“You did some crazy shitbeforeyou met him too,” I say wryly.
“That was a different kind of insanity.” He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “I’m still not over the fact that no one told me about you. That you knew and never reached out.”
“I’m sorry.” And I actually mean it.
He hesitates and then says, “If he were alive, I’d tell him that keeping us separate was a mistake.”
When I don’t respond, he puts a hand on my arm. “If you don’t believe anything else, believe that, Michael. I would have loved knowing I had a brother, and I would have done everything in my power to get to knowyou. Unfortunately, we can’t fix what’s finished—we can only deal with what’s in front of us. Right now, we have an anniversary to attend and a cousin to destroy, and you need to tell me everything about you and Win, starting from the night you met and ending with that breakfast make-out session. I hear brothers talk to each other about these things.”
I look at him. He’s our father’s son, but it’s so easy to see the differences now. He’s genuine about wanting to get to know me. Have I been making all of this harder than it needs to be? Would I have kept holding myself back if Win hadn’t shown me the error of my ways?
“Fine, we can try talking. But don’t expect details. I’m not telling you everything.”
“Why don’t we just cover the highlights?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
WIN
Hasmy sabbatical become a real-life soap opera?
That’s what I’m wondering as I climb off the parked snowmobile, my butt still vibrating from the short ride and the M&M sisters cozy and warm against my chest. I slide my borrowed goggles up and stare at the lodge I wasn’t sure I’d see again.
It’s only been a few days.
A lot has happened, so you’ll need to give me a minute. I went missing. There was a snowstorm. I had transformational sex and played house with the man of my dirtiest dreams. And Michael’s dad wanted him to marry some heiress so much that he tried to coerce him into it from the grave.
“So fucked up,” I murmur to myself.
The amount of money he turned down when he quit and refused to be a part of the scheme must be substantial. Like, renovate all the housing in our old neighborhood, feed every child and fix every pothole before buying an island—that kind of substantial.
When I think about what Bellamy and his husband did for our city even before his father passed and he inherited? It blows my mind that Michael was willing to walk away from that. He’s a genuinely principled man, which is miraculous considering the bad examples he was surrounded by for years. His father, the cheater. His superior, the manipulative scheming cousin. The job he was so good at, where he dug up all the evil men do for and with their money. He was surrounded on all sides, and yet he managed to come out of it relatively unscathed. Or at least uncorrupted.
If I ever meet his mother and those brothers of hers, I’ll have to thank them for raising him to know right from wrong. Though I think he would have turned out like this regardless. Michael Demir is simply a good man.
Too good for you.
It’s possible. He’s also too rich for my blood, too complicated and, other than not being local, too perfect to be real.
I look back the way we came, at the clearly marked trail of compacted snow, and frown. It was my idea for Bellamy to bring Michael so they could have more time to talk and work together without an audience. But where are they?
I probably shouldn’t care so much. My trapped in a cabin with a mountain man fantasy is over now. Bex should be on her way here with the band, Connor is inside along with the rest of my clothes, and I’ve already spent more time with my pub beast than I have with anyone I’ve slept with before.
It was wonderful. I’ll never forget a second of it. But I should be ready to call it by now. I should be thankful that it happened and glad it’s over, so I can get back to my busy but satisfying life. That’s my brand. That’s how I roll. I’m Anti-commitment Guy. I don’t date. I don’t do relationships. I never fall in love.
“Weird weekend,” Jake says.
I look over, startled to realize he’s standing right beside me. How long has he been there? “Understatement is clearly your superpower.”
He smirks. “Uncle Michael really told you about all of that stuff with Bell’s company? Voluntarily?”
I nod. “Well, he didn’t tell me about the heiress. But the rest of it, sure.”
“I’m glad I was never interested in finance,” he continues thoughtfully. “It sounds like it’s full of greedy assholes.”
I nod and open my mouth to tell him about the time Alexander Hamilton?—
No. I’m not interested in regaling anyone with trivia at the moment. The truth is, the best thing about that founding-father-without-a-father is that Lin-Manuel made a musical about him. He isn’t relevant to this situation, even if he was obviously bisexual and married to an heiress. Like Michael could have been, before we’d ever met, if he hadn’t stood up for himself.
