Billionaires Dollar Series

I lean back in the chair, holding Lucas closer. “That was all you had to say on the Albert Walker fiasco? I thought for certain I’d hear an I told you so.”

Ethan raises an eyebrow. “We’re not done talking yet, are we? There’s still time.”

I scoff. “Fair enough.”

“So? Maddie?”

“Yeah, she cooked for the judges of the culinary institute yesterday.”

“She says not well, but I’m sure she nailed it. She makes the best food I’ve ever eaten.” I glance down at a tiny stockinged foot, having escaped the swaddle. Lucas lifts it up in the air with a flexibility that would make an acrobat green with envy. “I wasn’t there to watch her or to cheer her on. I’d promised I would be.”

“Because you drove to speak to Albert Walker instead.” The judgement hangs heavy in his words.

“Madison Webb,” Ethan says quietly. “Where did you find her again? How did you convince her to be part of this whole thing?”

“She was working as a caterer at the Porters’.”

“That’s how you bumped into her?”

He snorts. “Damn, what are the odds.”

I look from him to the girls, blissfully playing far away. Rare are the times Ethan swears when he’s with his family. He can’t be as calm about all of this as he’s pretending to be.

“And?” he asks. “What’s happened over these past weeks?”

“Well, you two haven’t just been platonically dating, have you? I heard the way she spoke about you the other night. Saw it on her face, even.”

“No, it hasn’t just been platonic.”

“You know, in any other circumstance I’d be thrilled for you. You two messed it up enough when you were teenagers, and this is like getting a second chance.”

My hand tightens around my nephew’s soft thigh, clutching him to me. He gives a soft gurgle. “We messed it up?”

“Mom and I always expected you’d come home one day and announce you were a couple.”

“And those expectations kept the very thing from happening,” I say. “Yours and everyone else’s.”This text is property of Nô/velD/rama.Org.

“It’s not complicated,” Ethan counters.

“Yes, it’s complicated. Everything is fucking complicated when you’re not called Ethan Carter.” I run my other hand through my hair, the guilt snapping at my heels, my anger rising. “Why did you kiss her?”

“Kiss her? What, when we were kids?”

“Yes. You knew she was my best friend in the entire world. Why did you kiss her?”

It’s a question I didn’t ask him back then, but now it pours out of me with barely concealed rancor. Ethan just blinks at me.

“That’s why you were angry at me for weeks after?”

“What do you think?”

He throws his head back and laughs, the sound equal parts amused and startled.

The anger inside me sharpens. “Happy to entertain you.”

“It was a mistake, I admit. I was… Christ, why have you never asked me this before?”

There’s no answer to that, none at all that I can think of.

“I was a kid, we were talking about kissing and neither of us had done it. It wasn’t particularly well-considered.” Ethan looks from me to his son, still happily kicking his legs in my arms like a budding swimmer. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I ever said that to you, but I was. I knew you liked her.”

“Why could you never say that?”

“Come on, Liam.” Ethan’s smile turns crooked. “We were competitive as hell growing up. Or have you forgotten?”

Forgotten?

Growing up?

I’ve competed against you my entire life.

He continues. “She was angry at you yesterday, I take it.”

“She wouldn’t admit it, but yes. Furious.”

“You apologized, right?”

“Of a sort.”

Ethan groans. “Man, you need to learn how to say I’m sorry and mean it. I can’t believe you were given this chance again and fucked it up.”

He makes it sound so simple, so straightforward. As if… as if I’m the one making it more complicated than it needs to be.

Your world is too complicated.

“You made the wrong call yesterday,” he says.

“Yeah. I’ve sort of come to that realization on my own.”

“Do you want to be with her?”

My eyes drift closed, because I can’t look at my brother while the images his question conjures up dance behind my lids. Maddie’s teasing grin, her hand in mine. The way she’d looked in the red dress. Her soft words in the darkness, voice like silk.

“I’ve moved a million miles an hour for years and with her, I’m just… not.”

When I open my eyes, Ethan is giving me a smile that’s all too knowing. “That’s a pretty good sign.”

“She’s in Fairfield this weekend. I’d planned to give her space, but…” I look down at Lucas, bouncing him softly in my arms. “Perhaps it’s been too long since I’ve been back home.”