GRAYSON
Lexi was wrong. I was not a good man.
Marius knocked on my office door and stuck his head in, grinning.
“Does this mean you got in touch with your brother?”
“What? One of my brothers contacted me?” I stood up abruptly.
Marius seemed to realize he’d made a mistake.
“I’m sorry, man, I just saw the email go out about how the Mary’s Nest nonprofit is looking for some volunteers to teach classes to the trafficking and domestic violence victims they serve and instruct them on how to navigate corporate environments. The Angelique Foundation, the human trafficking charity your brothers Graham and Connor run, donates a lot of money to Mary’s Nest. I know you never go to those fundraisers they host, but I thought … never mind.”
“You thought wrong,” I said tersely, sitting back down.
Marius worked his jaw. “Maybe you should try reaching out to them again?”
“No.”
“They’re all adults now,” Marius argued. “The last time you tried you were all still teenagers.”
“They don’t want me in their life. Drop it. Please,” I added.
BringingLexi with me to the nonprofit yesterday had been a mistake.
She was like a virus—she infiltrated and multiplied, taking over everything she touched, infecting it with her own brand of toxic positivity.
The redhead had co-opted my company, my home, my life, and also my mind. I couldn’t get that song out of my head, the one she had played at deafening volume in my car that sounded likedahhh du DAH du dah de duh.
Obnoxious.
“You’re being histrionic,” I told my reflection in the window.
Lexi was collecting sign-ups and lunch orders from people at the desk she shared with McKenna, talking a mile a minute, alternating with taking sips of overly sweet coffee in a ridiculous mug made to appeal to princess-obsessed toddlers.
“Why can’t she stay at her own desk? She’s just so … everywhere, so her.”
It was irksome.
I stared at Lexi through the glass then realized she didn’t actually have a designated spot. I fired off an email to the maintenance staff requesting an additional desk. She needed to be contained.
Then I gave in and googled my brothers’ names.
There was Aaron. The last time I’d seen him, when we were kids, the hatred for me had been etched on his bruised face. Now here he was, a grown man, running Van de Berg Insurance.
Spencer was the next oldest, an easy smile on his face in the picture. He’d always been the one to try to make people laugh. Then Finn—quiet, impartial, perceptive. I’d invested in his drone company, and they’d just landed a large defense contract.
Graham was next, active with the Angelique Foundation in his free time when he wasn’t running his data analytics company. Then came the youngest, Connor, the baby, who probably didn’t remember me at all and only knew me from whatever horror stories our brothers told him.
I tore myself away from reading as the maintenance staff brought up another desk.
I watched Lexi ecstatically thank the maintenance staff and them shrug and point to me. I gave her a nod as she blew me a kiss with both hands.
The effusive scene triggered a memory long repressed, of my father pretending to be the benevolent patriarch as he would give one of the trapped women some token item designed to promote envy and hurt feelings.
I should have made sure Lexi had had her own desk earlier.
I felt sick.
