Page 74 of Filthy Rich Ex's Brothers

“We’ll have to lay low, still, I think.” Travis pushes his phone from hand to hand. “We could go to my estate just outside the city and see what happens from there.”

There’s another long silence, then I cross my arms and speak, “I’ll stay until the next trip I’ve committed to. To Sierra Leone, in the spring.”

Another long pause stretches, and Ryan says, “I mean, if the question is aboutthis, then yes. I want it. I don’t really care where we are, but I think we should stay together. It’s been good.”

Serena sucks in a breath. Travis says, quietly, “Yeah. It has been good.”

“I travel a lot—obviously.” I turn and look at Serena. “You could come with me if you’d like.”

“And I’m going to Los Angeles to film my show,” Ryan adds, sitting forward, “you guys can all come. Or just Serena. It would be fun.”

“So, we’re doing this.” Travis looks up, his voice dropping. “And we understand the ramifications? What this could do… to our reputations? It’s nobody’s fucking business, but people are nosy. Eventually, everyone would find out. And the hardest criticism would not come down on the three of us guys.”

Together, we look at Serena, who is staring intently into her mimosa. Finally, she swallows, her face wide open, “Are you… asking if I want to be with all three of you? But not, like, separately?”

“Travis and I are already family.” The words jump out of me. “And I’ll take Ryan for the cooking alone. If it’s just the three of us, I’m in. Exclusive just to Serena.”

Ryan grins and leans back in his chair. “I’ll take that as a compliment to the chef.”

“Is that something you’d want, Serena?” Travis asks, laying his hands on the table. “You can say no. Or, you can wait to answer. You can go back with your roommates, if that makes you more comfortable. I don’t want you to feel pressured into anything, with the three of us asking at once.”

She sucks in another breath, jerks her head up, then shakes it. “What the hell?” In one motion, she downs the mimosa, then sets the glass back on the table with such care that it hardly makes a noise at all. “Let’s give it a shot.”

Another pause.

Then, eager to break the silence, I grab my glass, lift it to the middle of the table, and say, “Cheers. To trying something new.”

“Cheers,” Ryan adds, clinking his glass against mine, “to many more good times.”

Travis tops off his coffee. “Cheers to pulling this off.”

Serena rises, smiling widely. “Cheers,” she says after pouring a little more of the mimosa mix into her glass. Looking around at each of us, drenched in the Italian sunshine, she says, “To chasing love, no matter what it looks like.”

Chapter 39

Serena

We’re on the jet, headed back to the States, and all I can think about is that conversation we had before we left Italy. I didn’t mean to say “love.” It just slipped out.

But the guys didn’t seem to notice theLword tumbling out onto the table, sitting there like a Molotov cocktail, so I didn’t make a big deal of it. They were probably just giving me grace.

So, I didn’tmeanto say love, but I know, with a panicky certainty, that it’s happening to me, more and more, with every day I spend in their presence. It’s the only reason I hesitated at their offer to take this thing seriously. To beofficial.

What are we? A quad-ship? A strange, two-legged triangle with me in the middle?

Uncertainty and low-grade terror rushing through me, I slip off to the bathroom, phone like a grenade in my hands.

“Serena!” Lillie calls, singing into the phone. I wince. I called Georgia, but those two have been together so often I should have assumed Lillie would answer. “Girl, are you like, sun-tanning on the beach? Enjoying a limoncello? Wining and dining with a?—”

There’s a muffledgive me that, then Georgia comes on, “Serena? Is everything okay?”

Like always happens to me, I open my mouth, and the words come rushing out. I tell them about the guys, about their proposition, about going with them to Travis’s house outside the city.

Then, haltingly, I tell them about the proposal. The offer to be in a… relationship. With all three of the guys.

“I don’t know, Serena.” Georgia is hesitant. “I mean, yeah, itsoundslike a good idea on the surface. But those guys could be with anyone—no offense. It just feels like there has to be a catch. And they want you to come out there with them? To some secluded house in the country?”

I do not point out that I’ve been here, alone with them, for a week, in a secluded Tuscan house.