Page 71 of My Ex's Billionaire Brothers

This could go nuclear fast.

I meet her halfway, forcing a smile. “Happy Fourth, Aunt Gertie. Let me introduce?—”

The cane lifts slightly. “I know who they are, dear.” Her sharp gaze traces each brother, as though she’s reading a list of their sins in her mind. She turns to me. “Where’s Calvin?”

I inhale through my nose. “It…that didn’t work out.”

Three packs a day has left her voice as rough as the gravel in the yard. “Why?”

That single syllable says everything she’s thinking, and it’s all I can do not to shrink myself into nothing to avoid answering her question. Silence deepens to suffocation.

Before I can come up with an answer, Gage steps forward, voice calm. He towers over her, a lawn gnome facing down a giant. It’d be funny if I weren’t terrified.

His voice is calmer than it has any right to be. “Our younger brother never deserved her. He proved that time and time again.”

Aunt Gertie purses paper-thin lips. “And that’s to say that you three somehow deserve her?”

Theo inclines his head, respectful. “Too soon to tell, I fear. But I know we’re privileged to be in her life.”

Hunter, grin flickering earnest, adds, “And we’ll spend every day proving it.”

The old woman’s eyes narrow—searchlights probing. Finally she turns to me, voice lower. “If these boys give you trouble, send them my way. I can always use some free pig feed, and my pigs have an endless appetite.”

I bark a laugh at her joke. But she lowers her sunglasses, revealing that it was no joke—she’s deadly serious. I nod solemnly. “Yes, ma’am, I will.”

Judgment complete, she slips her arms and her cane through the crooks of Theo’s and Hunter’s elbows. “Now,” she announces, “what’s an old lady gotta do to get fed around these parts? The two of you?”

Hunter grins down at her. “We’re spoken for, thanks, but I’m sure we can still feed you.”

“Get to it.” She leads them off like prize draft horses toward the deviled eggs.

A collective exhale ripples the lawn. Conversations restart, volume rising to normal barbecue chatter. Relief loosens my spine. If Aunt Gertie issues a pass, the family will follow. I hope.

Uncle James and Cousin Erin debate whether the ribs should be sauced or dry-rubbed. Mom beams each time Hunter refills iced tea without being asked. Theo discusses quilting patterns with Aunt Lou—that one surprises me. I would have figured Gage would be better at that conversation, considering his penchant for knitting isn’t that far off from quilting. But each of my boyfriends has depths to them that I don’t know, and I look forward to learning everything about them.

I want that more than anything. I let myself breathe easier, drifting from group to group, answering the occasional nosy question. My family, the most judgmental people I have ever known, is making an effort to understand us. To understand me. That I’m not the good girl I always pretended to be.

That I’m not perfect in their eyes, and that’s okay.

And the entire time, I feel Gage’s gaze cross the yard to mine, feel the comfort of knowing he’s near—until I see Dad murmuring at him. The conversation ends with Dad’s quick nod toward the house. Gage wipes his hands on a towel, meets my questioning gaze across the lawn, and offers a tight smile as if to say,It’s fine. He follows Dad up the back steps, through the sliding door, down the hall toward the small office that used to be the guest bedroom.

A cold prickle spreads across my shoulders. Dad’s office is where he’s delivered every big lecture of my life—skipping church youth group, speeding ticket at seventeen, moving to Boston without a job. The door clicks shut behind them.

What happens next depends on one look, one word, one conversation behind a closed office door.

30

GAGE

I followMr. Markoff down the narrow back hall, past framed cross-stitch verses and a wall rack of fishing rods, to a door with a brass keyhole polished by decades of thumb swipes. He unlocks it, swings it inward, and gestures for me to enter.

The room could fit inside my Boston study twice over, yet it feels heavier. The air is densely packed with stories. Tongue-and-groove cedar planks climb every wall, finished so smooth the grain looks like melted caramel. A single casement window faces east toward the marsh. Sunlight slants through rippled glass, striping the floor like a jail-bar pattern.

To the right stands a floor-to-ceiling bookcase bowed under the weight of Russian epics, woodworking manuals, and thick hymnals titled in Cyrillic gilt. To the left, a display shelf of hand-carved ship miniatures, each pinned with a tiny flag.

This man takes pride in his things and his family. I hope he understands that I respect that.

At the center sits a walnut partner’s desk the size of a twin bed, its surface scarred by drafting divots and ring stains, cornersrubbed to blond by resting elbows. On it sits a green-hood banker’s lamp, a brass slide rule, a dented tin of sharpening stones, and a single photograph in a seashell frame.