Page 8 of Filthy Rich Ex's Brothers

My heart continues to pound, but now the adrenaline is subsiding, slowly being replaced with dread.

What the hell am I doing? Marching in here like this? I’m lucky the beefy security guard isn’t hauling me up over his shoulder and tossing me out on the street like you see in the cartoons. Bounce twice, stand, brush off the ass. Shake a fist.

“Dianne.” Oakley directs this at the middle-aged woman beside me. She has the kind of hair that floofs up and away from her face, defying the laws of gravity. In all the time I’ve worked here, I never really noticed his assistant. Maybe that’s the point—but I’d assumed that all big-name business guys hired young, pretty women to sit outside their offices and take their calls.

Not middle-aged women with too much blue eye shadow.

To Dianne, Oakley goes on, “See to it that we hire competent security for my office.” I glance at the guard, whose face has gone slack. For a moment, we all stand completely still, just staring dumbly at Oakley. “Go.”

Dianne and the guard turn to leave, and I turn to go with them, already tucking tail, but Oakley calls me back. So I spin slowly, swallowing, definitely wishing I’d thought this through before launching myself into his office.

There’s something buried in his intense brown eyes that I can’t quite read. With an open palm, he makes a brief gesture at the chair. “Sit.”

And, just like the guard, I obey, dropping down into the seat across from him. Leaning in, lacing his fingers together, he looks me up and down once, and I have to suppress the shiver that threatens to climb my spine.What the hell?

“You’re a photographer,” he says, attention lingering on my camera bag before finding my eyes once more. “And not in-house, correct?”

Mortification floods through my body like tacky, hot tar, flushing my face and making my palms sticky with sweat. Ohgod, Oakley doesn’t even remember who I am. Why would he? I must be one of a million photographers, one of a million freelancers working for him. One face in a sea of them.

Yes, I’m Alex’s girlfriend—ex-girlfriend—but it’s not like we ever spent time with his family. According to him, it wasn’t worth it, and he stayed away from them as much as possible for his “mental health.”

“You’remy family now,” he’d said, and as much as I wanted those words to warm me, it had only left me with a faint, hollow pang of longing. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but I’d always harbored the hope that my partner might bring with them a big family. Holiday traditions I could join, grandmas to teach me to crochet, annual family vacation photos I could stand, awkwardly, along the edges of.

Alex’s insistence on keeping his distance from his brothers was what he cited when he demanded I quit the contract with Onyx. Never mind the fact that I could finally pitch in with the rent after moving in with him, and never mind what it could do for my career moving forward.

It was one fight I did not back down from with Alex. Everything else, I could concede to. Through couples counseling,I’d gotten better at compromise and admitting when I was in the wrong. But there was no way in hell I was letting go of a chance like this, no matter how Alex bullied me about it.

“No,” I blurt out when I realize Travis Oakley is staring at me expectantly. Now is not the time to be thinking about my failed relationship with his asshole brother.

Maybe it’s a good idea to remind myself that if Alex is a bastard, Travis can’t have fallen too far from the same tree. Maybe it’s a good thing that I’m about to lose my biggest contract.

Trying to gather myself, I clear my throat and start over. “Yes, a photographer for Onyx. Freelance. I do shoots for the new properties, for the public and private listings.”

“Right.” Oakley studies me, dark eyes impossible to read. “So, why would I be cutting your contract? Typically, it’s the creative director who oversees our photographers.”

Fuck.

Well, now he’s going to cut my contract because I’m an idiot.

Why did I go out of my way to bring the break-up to his attention? It’s not like Alex got me hired here, but now that Travis knows, he might take his brother’s lead and kick me out. He might think that if another Oakley had a good reason to cut me off, he does too.

If I’d said nothing, maybe he never would have known. Alex and Travis aren’t close. Maybe I could have held onto this just by saying nothing.

But I shot myself in the foot. Typical.

I open my mouth—to say what, I’m not entirely sure—and the truth comes tumbling out.

“Your brother is a real fucking asshole,” I start, and once I’m barreling down that path, it’s like I can’t stop. I breathe harder, sit up straighter. I can feel my face flushing even hotter as I talk,but he doesn’t stop me. And it feels good to complain. “He didn’t seem to think he needed to break up with me in person.”

It feels good to let out all the emotions I’ve been bottling up around my roommates. I didn’t want them to worry about me. I just wanted them to think I was okay.

But it doesn’t matter what Travis Oakley thinks about me, and so I throw it all out there. I talk about how Alex and I met. When we started dating. Alex convincing me to move in with him, to leave behind my room in the house with all my friends. How sweet he was at first, and how quickly things started to cool off. The couples counseling after I’d been overly suspicious that he was cheating on me.

“That wasmyfault,” I spit, shaking my head and thrusting a hand into my hair. I don’t miss the way Travis’s gaze follows it. Then, I remind myself that I’m losing my job here, and there’s no reason to make up imaginary flirting. “I havetrust issues.”

Travis says nothing, just looks at me with a sort of muted incredulity, and I know this is a bad idea, that I should stop, that this is completely unprofessional. I’m surprised he hasn’t cut me off by now.

But I don’t stop. Instead, I launch into the process of house hunting, looking at all those modern mansions with Alex. Watching him play the sleek, modern billionaire in his suits and his affection for white marble.