Page 17 of The Billionaire's Angel

I didn't say anything about that to Vance. This wasn't the place, and I wasn't sure I wanted to talk about it with my little brother anyway. I didn't want to talk about it with anyone. Instead, I said, “Lunch would begreat.”

Vance stuck around until I was done, offering his opinion when he thought it was needed. It would have annoyed me, but Vance always had better taste in clothes than I did, especially after I'd spent more than a decade in some form ofuniform.

I loaded the back of the car I’d borrowed from Aiden with my purchases and followed Vance to the restaurant where he picked up his take-out order, then on to the home he shared with Maggie in Buckhead, not far from WintersHouse.

Magnolia Henry had inherited the Henry family house from her grandmother, and it looked like she'd taken good care of it. It was smaller in scale than Winters House. Most homes were, even inBuckhead.

The white house sat in the center of several sprawling acres, and despite the gray winter skies, it looked warm and welcoming. Vance led me in the front door, pausing to kick off his shoes and nudge a brightly colored plastic train out of the way before leading me back to thekitchen.

Chapter Six

Gage

Maggie emergedfrom the hallway at the front of the house. I didn't know her well. I knewofher, but she was younger than me and had gone to school in England, her path not crossing with the Winters family until Vance had hired her a few yearsbefore.

If you'd asked me what kind of woman Vance would marry, I never would've picked Maggie. Before her, Vance went for easy and flashy. In all things. His life had been about partying, working, and fucking, in that order. He’d had a drinking problem, one we’d been at a loss to deal with until he dragged himself to rehab and turned his lifearound.

Lucky he had, because, a year after he got sober, the infant daughter he didn't know he'd fathered was dropped on his doorstep. If you'd told me that was coming, I would have sworn Vance wasn't father material, but he fell in love with his daughter at first sight. He'd confessed on one of my short visits home that he'd been after Maggie for years, but it took the combination of sobriety and baby Rosalie to turn her head in hisdirection.

Maggie wasn't flashy, and she definitely wasn't a party girl. She was smart, with a warm, open heart and the kind of timeless beauty that said she would be just as gorgeous at seventy as she was in hertwenties.

“Vance, you brought Gage home,” she said as she padded into the kitchen in bare feet, at odds with the neatly tailored suit she wore. She gave me a quick hug and kiss on the cheek before abandoning me to slide into her husband's arms. Vance buried his face in Maggie's red hair, one hand sneaking up to deftly pull out the pins securing her eleganttwist.

“How was the meeting?” hemurmured.

Maggie kissed the side of his neck before she pulled away and plucked her hairpins from his hand. “I didn't like their numbers,” she said. “We can talk about it later. I'm going to run upstairs andchange.”

I watched Maggie leave, grinning when Vance said, “Hey, stop checking out my wife'sass.”

“Your wife has a great ass. It would be rude not to appreciateit.”

Vance grinned back at me. Together, we unpacked the take-out containers and set the table. I'd missed this. Missed my family. Once, we'd all been so close. The rest of them had held onto that closeness, but both Annalise and I had run away. Annalise had her reasons, and hers were better than mine. A lotbetter.

I was done with running, and I was glad to have my family back. Watching Vance with Maggie, it was a relief to know my brother had found love after so many years of misery. He looked younger than when he'd been drinking, fit and tan, vibrantly alive.Happy.

I didn't leave Vance and Maggie's until late afternoon. After I unpacked my things, I hit the gym to get in a workout before dinner. Aiden was absent for the meal, again. I pretended we didn't miss him. We didn't,really.

Dinner with Sophie and Amelia was like watching a play. Amelia was the comic relief, Sophie the straight-man. They kept me laughing until dessert was served. The scowl on Amelia's face at the sight of the bowl of chopped fruit in front of her was nojoke.

She ate the fruit, but she and Sophie bickered over it the entire time, Sophie reminding her she’d had too many cookies earlier in the day and Amelia insisting she didn't care. I'd already realized Sophie cared about Amelia, treated her more as a friend than a patient, but that only made her more resolved to safeguard Amelia'shealth.

Amelia could be demanding, insistent, and never shied away from drama, but she was no match for Sophie's steady, resolute, nature. Sophie absorbed Amelia's outbursts, listened patiently to her complaints, and quietly refused to change her mind. When Amelia grumbled, Sophiecommiserated.

My family was made up of strong-willed women, most of whom never shied away from confrontation. In her own way, Sophie fit right in. She was quieter than the Winters women, but watching her over the past few days I’d learned that beneath that calm exterior, Sophie hid a will ofsteel.

After dinner, Sophie and Amelia took over the family room to watch a few episodes of a TV series they both liked. I spent a few hours unpacking my haul from the electronics store, setting up my new laptop, programming numbers into my phone, and syncing my tablet with both. I sent Charlie my new email address and number. She promised to share both with the rest of the family and to send me my first homework assignment bymorning.

I spent the rest of the evening reading back articles on Winters Inc., trying to catch up on anything I'd missed. There was a lot. Between my sporadic Internet access and the sheer scope of Winters Inc. interests, I hadn’t been able to keep up with everything in the years I’d beenaway.

I read until my eyes burned and the rest of the house had long since gone to sleep. I'd heard Aiden come in, his heavy tread on the stairs, pausing at the top before heading to his own suite. I wondered if he thought about popping his head in my sitting room when he'd seen a light beneath thedoor.

I knew he needed space. Knew that for everyone else, my homecoming might be enough, but not with Aiden. Never with Aiden. What I’d done to Aiden had cut too deep forthat.

We'd had plans, Aiden andI.

Growing up, it was understood that the two of us would take over at the company for our fathers. Unlike the rest of our cousins and siblings, Aiden and I had wanted the company. We both loved it, had loved hanging out with our fathers, even as youngchildren.

After my dad died, I'd tag along with Aiden and Uncle Hugh. Some of my best memories of my dad were there along with a lot of my memories of Uncle Hugh. The company wasn't just a company. Not to me. When Hugh and Olivia died, Aiden had clung to Winters Inc., shouldering the burden of the company without complaint and had expected me to do thesame.