On the surface, everything is fine. He’s busy. He’s social. Always in meetings. Always at parties. He was the first to move out of the penthouse and carry on with his life like our parents’ deaths were a minor hiccup. Always on his way somewhere. Always leaning close to talk to someone at a party. But for all he lets people know about him, I still have no idea what he’s thinking most of the time. What he’s really doing. No idea, and I can’t make myself ask him. He’d brush me off. I wouldn’t get an answer.
“You’ll give more of a fuck while you’re in my house, asshole.”
Gabriel laughs, then saunters around the table and drops into one of the chairs. One of the staff comes in with a covered tray. He gives her a megawatt grin as she puts the tray in the middle of the table. “Thank you,” he says with a wink, making her blush. “Where’s Remy?”
“She had a project for her Greek Classics seminar.”
“That’s bullshit.” Jameson delivers this pronouncement five minutes late, like always. A T-shirt and jeans look like they might have been on him since last night. He sidesteps the server on the way through the great room, narrowly avoiding a collision. He gets all his thrills from brushing shoulders with death. I have no idea how to explain to him that he doesn’t have to go chasing it. It will find him whenever it wants. He throws himself into the seat next to me. “Why does Remy get to skip the family brunch but I don’t?”
“Because she’s doing something important.”
The server reappears with a pitcher of water and steps around us, filling our glasses. I’ve arranged to pay her several times the normal salary to ignore it if tensions reach a rolling boil. That, along with an ironclad nondisclosure agreement, will allow us some privacy to try and be a family and not the splintered thing we’ve been lately.
“I was doing something important, too.” Gabriel makes a show of putting his phone facedown on the table, light in his eyes, his posture relaxed. “And I still had to come.”
“Fucking a random person every night is not important.”
“It is if you do it right.” Gabriel grins devilishly. “But for the record, I don’t always fuck. Some people just like to talk.”
“God knows you can’t shut your mouth.”
Jameson groans. “Should I let you two have some privacy?” The way he’s slumped in his chair is an invitation for me to slap him across the back of his head, so I do. He punches back. It’s a practiced movement, habit more than anything, and he straightens up to the table. “You can just say you want me here, big brother.”
“Not for the pleasure of your company,” Gabriel points out. “This is about keeping us where he wants us. Close to his heart, so we can’t get into trouble.”
“Yes, Gabriel, omelets are what keep the two of you from destroying the family. If only they’d convince you to join Phoenix Enterprises.”
“This way is better,” Gabriel says, the response coming easy because we’ve had this talk a million times before.
I have no idea why he’s being so obstinate. Gabriel is a natural dealmaker. He’s convincing and charming and people want to please him. It’s why his small real estate brokerage is successful. But his lack of interest in business management is holding him back.
If he’d just join Phoenix, we’d both be better off. We would make his business an international player, and his skill would make us the best in acquiring new properties.
“If it’s the money you’re worried about—”
“I thought one of the rules of this little family brunch is that no one gets to talk about work.” Jameson takes the cover off the tray in the middle of the table. Three stacks of pancakes. He stares at them for several moments. Blinks once. “What’s this?”
“Pancakes, Jameson. Are you high?” I’m joking, but not entirely.
He cuts a glance at me. “The pancakes?”
“If you mean is it Dad’s recipe, the answer is yes.”
“Wow.” He looks like he might be genuinely pissed, in which case...
“What the fuck is your problem?”
“There’s no problem.” He picks up the serving fork, sticks it through three pancakes, and tips them onto his plate. He doesn’t meet my eyes.
Gabriel watches this with a smirk, then glances at me. “You really don’t know?”
“Who the hell has a problem with pancakes?”
Jameson says nothing. He butters the top pancake with the kind of concentration I wish he’d give the business. His hair is long, almost brushing his shoulders. Unprofessional. I’d never allow that in someone who works for me—except for him. He gets away with it because he’s, unfortunately, brilliant. My brother can tell the cost and the ROI of a piece of property at a single glance. He’s made a fortune on the kind of community revival projects that usually bleed money.
He can make miracles out of train wrecks when he applies himself.
And then he’ll disappear for several days. He’ll ignore properties I’ve assigned to him. He’s one delayed reaction away from a deadly car accident, but he doesn’t seem to care.
It’s maddening. “Jameson.”
“Gabriel texted me on his way in,” he says, pushing the syrup carafe into my hands, though I don’t have anything on my plate. “He said you’re taking secret meetings.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. I wasn’t even in the goddamn thing. I just waited in another room.”
“You’re spying on other people’s meetings?” Gabriel reaches for the bowl of fruit and tips assorted berries and melon onto his plate. “That’s not very professional of you. How can I merge my company with yours when you’re involved in corporate espionage?”
I unroll my napkin, letting the silverware tumble to the tablecloth. My knee throbs. The fork is convenient enough to stab in Gabriel’s direction. “I don’t need to resort to that bullshit, so shut the fuck up. And you.” A stab at Jameson misses his arm by a fraction of an inch and gets his attention. “Tell me what’s wrong with the pancakes.”
He scoffs. “Nothing’s wrong. They’re great.”
“Then why are you being such a dick about it?”
Jameson’s jaw tightens. “One of the rules of brunch is having polite conversation, fuckface.”
“One of the rules of brunch is not being an obnoxious jackass, you piece of—”
“This is good watermelon.” Gabriel’s everything’s-fine, nothing-is-wrong tone isn’t enough to smother the rising argument. “Ripe. Juicy. Like a certain blonde I spent last night with.”
I don’t bother to look at him. Jameson locks eyes with me and shoves an enormous bite of pancake into his mouth. “Absolutely nothing wrong with the food,” he says around it. “But you’re in a terrible mood. If your knee is bothering you, you can just tell us. Excuse yourself and take a rest.”
It’s not my knee that’s bothering me.
I didn’t expect to feel anything but satisfaction when I saw Charlotte Van Kempt again. But when those office doors opened and she watched Leo and his wife have a conversation—