Page 92 of Falling For My Ex's Older Brother

"The reception was—" He stops. He starts again.

"It was handled badly. Harmon had no business—"

"Harmon said something careless at aparty," I say.

"That's not the problem. The problem is what happened in you when he said it."

He turns. His jaw is set. "I have a company to run. I have relationships with investors and board members that require a specific kind of—"

"Don't." I stand up from the stool.

"Don't give me the company speech. I've been managing the professional implications of this relationship as carefully as you have. More carefully sometimes. That is not what this is about."

"Then what is it about?"

His voice is controlled but there's something underneath it. Friction. The specific resistance of a man being asked to look at something he'd rather not look at.

"It's about the fact that someone said your name and my name in the same sentence in public and you panicked." I hold his gaze across the kitchen.

"And instead of talking to me about it you went somewhere I can't reach and you've been there for two weeks."

"I didn't panic," he says.

"What would you call it?"

Silence.

"Logan." I take a step toward him.

"I know what this is. I've seen it before — not with you, but I recognize it. The retreat. The managed distance. The way you get very efficient and very controlled when something feels like too much." My voice is steady.

"I understand why you do it. I've watched you do it.But I need you to hear me clearly right now." I stop three feet from him.

"I will not be managed. Not by you. Not by anyone."

His eyes are on mine. Something is moving behind them — conflict, and underneath the conflict something rawer.

"I'm not managing you," he says.

"You've been doing exactly that for two weeks," I say.

"And I think you know it." I pause.

"What are you afraid of? Say it. Not the company answer. Not the professional answer. What are you actually afraid of?"

The kitchen is completely silent. He looks at me for a long moment. His jaw works. And then — instead of the answer I'm waiting for, instead of the honesty that has become the foundation of everything we've built — he says:

"I think we need to be careful about how visible this becomes."

I look at him.

"The reception was a reminder," he says.

"That there are stakes here. Professional stakes. For both of us."

"We've always known that," I say carefully.

"Knowing it and having it announced to a room full of board members are very different things."