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"This is Wren." Gavin beamed, so proud of his girl. She looked barely legal, sweet and innocent, and completely not his type at all. "This is my big brother Antoinne." His smile and voice dripped with smarmy sarcasm.
"Magnum." I corrected him, but he knew what he was doing.
"Sorry. Magnum."
We'd had our fights over the years, but I was still his blood, so he'd better not be disrespecting me in front of his girl. She was clearly in over her head with a criminal like Gavin. What was her angle? What could she possibly want from him? Dude was broke and soulless.
"Sylvie and Julian coming?" I asked my brother, ignoring Wren's outstretched hand.
"No. Too short notice." He glanced down at my snub of his girl's hand and frowned at it.
He didn't invite the other siblings? Only me?
"Any of your friends coming?"
"Nope."
"Her family?"
She looked away, and he wrapped an arm over her shoulders.
"No," he said with a tone telling me to back off. Right. That meant they didn't have the approval of her parents.
"So I'm the guest of honor at your engagement party?"
He'd duped me? Pretended it was a family gathering and it was just me. I hated being duped. I hated being lied to. Everyone was a fucking liar. Was it so hard to just be honest and tell the truth?
"Wren is the guest of honor. I wanted you to meet her. Now stop being rude and say hello to her."
"Hello," I quipped and turned back to the hostess.
She'd been eagerly watching the whole exchange. Her smile faltered when she saw my scowl, but she recovered.
"Table for three," I said.
"Sure thing. Follow me." She walked out into the main dining room, swinging her hips as she headed toward the crowded center where most of the patrons were sitting.
"That one." I pointed to an empty table in the corner by a ground-level patio. Privacy with an exit if I needed it.
We took seats and the hostess left the menus. "Your server will be with you shortly." She sashayed away with her little attitude in check.
Wren reached for her napkin and opened it in a practiced way before placing it in her lap. She was fancy. High society. Again, what the hell did she want with Gavin? "You pregnant?" I asked her.
Her eyes bugged out at the same time Gavin scolded me. "Mag!"
"Is she pregnant? Tell me the truth."
"No. Alright? Now chill. I want us to be a family."
Ouch. Gavin nailed a blow right through the heart. We didn't have much, but we had each other. I always told him I was his family, his only blood brother besides Julian. He wanted to bring this girl into the Beaumont Clan, and she deserved a fair chance from me.
"Fine. What do you do, Wren?" I rested my forearms on the table and tried to relax my very tense fingers that would not uncurl.
"I work at a bakery," she said softly, head tilted slightly down, eyes barely looking at me. Very submissive.
"A bakery? Like birthday cakes and shit?" Gavin brought a sweet fancy girl who sold cookies to join our family? Our dysfunctional non-existent trashy psychotic slightly illicit family?
"More like Asian treats." She mistook my silence for confusion and continued to explain it to me. "Buns, cookies, pastries, specialty breads. Things like that." She grinned and nodded. "What do you do?"
