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“Oh, yeah. I forgot you weren’t around when I suggested that. He basically told me I was trying to ruin the place and drive us into bankruptcy while I was at it.”
Tessa cringed at the leftover fury in Jamie’s voice.
“So I don’t think that’s a suitable distraction.”
“Okay,” she said, dropping it and moving on to her next idea. “What about that vendor who—” Before she could finish her question, Jamie looked up and coughed.
Tessa turned and found herself facing Eric. He stared at her with icy eyes, and in that moment, Tessa was a girl facing her father. A father who’d seen some thing he really, really shouldn’t have. She clasped her fingers in front of her and swallowed hard.
Eric crossed his arms and stared her down. “I don’t know why you snuck past me to talk to Jamie about it. He’s just as pissed as I am.”
She swallowed one more time, reset her spinning mind, then put her shoulders back. “Neither of you has anything to be pissed about. As a matter of fact, I’m pissed at Jamie.” She stepped back so she could keep both of them in her sight, but Jamie was still wearing a leftover expression of confusion from the interrupted conversation. “You had no right to talk to Luke about my sex life.”
That got his mind off the discussio
n of a new deal. Jamie’s eyes nearly bugged from his head. “You told me you didn’t have a sex life!”
“I did not! I’ve never said a darn thing to either of you about that.”
Jamie pointed his finger at her. “You said you weren’t engaged in anything.”
Eric jerked his chin up. “It’s true. You said that.”
“I meant I wasn’t doing anything that would get me pregnant right at that moment.”
“Oh,” Jamie snapped, “but you are now?”
“For God’s sake, Jamie, you don’t get to talk to me about saving myself for marriage, all right?” He paled a little and she rounded on Eric. “And you! When was the last time you had sex? We should have an in-depth conversation about it, because apparently I’m supposed to protect you from that.”
As if her two brothers were complete opposites in every regard, Eric’s face flamed to bright red. “I don’t… You… That’s none of your business.”
“Exactly.”
Eric cleared his throat and examined his shoes. “So… You didn’t just let Luke spend the night on your couch?”
“What?”
He shrugged. “I thought there was a chance. Maybe he needed a place to stay.”
Good Lord. She really had kept up her charade with too much skill. He thought of her as a seventeen-year-old girl. Actually… Tessa thought back to her senior year in high school and revised the age down to sixteen.
But even though she hadn’t been sixteen in a long time, it had seemed easier to hold on to that charade. Easier for Tessa and, more importantly, easier for Eric. “We shouldn’t even be talking about this,” she muttered.
“I don’t want to talk about it, either, but it’s not just about you doing…stuff.”
Tessa covered her eyes.
“It’s about Luke. He’s not the guy for you.”
“I told you—”
Jamie jumped in. “It’s not just his partner. Has he bothered to mention his divorce?”
Tessa tried not to let her shock show. No, he hadn’t said anything about a divorce, but was she truly surprised? “We haven’t discussed previous relationships. It’s not that serious yet.”
Eric snorted in disgust.
“His divorce is his business,” she insisted.
