Reese released a deep breath, struggling to maintain eye contact. “I’m still so sorry. Hallie didn’t mention you were staying here with her. I knocked on the door, and no one responded.”
Sydney pointed to the earbuds that now rested on a dresser. “Was sort of in my own world. Trying to pump myself up for a midday jog. It should have been a morning jog, but…” The words trailed off, a soft, embarrassed smile flashing across Sydney’s full lips. Her white teeth popped against her perpetually tan skin, which made sense given that, if Reese remembered correctly, Sydney spent most of her time in between tournaments in Florida.
Oh god, did Sydney know that Grant was getting married this summer?
Grant, from where Reese was standing, was a fucking idiot for letting Sydney get away. Or breaking up with her and falling head-over-heels in love with Brynn Fitzpatrick soon after—if she believed the official version being peddled by the rest of the Devereux family.
Thinking about him, it was like she could hear Grant’s stupid voice inside her head. “Reese?” he was saying. “Why haven’t you answered any of Mom’s calls? She’s been trying toget a hold of you all day, and I’m not the family’s errand boy, you know.”
Why was Sydney looking at her like that? Head cocked to the side, straining her ear toward the open door. Almost like she could hear Grant’s annoying voice, too.
Oh.
Oh no.
It happened quickly, as she heard his decisive footsteps in the living room before she saw him come into view. Two years younger than she was, he’d been taller by the time they were teenagers. Add an extra inch for his stupid pompadour hairstyle. Now, as a man in his late twenties, his frame took up most of the doorway to the owner’s quarters second bedroom.
Reese instinctively moved in front of Sydney, who was still very much unclothed and shrinking backward so that her legs bumped against the edge of the bed. Reese heard the soft sounds of the sheets moving and ignored a fleetingly intrusive thought about how Sydney’s tanned skin must look against the crisp, white linens.
“Why is your door open?” Grant demanded. “No one was even at the front desk, unsurprisingly. I’m forced to wander around like an idiot. At least your voice carries—” He stopped fully once he entered the bedroom, his eyes bouncing back and forth between Sydney and Reese, trying to figure out what was going on.
He sure had the idiot part right, regardless of the situation.
It was unlikely he’d guess that Reese had bought the inn and she’d just had a hell of a first day unexpectedly walking in on Sydney naked. It was a hard guess on the best of days, and she didn’t think he possessed even a molecule of that level of critical thinking.
His forehead was scrunched in obvious confusion. “What’s going on?”
It reminded her of when they were teenagers, and he’d miss the point of movies entirely. When Reese would try to explain theplot, he’d stand up, scoff, and call the film ‘stupid’ to further illustrate whatever point he thought he was making.
Life had been hell on earth when he’d learned the word ‘reductive’ while studying for his SATs with his hundred-dollar-an-hour tutor and applied it to every single thing he didn’t like.
Strangely, Reese found it comforting that he hadn’t changed all that much since birth. Still petulant. Still whiny. Still thought the sun shone out of his ass.
And now, he was planning to further enshrine himself as the family’s golden child by marrying Brynn Fitzpatrick, daughter of one of the largest real estate investors on the East Coast.
It must have been her father’s wet dream when he’d found out they were engaged. Gross but apt, as far as descriptions went.
She needed to remind herself that Grant was on her turf now. In her inn. He wasn’t the one calling the shots, even if he didn’t know it yet.
“Nothing that’s any of your business,” Reese finally answered, inching over to fully obstruct Sydney from his view.
She’d waited until she could see the vein in his forehead bulging with frustration at being so far out of the loop he didn’t know it existed.
She didn’t think Grant was that smart, but he was persistent. And that could be a problem at this moment.
“I think I deserve an explanation about why my sister and my ex are naked in a hotel room together.”
Reese pursed her lips. Yep, he was still as idiotic as she remembered. Luckily, they saw one another infrequently, and only with the buffer of their parents between them. But their interactions didn’t feel infrequent enough at this moment.
It wasn’t an unfair question, but it was so classically Grant that she wanted to laugh. Sydney wasn’t his girlfriend, and Reese barely had a relationship with her brother. Why he felt like he could waltz into someone else’s hotel room and demand answers only reinforced her disdain for him.
“Technically only one of us is naked, Grant.” Sydney’s voicefloated from behind her, and as Reese shifted her body sideways, Sydney’s head peeked around her to look Grant in the eye.
Sydney stood up then, towel held across her chest, before she took a step closer to Reese, staying slightly behind her. Their bodies were almost touching, and the warmth of Sydney’s naked skin pushed insistently against Reese’s shirt. Sydney smelled like coconut and something floral, and it set Reese’s synapses on fire.
Grant, to his credit, stood frozen, except for his eyes pinging back and forth between them, like he couldn’t process what was happening.
With a quick half-step, Sydney now stood right next to Reese, their arms brushing and that heat threatening to engulf Reese again, when Sydney added with a widening smile, “And it’s still none of your business.”
