Those blue eyes clashed with mine. “I might be arrogant, but you’re insufferable.”
“At least I’m not emotionally constipated. You, on the other hand, need a laxative for your feelings.”
“And you feel so many things so very obviously that you weaponize eye contact.”
I scoffed. “I don’t even know what that means. You’re just making stuff up now.”
“No. It means you stare at people like you’re deciding whether to ruin their lives or reorganize them chronologically.”
“I organize by color,” I snapped, my chest heaving when I realized how close we were now.
Too close.
So close that the air between us felt like it was crackling like a lightning strike waiting for permission. I could feel the heat rolling off him, see the pulse ticking in his throat, and for one completely traitorous second, I wondered what would happen if?—
He let out a soft snort. “Oh, yeah. How could I have forgotten? Purple, right? Do you know that’s the color of?—”
The door flew open and Alex came in without knocking, then stopped dead, his eyes flicking between us. We were standingpractically nose to nose, both of us visibly seconds away from committing a felony.
“Is this a bad time?” he asked, his voice suspiciously calm given what he’d just walked in on. “I can come back.”
“No,” Nate and I said simultaneously. Then we glared at each other for agreeing.
Alex raised an eyebrow, but it only a beat before he focused on Nate. “I need you. It’s not Hinds-related.”
Nate didn’t move immediately, his gaze still locked on my face, and for a brief, unsettling moment, something flickered in his eyes. Confusion, maybe. Curiosity. Something unguarded enough to make my heart stutter in response.
He stepped back and spun away from me before I could even begin to make sense of it. He cleared his throat and nodded at his brother. “Right. Let’s go.”
Alex gave me a quick, almost apologetic smile before he left and Nate followed, neither of them looking back. My heart was thundering like I’d just sprinted ten blocks as I moved back to the table and dropped into the chair, my nails automatically starting to drum against the armrests in a sharp, uneven rhythm.
My pulse refused to slow, irritation and something significantly more inconvenient entwining under my skin. I reached for my phone, unlocking it and opening the email from this morning again.
The familiar tone of it grounded me almost instantly, soothing the internal havoc Nate Westwood seemed determined to inflict on my nervous system. I reread it slowly, letting the words settle over me like a steadying hand.
Finally, as my lips curved into a smile, my breathing evened out and my shoulders lowered. Nate and the Westwoods could take their judgment and their archaic traditions and shove them where the sun didn’t shine.
Thankfully, they weren’t the only men in the world or the only family. The rest of us did just fine over here in the twenty-first century and I didn’t even pity them for not being able to join us.
CHAPTER 7
NATE
Alex and I barely made it through the front door of our father’s house before we were ushered into the study. Despite the large windows overlooking the lake, walking into this room always felt like I’d been sentenced to prison for a social crime I hadn’t committed but my family always seemed convinced I had.
Dad sat behind his desk, his silver hair perfectly styled and his glasses perched low on his nose. He didn’t even look up from the Hinds’ projections spread out on his desk.
Alex must’ve sent them through this morning. Technically, Dad might be retired and living in Florida, but he’d come home for this deal. Westwoods tended to do that, coming out of retirement if a deal was big enough to justify it. Even long after they’d stopped personally signing the checks.
“Boys,” he said happily, his face all tanned and glowing these days in a way I’d literally never seen before he’d moved. “I see we’re progressing nicely on the Hinds account. Talk to me.”
We both sat down, quickly giving him an update on the bid structure first, the partnership logistics, and the long-term return strategy. He asked a few pointed questions, and as CEO, Alex answered most of them.
I filled in the gaps where necessary, but twenty minutes later, we’d exhausted Hinds and all other business talk. Assuming the meeting was over, I was already moving to stand when Dad leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach.
“That Vanderhaul girl,” he said casually. “She seems rather intelligent.”
Alex nodded. “She is.”
