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“You know…” His winded voice fumbled a moment before he added, “Those calisthenics things they do in all the military training movies. Yeah. I was doing...those.”
“Why in God’s name were you doing burpees in your office? While still wearing a suit?”
“I, uh…”
Under his desk, I winced for him. The poor guy was a really bad liar, though.
“Muffins,” he said. “Yeah. My new secretary, Magda—I told you about how Art, Jada, and I rotated assistants, right?’
“Yeah. That asshole A
rt finally hired someone who didn’t want to sleep with him, so you all had to shift everyone around. I remember. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Yes, right. Well, Magda—bless her heart—keeps bringing me a basket full of damn muffins every morning,” Gracen tried to explain through all his breathless panting. “And I swear they’re going straight to my hips.”
I pressed a hand over my mouth to keep from shouting out a laugh. But seriously, if he added another cheesy Gracen joke, like something about having to watch his girlish figure, I was probably going to straight-up lose it and laugh out loud.
Which would be bad.
Isabella didn’t seem so entertained, though. “You are so completely hopeless,” she said with a groan. “I swear. Why don’t you try getting a membership to a gym, sweetie?”
“Yeah,” he mumbled thoughtfully. “Maybe I’ll do that.”
“My God. No one is ever going to marry you, are they? And then I’m never going to have any little nieces or nephews to spoil and bounce on my knee and teach how to say Auntie Bella.”
“If you’re itching for babies that bad,” Gracen said dryly. “Why don’t you just have your own?”
His sister snorted at the suggestion and then brushed it aside with a well-worded, “Too much responsibility,” before she clapped her hands loudly. “Now, if you’re done with your workout, or whatever you were doing, why don’t you take a hungry girl to lunch, huh?”
“You want me to take you to lunch,” he answered dumbly. “Right now?”
“Well, it is lunchtime,” Isabella reminded him sweetly. “And I did stop by here solely to invite my weirdo twin brother to join me. So, yeah, that’s pretty much exactly what I’d like.”
“Oh! Uh…” He stalled a moment before mumbling a reluctant, “Yeah, I guess. I could do that.”
“Well, you certainly don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Isabella mumbled, clearly hearing the lack of enthusiasm in his answer.
“No,” he assured her quickly. “No, it’s fine really. Uh, just let me—Let me grab my wallet from my top desk drawer.”
A second later, he appeared on my side of the desk, where I was hiding. His pant leg stopped before me, and I peeked out just enough to meet his gaze as he opened his drawer.
His blue-gray eyes filled with apology and regret as he fetched the wallet as slow as he could without looking too suspicious.
Feeling bad for him because he seemed so miserable, I mouthed the words it’s okay.
In return, he huffed out a breath, closed his eyes, and nodded his head.
I wasn’t sure what was bothering him more: lying so blatantly to his sister or deserting me here without any kind of goodbye or end to our—um—conversation. But it was most certainly tormenting him.
He absolutely could not tell Isabella what she’d just interrupted though. Neither of us wanted that. I didn’t wish for another violent confrontation with her, and she would definitely attack me. He didn’t need to be ousted as a betraying brother, and neither of us wanted her to get hurt. And this kind of caught-in-the-act discovery would be the most brutal way by far to tell her that Gracen and I were a thing.
If we were a thing.
I guess that hadn’t exactly been decided yet either. So yeah, we needed to discover if this was just a slipup or actually the beginning of something more serious before discussing if Isabella even needed to know about it at all.
“Gracen?” his sister murmured, sounding concerned again. “What’s wrong?”
He opened his eyes and looked up. “Nothing,” he told her, sending her a tight smile as he pocketed his wallet and shut the desk drawer. “I think I’m ready.”
