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“Anything else going on with you? You meet a guy yet?”
Oh god. “Kind of.” I take a small sip of my coffee. “It’s still early.” I hate not telling him the whole truth, but how do I tell my twin brother that I’m dating three men at the same time? And that one of them is a guy our father once tried to kill.
I hate keeping all these secrets, but it’s the way I’ve lived my entire life. Always protecting somebody’s secret, and now I keep my own. Not only for me, but for Nico. If our father ever found out about what he did for me, he’d surely kill him.
“Is it serious?”
I press my lips together. “It might be.”
“Well, if you ever want to get married, have babies, anything like that, those papers you have will stand up to the highest level of scrutiny. I promise you that.”
“I know.” I nudge his arm with my elbow. “They got me through four years of college, so I figure they can get me a marriage license, should I ever need one.” He grins at me, and my face burns with embarrassment. “Not that I’m even thinking about that,” I insist. It isn’t like I can marry all three of them, even if I wanted to. Pretty sure that’s illegal in all fifty states. “I only say that because you brought it up.”
One corner of his mouth curves and he snorts. “Things must be a lot more serious than you let on.”
“Stop!” I sink back against the plush cushions and stare out the window, thinking about the guys and how I’ll have to make up a story about what I did this afternoon. It breaks my heart that when they ask me how my day was, I won’t be able to tell them about the best part of it—seeing my brother for the first time in two years. I can’t even tell them I have a brother. Swallowing down a lump of complex emotion, I redirect my attention to Nico. “Anyway, enough about my love life. How’s yours?”
He sighs heavily. “Complicated.”
“Can’t you get out too?”
He shakes his head. “Both of us disappearing would look way too suspicious, you know that. He’d come after you too.”
“I’d take that risk if it meant you could get out. We could go somewhere together.” A pang of guilt blindsides me as soon as the suggestion leaves my mouth. Although I’ve only known them for a few months, I can’t imagine leaving the guys. However, my heart breaks knowing that my wonderful brother can’t be with the person he loves just because he happens to love another man.
“One day Pop won’t be in charge anymore, and then maybe Dean and I can…” He shrugs.
“You think he’ll wait for you?”
“He’s not exactly waiting. He’s my second-in-command.” He twists his wedding band around his finger, seemingly without thought. “I spend more time with him than I do my wife.”
“How is Belinda?”
“She’s happy with the way things are. For now, anyway. I try to knock her up once a month, and she spends a small fortune on handbags and personal trainers in an attempt to make up for the fact that we can barely stand each other.”
“I hate that he forced you to marry her.”
“Belinda and I knew what we were signing up for. We’re both fine. We’ll figure it out in our own way. As soon as we have a kid, we can divorce and she can go live her life however the hell she wants to.”
“What if she has a girl?”
He drops a soft kiss on my forehead. “By the time she’s grown, things will be different.”
We chat a little more about trivial things and the series we’re both currently binging on Netflix before he tells me he has to leave for his meeting. “Stay as long as you want. Nobody except Dean uses this suite.”
“Where is Dean?”
“He’ll be at the meeting.”
“Give him my love, won’t you?”
He winks at me. “Yeah.”
I study my brother in his perfectly tailored suit. He’s always immaculately turned out, exactly like I was expected to be. His thick black hair is cut short, and I’ve never seen him with even the slightest bit of stubble. He looks way too young to live the life that he leads. He might only be twenty-four, but he’s wise beyond his years. “You two make a very handsome couple.”
He laughs out loud at that.
“I hope I get to come to your wedding one day.”
