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“Seriously?” Griffin just stared at his twin. “You’re gonna give me horse talk?”
“The reason why is,” Garrett continued, “the stallion doesn’t even know it’s happening, but slowly, old habits are broken. New ones are born. And pretty soon, the damn horse figures everything he’s doing is all his idea.”
“Right. Thanks. That’s clear.”
“It would be if your head wasn’t so far up your—” He took a breath, worked his jaw for a second or two then tried again. “The problem is, this thing with Nicole jumped up on you from out of nowhere, so your first instinct is to fight it, even if it’s what you want.”
“Who says it’s what I want?” Griffin mumbled.
“You do,” Garrett shot back. “Just by being here, you’re telling me that you’re miserable without her.”
“I don’t remember saying that.”
“Like you would,” Garrett said on a snort. “Remember the night you gave me hell about Alexis?”
Griffin scowled. “Vaguely.”
Another snort. “Then let me remind you. You told me I was a moron for standing back instead of going after what I want. Well, happy to tell you the same damn thing.”
“Excuse me?”
“Who the hell else can call you that without expecting a fist to the face, if it’s not your twin?”
“Don’t count on the twin thing saving your ass.”
“I can still take you.”
“Not on your best day,” Griffin assured him and asked himself why the hell he’d come to Cadria in the first place. He should have known it would go like this, Garrett-the-know-it-all pontificating from the mount of his happiness.
As for what he’d said, this was nothing like the situation his brother had been in with Alex. There had been lies separating them. Lies Garrett had told and Alex had caught him in.
This was different.
“The problem here is,” Garrett was saying, as a cool breeze slipped past them, “that you’re used to dealing with the temporary kind of woman. What did you used to say? ‘Dating a woman with more than two brain cells is a waste of time’?”
Griffin gave him a tight grimace that couldn’t have been mistaken for a smile.
“So what’s your deal?” his twin asked. “You want to go back to spending time with women who talk about exfoliating and how to make their skin...what did you call it? Shimmery?”
Griffin groaned and closed his eyes. Yeah, he remembered saying all of that to Garrett. He remembered all of the nights spent being bored to tears just to be able to take a woman to his bed for a couple of hours.
“You told me once that I lived more in King Jets than I did at my condo,” Garrett said softly. “You were right. But the thing is, you don’t even have that. Your condo’s sold. You’re killing time in a hotel. Damn it, Griff, where is the place you’ve felt most at home?”
He sighed and gave up fighting the truth. “With Nicole.”
Nodding, Garrett accepted his twin’s surrender and added, “Not only is she making you nuts, but she’s smarter than both of us.”
“What?”
Garrett grinned. “She noticed the significance of that ugly-ass brooch in the gem collection. Neither one of us did.”
“I would have, eventually,” Griffin said.
“That’s the thing,” Garrett told him. “You didn’t have to, because she did. That’s what being a team is, Griff. And if you’re as smart as you’re always telling me you are, you won’t let her get away.”
Griffin’s heart told him Garrett was right. But his mind was still struggling. “How can I do that again? Nicole’s a package deal. There’s Connor to think about, too.”
“And you’re remembering Jamie.”
“Yeah.” Griffin turned to look at his twin. “Having that kid torn out of my life was hard.”
“I know it was,” Garrett said and slapped his brother on the back. “The difference this time is that Nicole didn’t take Connor away. You walked away. From both of them.”
That truth hit him hard. To protect himself from losing what was important to him—Nicole and Connor—he’d turned his back on them.
