Page 50 of Falling For My Ex's Older Brother

"You seem comfortable enough, though."

"I am," I say.

She smiles. "Good." A pause — precisely calibrated.

"It's a particular skill. Knowing how to move in a room like this without beingofit. You've clearly worked very hard at it."

‘Without beingofit’. There it is. Dressed in pleasantry, delivered with warmth, designed to land in the specific place where my confidence lives and remind me that in her estimation I am a visitor here — skilled, polished, but visiting. Not permanent.

I look at her directly. "It helps when the work is interesting," I say.

"Goodnight, Sonia."

I step away from the bar. I move back into the room. I don't let anything show on my face and I am proud of that. However, I also feel the comment sitting in my chest like something with an edge.

I'm in conversation with two men near the center of the room when I become aware of Logan across the space — not because I'm looking for him, but because I've developed an involuntary radar for exactly where he is in any room we share. He's with a group of foundation members, engaged, his attention where it needs to be. But I catch the specific quality of his gaze tracking briefly in my direction and I know that look. I've seen it in Boston. In the conference room with Vane. I file it and return my attention to the conversation in front of me.

The first man is a real estate developer named Harrison — fifties, gregarious, the kind of man who is genuinely charming rather than performing charm. He asks smart questions about the Drake Foundation's infrastructure focus and I answer them with the depth that three months of absorption has given me. The second man, introduced as James, is younger — early forties, a portfolio manager, attentive in a way that I register without encouraging.

It's a professional conversation and I hold it as one. But I am aware, somewhere in my peripheral vision, that Logan has moved to where he can see us more clearly. I don't acknowledge it. I finish the conversation, exchangecards with Harrison, and move on toward the next thing the evening requires.

I feel it before I see it; Logan's posture changes across the room — a specific shift, subtle, the kind that most people wouldn't notice. I notice it because I've spent over six months learning the vocabulary of this man's body and this particular shift means something has arrived that requires management.

I follow his gaze to an older couple near the entrance. The woman is elegant — late sixties, dark hair silvered at the temples and throughout, wearing a deep burgundy gown with the ease of someone who has been dressing for rooms like this their entire life. The man beside her is tall. Broad-shouldered in the way Logan is broad-shouldered. Silver hair — more silver than Logan's, the same wave to it.

I understand immediately.

Logan is already moving toward them when he turns and finds me at his side. Something crosses his face — the specific expression of a man who had a plan and has just had it overtaken by events.

"My parents," he says quietly.

"I should have—"

"It's fine," I say. And then, because it is what it is and there's no version of the next ten minutes that benefits from hesitation: "Introduce me."

We cross the room together.

"Logan." His mother's voice is warm. She reaches for him and he allows the embrace with the particular stiffness of a man who lovessomeone and expresses it badly.

"You look well."

"Mom." He pulls back. "Dad."

His father extends his hand. "Logan." A firm handshake, a brief meeting of eyes, something passing between them that has the weight of a long history compressed into two seconds.

Then they both look at me.

"This is Sutton Kane," Logan says.

"She's—"

"His date," I say. I extend my hand to his mother.

"It's lovely to meet you."

Deborah Drake takes my hand and holds it for a moment instead of just shaking it — the specific warmth of a woman who assesses people through touch as much as anything else. Her eyes move over my face with a directness that is entirely without hostility. She is simply looking. Seeing.

"Sutton," she says. "What a lovely name." She doesn't release my hand immediately.