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That she was more than a little bit petite added to the cute-not-sexy thing she had going on. She had tried to put on a full face of makeup, but that was a bridge too far for her. It overwhelmed her features, so she had gone with some bronzer and a lip gloss. But she was fairly happy with the result.

It was to impress someone other than Adonis.

And thank God she’d gotten there emotionally, honestly. He was never going to see her as more than a younger sister. That had been a mantra in her mind even before he’d left. One she’d had a hard time fully accepting.

After all, they’d done the impossible.

They’d gone from rags to inestimable riches. So why couldn’t she also have him? Why couldn’t she have the man she wanted more than any other?

But when he’d left he’d proved it was worse than she’d imagined. He didn’t even see her as a sister.

She was nothing to him.

Continuing to feel things for him…to want him, to—oh, the horror—love him, that was something she was so glad she was free of.

She was.

She’d tried to date other men before, but she’d always been secretly hoping her openly swiping on dating apps in the boardroom or flaunting men she’d met at a club might wake Adonis up. Might make him see she wasn’t a child anymore.

But no.

So now, she didn’t care.

She closed her purse and turned away from the mirror. Then she opened up the bathroom door and slinked out into her office.

“What the fuck are you wearing?”

She nearly fell off her high heels. Her older brother was standing in the doorway of the office, looking thunderous.

“I’m going out.”

“In that?”

“No, in a white bunny suit that I have in the bottom of my purse. I just thought that I would wear this in the car.”

“Esme…”

“Chill out.”

“No. I don’t chill. I never chill,” he said, his voice a low growl.

“I know you don’t. You’re going to keel over and die of a heart attack before you turn thirty-one, by the way. You need to get it together.”

“I do not need to get it together. I need you to put on a whole dress.”

“Do you have any idea how reductive this conversation is? I am a grown woman, I am the only partner that you have remaining in your business—”

“Why did you have to bring that up?”

“Because you think about it all the time. You think about him all the time.”

Pot. Kettle.

“I do not. He’s dead to me.”

“He won’t always be,” she said, walking past her brother and patting him on the face. “It’s been a month. Give it time.”

He had the kind of golden good looks that made women lose their minds. It really wasn’t just that he was rich. He was tall and handsome—how the hell he had ended up tall, she didn’t know—and when he and Adonis had done anything together they had been formidable.