a bowl on the counter. “You ready to get going?”
He shrugs.
“Your gig,” I say.
“I’ve gotta go. Thanks for going with me,” he says as we walk into my garage. “If Smyth can get a girl like Keri, and a bunch of people want to throw them some engagement parties, the least I can do is force myself to go to one.”
I can’t help smiling as I slide behind the wheel of my black Mercedes S-Class. Soren’s come a long way in the last few years. Yes, he’s a hacker, pretty much nocturnal, and he does most of his friendshipping online—but he’s doing stuff like this more often. Pushing himself. He runs a massive part of my business, protecting all of us from criminal charges in a variety of ways, and he even has some legit clients. He plays in a chess league, mentors a kid through Big Brothers Big Sisters, and edits Wikipedia so often I think he’s on the payroll. Ever since he got attacked the one time, he’s been learning Judo, too.
