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“Tell me what?”
“He and Margaret broke up.”
“Oh,” I whispered.
Well, that explained his behavior last night. My brother was a chameleon. He took on the shape of the people around him. Around my parents, he was the perfect son. Around Margaret, the perfect boyfriend. Around me, the antagonistic, older brother, smarter and wiser and better in every way. But last night, he hadn’t been any of those things. He’d existed with people I didn’t know, in a world I didn’t understand. But I’d seen a weight lifted off of his shoulders.
“He didn’t say.”
“Well, you know your brother. He’s very private.”
“I could see that they were fighting. What happened?”
My mom shook her head. “He said that she wanted to move home with him and find a job in Lubbock, but that the spark wasn’t there anymore.”
“That’s sad. I liked Margaret.”
My mom slid a plate of eggs in front of me. “Speaking of relationships.”
Oh boy.
“You and Julian?”
“Yeah?” I asked, reaching for the fork.
“He seems like a nice boy, Jennifer, but are you sure this is what you want?”
“What?”
“He’s a Wright. You know what they’re like.”
“I don’t know what you mean, Mom. One of my best friends is a Wright.”
“And look how she treated you before she became your best friend,” my mom said adamantly. “She was cruel to you in high school, and she didn’t even know your name before she hired you to nanny her child. The child she had a shotgun wedding to cover up.”
I winced. That was all true and looked bad, but I didn’t judge Sutton for her past. We were friends now. That was what mattered.
“I don’t see what Sutton has to do with this.”
My mom sighed and leaned against the island. “I’m looking out for you, dear. You show up here with a man we’ve never met and say he’s your boyfriend. He’s driving a Jaguar and wearing fancy designer clothing. He’s your boss.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Maybe you think so, but what about everyone else at your work? Don’t you see what it looks like?”
My face bloomed red. “Mom…”
“It looks like he’s screwing his secretary.” She held her hands up and stepped back. “Excuse my crude language, but I don’t want him to use my baby. What is that man doing with a photographer at his work?”
“Are you saying that he’s slumming it?”
“No, honey, I would never say that.” She shrugged. “I mean, if you were a pharmacist, I might understand it better.”
“Mom!” I gasped.
“But that isn’t what I’m saying,” she said quickly. “I don’t want you to get in over your head. I see the way you look at him, Jennifer, like the sun rises when he’s in the room. What happens when he’s had his fun and leaves? What happens to my bright girl?”
I looked away from her, a deep hurt burrowing in my chest. What would happen? Julian and I were fake dating. Just a fake relationship for the month. We had a plan, a goal. Make the next month bearable. Deal with graduation so that I wouldn’t be alone and make Ashleigh jealous. Then everything had gotten complicated.
Of course, I’d always had feelings for him, but they weren’t reciprocated. We were lying to my parents. Lying to Chester and Margaret and everyone we had come in contact with this weekend. Julian wasn’t madly in love with me. He wasn’t my boyfriend.
I almost confessed it all to my mom. But what would that do but prove her right? The deep, yawning chasm in my chest deepened at the thought of how bad he could hurt me. He held my heart in his hands, and he didn’t even know it. We’d had sex. It had been…unbelievable. But I couldn’t just have sex with Julian Wright. I wasn’t Annie. One-night stands and friends with benefits would never, ever work for me. I fell fast and hard. And crashed just as devastatingly when it all inevitably went south.
My mom stepped around the island and dropped an arm around my shoulders. “I know you like him. I like him, too. He’s charming and funny. I want to make sure that you don’t get hurt.”
“Is there a way to ensure that?” I asked her desperately.
She laughed softly. “No. Unfortunately. But the one thing I do know is that it has to be equal. Does he feel the same for you as you do for him? If the answer is yes, then ignore me, dear. If he doesn’t though…well…”
I swallowed and nodded. If he didn’t, then he’d hurt me. And Julian didn’t feel that way about me. That was why we had started faking it to begin with. Sex only made it more difficult. As much as I wanted to do it again, I couldn’t. Not if I wanted to have a heart after this month was over.
My mom kissed my cheek. “I love you.”
