“You acted like I needed to be managed,” he says. “Like I could not be trusted to see a beautiful woman in our building and not make a bad decision.”
“That was not—”
“It was.” His voice stays calm, but there is steel in it. “Maybe not entirely, but enough.”
I do not answer because he is right.
Damn him.
Diego exhales and looks toward the windows for a moment. “I did not need a warning about professionalism, Mario.”
I say nothing.
He rises from the chair, slower now.
“I also did not need you to make up an excuse for me to back off.”
The room is thick with the words he hasn't said.
He smooths a hand down the front of his jacket, then meets my eyes again.
“You are my brother,” he says. “All you had to do was tell me you were interested.”
The words sit between us, simple yet true.
Far more generous than I deserve.
Diego’s mouth curves, but there is no real humor in it now. “I would have stepped back.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
This time, the question is not a challenge.
It is a wound.
A small one, perhaps, but a wound nonetheless.
One that is my doing.
One that I can fix.
The man who raised us would not have. The man who raised us did not.
He ruled with pride.
Too much pride to admit to the mistakes he had made, and that had led to him losing his first son to another man, his own brother, and had kept both brothers apart for a lifetime.
But I have learned from his mistakes.
I lost a lifetime with an older brother I have never met. Now, we are enemies.
I won't lose another.
I meet Diego's eyes and see the truth reflected back at me.
This will not separate us.
