Page 41 of Ruthless Claim

I look at her for a moment, wrestling with what I want to say.

If I was going to tell anyone, it would be Emma.

She’s survived the most improbable circumstances of anyone I know and came out the other side more herself.

Plus, she puts up with my idiot brother.

Before I can speak, our waitress comes over.

We order our meals—pancakes and a southwestern scramble for Emma and I absentmindedly pick avocado toast—and I wait for the waitress to leave before I let out a breath. “It was a disaster.”

“Obviously,” she agrees pleasantly, hands resting on her belly.

“There was a fight. A bad one. He said…” I pause, because even now the memory of it has an edge. “Things. And I threw a wine glass, then somehow⁠—”

“Somehow,” Emma repeats, with a smile she’s not even attempting to suppress now.

“Somehow,” I confirm, with dignity. “And yes. Fine. Yes.”

Emma makes a sound that is caught somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.

She shakes her head in exasperation, but she is grinning at me.

She’s so clearly delighted on my behalf, and it’s so purely Emma that I feel my own mouth twitch despite everything.

“And?” She presses. “How was it?”

I raise an eyebrow. “You really want me to tell you about how your cousin looked naked?” I bluntly ask.

Emma makes a face. “Well I can do without those details.” She gags slightly. “But like, overall. The thirty thousand foot view, if you please.”

“It was the best sex of my life,” I say, quietly, into my coffee cup. At her sharp intake of breath, I look up and glare at her. “That is the last time I will ever say that out loud.”

Emma’s grin could power the city.

“I don’t want to hear it,” I warn her.

“I’m not saying anything,” she says, but from the way she’s pressing her lips together, she definitely does want to say something.

“I’m serious, Em.”

“I’m not saying anything,” she insists, and while, yes, she does, technically, not say anything, but she looks at me with such satisfaction that words would have been redundant.

“It cannot happen again,” I tell her, setting my cup down. “We’ve already agreed on it this morning. We had the conversation and we agreed.”

“You agreed this morning?” Emma repeats.

“Immediately this morning.”

She leans back in the booth and looks at me like I’m crazy. “So you woke up and the first thing you did was agree it was a mistake.”

I nod. “Yes.”

“Before coffee?”

I blink at her. “Yes.”

Emma considers this. “That’s either very mature,” she decides, “or evidence that you were both idiots.”