My brothers.
I waved at Stefan and Luka as they stood near the doorway, watching. They nodded, but neither of them smiled as they continued what appeared to be a very serious conversation.
My stomach churned with nerves as I tried to focus on wrapping up the current shot on my list. Even though the studio was in the office building where my brothers clocked in every day, they didn’t generally poke their heads in when I was working. Yet today, they both had.
Something was up.
Had the Lunch Vault been broken? Did my brothers know I’d lied about the true nature of my relationship with Ford? I trusted my sisters-in-law and didn’t want to believe they’d spill my secrets, but I couldn’t think of any other reason Stefan and Luka would come here.
“Let’s break for lunch,” I called out, anxiety rushing through me as the room emptied out. As soon as everyone was gone, I strode over to my brothers to confront them.
But before I could speak, Stefan said, “We need to talk.” His voice was tense.
Crap. “What’s up?” I asked, trying to sound neutral.
It was ironic they’d find out about my sham with Ford now, right when I was starting to think that something real was actually happening with him. The way he’d wrapped his arm around me after we’d had sex, and then brought me tea, and actually spent the night at my place…it felt like it was all adding up to something, and I prayed I wouldn’t be asked to pull the plug on my fake wedding. It seemed preposterous, given that both of my brothers had had arranged marriages. Plus, I was an adult who could marry—or fake marry—whomever I wanted. Still, theywereintensely protective. Especially when it came to me and my perceived honor.
Except that wasn’t the issue at all.
“It’s the Russians,” Stefan said. “The threats are still coming.”
Luka nodded somberly.
My heart dropped. I was relieved that my brothers didn’t know what was going on between me and Ford, but in the haze of everything that had been happening, I had barely given a thought to the Bratva and the enormous ax they were holding over our heads.
Panic must have been written all over my face, because Luka was quick to jump in.
“We don’t want you to worry about it,” he said.
“Not worry about it?” I asked. “This affects our entire family, and our business.”
“Look, Em,” Stefan said. “We wanted to keep you in the loop, but at the end of the day, they aren’t your problem. We are handling it. Leave everything to us.”
“That’s right,” Luka cut in. “The whole point of this talk was that we wanted to be sure you weren’t worrying yourself about it when you should be focusing on your wedding.”
“I know,” I said with a sigh. “I’m trying to do that.”
I didn’t believe the situation with the Bratva was under control—not by any means—but I knew that this was their way of taking care of me. It was touching. And even though I didn’t love being shut out of the conversation, I also knew that there wasn’t much I could do.
“Serious stuff aside, we also came to talk about the good stuff,” Stefan said.
I raised my eyebrows. “Like what?”
“You know what,” Luka said, nudging me with his elbow. “How’s our baby sister feeling about approaching Married Life?”
He waggled his eyebrows, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Aren’t you excited?” Stefan asked. “Both of our marriages were arranged. We don’t know anything about actual courtship. How’s it all going? Spill it.”
Guess it wasn’t just The Wives wanting to live vicariously through me. I felt a rush of tenderness toward my brothers. It was really very sweet how concerned they were about me and Ford. Perhaps it hadn’t escaped them after all, that the majority of my previous relationships had basically crashed and burned before they even really got started. I certainly had never introduced Stefan or Luka to any of my past boyfriends. They didn’t tend to stick around long enough.
“Seriously, don’t ask me,” I said, grinning. “Ford and I have been friends for a million years. This is more like an extension of that than the whirlwind romance you seem to think it is.”
It was the closest I’d gotten to telling them the truth so far, and I felt guilty for continuing to hide the fact that Ford and I had merely entered into a formal and legally binding agreement rather than an actual relationship. Especially considering that my brothers were going to be spending a lot of money on the whole charade…and that The Wives already knew what was really going on. Should I tell Stefan and Luka?
“You have to be at least a little excited about the wedding details,” Luka insisted. “You have an artist’s eye, after all. Did you pick out your colors or whatever?”
I laughed out loud again. “You’ll have to talk to your wives about that. They’re the ones planning everything, more or less. Though I am allowed to exercise a veto. And I said no pink.”
