I glanced over at him. “He looked incredibly uncomfortable when he said goodbye.”
Jesse’s mouth curved faintly, but he was definitely distracted. “Will is just a strange guy. You’ll like him once you get to know him.”
“Maybe.” Although I already knew I would never get comfortable with Will while it seemed like he and Jesse were on the outs. Or something. “You two seemed a little tense.”
“We’re brothers,” he said. “It happens.”
That was probably true. The good Lord knew that when my sisters and I got together, things weren’t always easy or even cordial between us. I would not have expected such a strange tension between identical twins, however, but perhaps that was simply because I couldn’t quite fathom the kind of bond they must have.
Either way, by the time we pulled up to the house, Jesse had grown completely quiet again, following me in without saying a word. I turned toward him once he’d shut the door behind us, but before I could ask if he wanted to talk about it, he suddenly stepped closer and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered quietly, his breath warm against my skin.
My heart stuttered. “For what?”
He pulled back slightly, like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “For?—”
His phone rang in his pocket, the shrill sound slicing straight through the tenderness of the moment. Jesse took a step backand pulled it out of his pocket. His jaw tightened when he looked at the screen.
“It’s work,” he said. “I have to take this.”
“Of course,” I replied despite feeling—once again—like I was missing something. “I’ll go get ready for bed.”
He nodded, already answering as he spun and strode away, his tone brisk and controlled now, so entirely different from what it’d been just a moment ago. He left me standing in the entryway, alone with the warmth of his kiss still lingering on my forehead.
More and more, I had the uneasy feeling that I might’ve stepped straight into the middle of some kind of messy family drama I hadn’t been told about, and judging by the way the twins had looked at each other tonight, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know exactly how complicated it really was.
CHAPTER 31
WILL
“The wedding is in two weeks,” I said without turning around, my gaze fixed on the skyline outside my office windows.
Jesse didn’t respond immediately, leaning against the wall on the other side of the room like this was a casual catch-up instead of a long overdue conversation that would change the course of both our lives.
I finally turned back to him. “This entire situation has gotten way out of control.”
His brows lifted slightly, like he found the assessment excessive. “It has?”
“Yes.” I raked a hand through my hair, beyond frustrated with him at this point. “How could you even ask me that?”
He pushed off the window, taking a few slow steps toward my desk and lowering himself into the chair across from it. “Explain it to me.”
I scoffed before forcing myself to rein it in. “Fine. You want an explanation? I’ll give you one.”
Spinning on my heels, I started pacing and closed my eyes, thinking about seeing Eliza again for the first time in so long when I’d gone to my father’s house that day. I thought about howher light, golden brown hair had been tucked behind her ears, her face as open and honest as the expression in her eyes.
It almost hurt to go back there, but that was where I started, walking him through it all. Everything he’d missed by not being there and all the things he clearly hadn’t bothered to consider, like her love for the estate and the situation with her family.
When I was finally finished, he was leaning back in the chair with an ankle kicked up over his knee and his head cocked, watching me with his eyes slightly narrowed. “Okay, I hear you. None of this is ideal. Especially how fast they need an heir, but it’s not unmanageable.”
A sharp, humorless bark of laughter came out of me. “It’s not unmanageable? Is that really the best you can do?”
He shrugged. “It’s a business arrangement, Will. Whatever needs to be done, we’ll work it out.”
“It’s not just that anymore,” I snapped, turning back to the windows and looking out at the city she’d agreed to live in, despite not wanting to be here. “She’s a living, breathing human being with goals and dreams of her own. She’s taken on this responsibility because it’s what her family needs. Don’t minimize that.”
“I’m not.” He studied me for a long minute. “It’s just the truth. Whether or not you want to see it that way, the whole reason this marriage is happening is because it makes sense to Dad from a strategic point of view.”
