Brothers of Paradise Series

“And you’re so beloved,” she says with a sigh, our hands swinging lightly between us.

The word strikes me like a shot. “What do you mean?”

“Henry, everyone hangs on to your every word. Your younger brothers look up to you, your little sister adores you, and your mom dotes on you.”

It’s good it’s dark, or the blush she’d joked about earlier would be blooming on my cheeks. Damn it, how did she manage to disarm me like this?

“I’m sorry about dinner,” I say. “I didn’t know my dad would ambush you like that.”

“You never told me he was the silent partner in the Chicago project.”

I sigh. “It didn’t seem important at the time. The project was still bad.”

“Is it okay, what I said? I wasn’t too harsh?”

“Too harsh? Faye, you were fucking excellent in there. I’m sorry, but… no, you weren’t too harsh.” Not at all. Nobody had ever stood up for me the way she did.

“Is he always like that? Such a hard-ass?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

She shakes her head, dark silk flying. “That feels like such a crime. I mean, look at you! What parent wouldn’t be proud? If that’s the metric being used, then no parent could ever be proud of their child unless they were the first man on the moon or something.”

I’m smiling, listening to her go on. Her tongue is definitely looser with drink, but then again, so is mine. With the starlit sky above us and the soft waves against the shore, I feel more at home in Paradise Shores than I ever have before.

“You’re defending me. Again.”

She looks up at me in surprise. “I suppose so, yes. Not that you need defending. But… I just don’t get it!”

“It was sweet of you,” I say. “Back then, and now, right here.”

“Well, that’s why you brought me, right? Moral support, arm candy, and business partner, all rolled into one.”

Her voice is amused, but at her words, I feel none. She’s right, and maybe her words were only part of an act, but somehow… it had felt real.

“You’re awfully free-spoken tonight.”

“Should I not be?” She looks up at me, eyes luminous in the moonlight. “Are we being serious now, or playful? I never can tell when we decide to switch, you know.”

“You can’t? I’m trying to keep up with you, most of the time.”

She laughs, and the sound sends delicious shivers across my skin. I want to make her do it again. “You obviously don’t see yourself very clearly.”

“I think the same could be said for you sometimes,” I say, thinking about her offhand comments about just being an assistant.

“Let’s play a game,” she says, voice dropping a few octaves. It’s the same voice she used when she challenged me to the contract.

“You already know I’ll win.”Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

She shakes her head. “If played right, we both win.”

“I’m listening.”

“Get-to-know-Henry.”

I groan, and I’m rewarded with another one of her laughs. “It’s all we’ve been playing, Faye. I’m all played out.”

“Tell me about your last relationship.”

“I think you’re a little bit drunk.”

Faye rolls her eyes at me. “Are you avoiding the question?”

“My last relationship was with Avery, who you’ve already met, in spectacular fashion.”

Faye wrinkles her nose. “Hmm. Walking perfection, that’s what she was.”

“As much as she’d like to think that, she’s definitely not perfect. Are you okay?”

She’s started to tilt, slightly, and I reach out to steady her. Her skin is warm under my hands.

“Yes.”

It’s wrong to exploit this opportunity-and I’m sure I’ll pay for it later-but I can’t stop myself from asking her the same thing.

“Now tell me about your last relationship.”

She tuts. “That’s a different game.”

“We can’t play get-to-know-Faye? That strikes me as cruelly unfair.”

“There’s not much to know.”

She still has her hand in mine, and I can’t stop myself from gripping it tighter. “That’s untrue. You don’t even believe that yourself.”

“Fine.” She takes a few steps forward, her hand slipping out of mine again, and walks backwards in front of me. The moonlight illuminates her hair, a dark halo around her, and it strikes me-not for the first time-how much person she fits into her short stature.

“I dated a guy called Aiden for a few years. He was a classic Wall Street guy.”

I groan. “No.”

“Yes, and I don’t want to get any grief about that. It’s in the past.” She holds up a finger, as if disciplining a dog, and I nod obediently. If there’s one thing more amusing than Faye herself, it’s Faye intoxicated.

“Go on.”

“He was so dreamy. I thought so, and my friends thought so too. We were going to get married in a big villa in Martha’s Vineyard, you know.”

That sounds serious. “You were engaged?”