I scrubbed a hand over my face and sighed. “Uh, yeah, so apparently, that’s happening.”
Nate’s answering silence on the other end was immediately unsettling. It didn’t feel like his usual reserved calm, but more like he’d been stunned speechless, which didn’t happen often and wasn’t comforting when it did.
Thankfully, he didn’t let it drag on too long. “Does Jesse know what’s going on? Because, Will, they’re movingfaston this one. Like, faster even than Kate and me, and that was already ridiculous.”
I turned over my engine and shifted the car into gear, waiting for the call to connect to my Bluetooth before I backed out of thedriveway. “He knows. He’s still at my place and I’m headed over there right now. I’ll talk to him and get back to you as soon as possible.”
Fuck, I hated that I was in the middle of this. Plus, I was still feeling a little off kilter about having just spent a whole hour with Eliza.
Eliza. Shit.
Lady Elizabeth Rose Roderick had aged like a fine wine, even more ethereally gorgeous now than ever before. Golden brown hair cascaded in gentle waves past her shoulders, and her bright blue eyes were as soft, but intelligent as always. She had classic, rounded facial features that reminded me of the aristocracy in historic period pieces.
Cheeks for days, man.
All I’d wanted was to catch up with her as me, but she’d thought I was Jesse. Even Alex had thought I was Jesse when I’d walked in, and that guy had built a career on strategy, observation, and patronizing little brothers.
It’d pissed me off more than I expected that he confused me for my twintodayof all fucking days. I hadn’t even come to the house for any of that shit. Dad had called and summoned me, but I’d walked in as myself and out, apparently, as my brother.
Jesse was kind of a mess. In the best possible sense, but he barely buttoned his shirts correctly most days and wore mostly jeans instead of tailored trousers. Me?
I was the opposite. You’d think that after thirty-one years on this planet, my oldest brother would know thatIwas the one who was always put together and ready for action.
People noticed when I wasn’t there. I didn’t leave hurricanes in my wake. I left solutions. Fixed problems.
“Okay, man,” Nate said finally. “Just keep me in the loop, okay? I don’t like this. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“You’re telling me,” I muttered. “I’ll talk to you when I’ve seen him.”
Nate grumbled a quick response and ended the call while I inhaled a deep breath. After finding out that Jesse and Winnie were the ones being set up, I had to admit I was a tiny bit relieved. At least it wasn’t Eliza. I wasn’t sure how I would have felt about that, even if it had been years since I’d had that stupid crush.
Even so, I still had to get Jesse to involve himself, but when I got home, he was gone. Just like that.
The only thing that remained of him was an empty coffee mug on the kitchen counter and a note beside it, scrawled in his familiar, sloppy handwriting.Going back to Florida. Tell Alex I’m out. No deal.
I groaned and sank down on the nearest stool, briefly considering tossing the note into the fireplace to destroy the evidence, but instead, I called Alex.
“He’s gone, bro,” I said without any preamble. “Miami is one Jesse richer today.”
“No,” Alex said immediately. “That’s not possible. I just saw him. He?—”
“Youdidn’tjust see him.” I rolled my eyes. “That wasme, Alex. You got us mixed up. Time to get your eyes checked.”
There was a long pause on his end. “Wait. What?”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking when it happened,” I said dryly. “Jesse, however, is in fact no longer in Chicago, which means this situation has officially become a train wreck. He said to tell youno deal.”
Alex huffed out an annoyed sigh. “God, you’d think he would’ve grown up a bit by now.”
“You would, but to be fair, I’d also think that you would know better by now than to spring something like this on him and expect him to go along with it.”
“Yeah,” he said after a beat, then groaned. “This has the potential to turn into a complete clusterfuck. Dad is pretty set on this marriage happening.”
“Well, Dad is going to have to get over it.”
“Or,” Alex said, and immediately, a stone dropped into the center of my stomach. I knew that tone and it rarely meant good things. It meant he was thinking, already seven steps ahead.
“Or what?” I finally asked. “Do I even want to know?”
