Page 75 of Falling For My Ex's Older Brother

“—I didn't know when I hired her," I say.

"She told me on her first day. By then the decision was made."

"And after that?" He takes a step toward me.

"After you knew — you just kept going? You didn't think once about the consequencesof it all?"

"No," I say. "I didn't."

He stares at me. "Why?"

I look at him for a moment. My brother — thirty-four years old, standing in my apartment with ten years of distance between us and something raw underneath the anger that he rarely lets anyone see.

"Because it wasn't something I could control," I say.

Caleb stares at me. Something moves across his face — anger, but underneath it something rawer.

"You've never cared about anything I had," he says.

"Not once. My whole life, whatever I built, whatever I had, you looked right through it."

"That's not true."

"It is true." His voice cracks slightly on the last word. He catches it. He presses his lips together and looks at the window.

"Do you know what it was like growing up in your shadow? Every report card, every game, every thing I tried to do — the first question was always, does it measure up to what Logan did." He looks back at me.

"And now this."

I'm quiet for a moment. The penthouse holds the silence between us.

"I hear you," I say.

"And I'm not going to tell you that wasn't valid. It was. Whatever the dynamic was when we were growing up — it was real and it had a cost and I understand that." I hold his gaze.

"But that's not what this is."

"Then what is it?" he demands.

"Because from where I'm standing it looks like my brother taking the one thing in the last five years that actually made me feel like—" He stops. He runs a hand through his hair.

"She was good, Logan. She was actually good. And I threw it away. I fucked up..again!”

He pauses, as if trying to regain his composure.

“I fucked up. And you just — swooped in."

"I didn't swoop," I say.

"It wasn't calculated. It wasn't a move against you. It happened the way things happen when you're not looking for them."

"That's convenient," he scoffs.

"It's the truth."

Caleb laughs again — bitter, sharp.

"Right. The truth."