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The waitress comes and I haven’t even looked at the menu. Somehow, I manage to refocus and pick out the French onion soup followed by the steak au poivre.

I hand my menu back to the waitress. I expect us to be able to move on and not talk about Avril anymore, but Bray just sits there, looking at me, waiting for me to respond.

I hate to admit it, but he’s right. I do miss having her around. It didn’t take me long to get used to having someone in my space. But our deal is done. She’s moved on. “Avril stayed with me for a reason. Now she’s moved on. Out, I mean.”

“And you can’t be unhappy about it, because you set the rules, right? Just like all these people you know, who rely on you for help with their business. You can’t be unhappy when they don’t try to climb over your walls, because that was never the deal. They were never supposed to. They came to you for something and you provided it. They didn’t need to scale the walls for that to happen and you don’t need to be disappointed that they didn’t try.”

His words roll like thunder in my chest. “I’ve deliberately set myself up not to depend on people so I never lose my business.”

“I know,” he says.

“No one can take away what I’ve built because it doesn’t depend on anyone but me.”

“Right. You’re up there in your tower alone. No one can hurt you, but it makes it pretty difficult to love you, too.”

It’s like a knife twisting in my gut. What he’s saying makes perfect sense, but I’m not sure I can take in the full meaning. It’s too much, too powerful, too dangerous. Like, if I was to think about what he’s saying properly, I might explode…or disintegrate.

Luckily for me, we’re interrupted by our appetizers arriving.

“That looks incredible,” Bray says, as the waitress sets down my soup, topped with crunchy bread and melted cheese. He’s right. It looks great. I can’t remember the last time I ate this. It might have been years before, when I was in Paris.

“What did you go for?” I ask him about his appetizer, temporarily released from the mental gymnastics I’m performing in my head.

“Snails,” he says.

I do my best not to wince.

“They’re really good here.”

My brother, the sports-bar guy, likes snails?

“Have you deliberately kept yourself at a distance from me over the years?” I ask. “I don’t feel like I know you at all.”

Bray takes a forkful of food and looks at me while he chews, like he’s really considering my question. He swallows and then says, “Maybe.” He pauses. “Yes. I think I didn’t want to be dependent on you to save me.”

What he’s saying sounds similar to what Avril said about the reason she wanted to get the Boston hotel. She wanted to prove herself without her siblings’ help.

“But it was more than that,” Bray adds. “I also felt distance from you, and then, as I followed your career, I understood pretty quickly that you were only successful if someone wanted something from you. I didn’t want to be someone else wanting help from you. I just wanted to be your brother.”

His words land in my gut like discarded sod, heavy and thick.

I’ve been low-key offended that Bray’s never asked for my help, but he was trying to preserve the essence of our brotherhood by doing it all himself. And I’ve still failed him.

“I feel very lucky to have you as my brother,” I say, emotion rising up in me.

“I know you’d do anything for me,” Bray says. “That feeling of knowing you would be there if I asked has kept me going when things have been difficult.”

“Really?” I ask. “Because you know it’s true.”

“I absolutely know that. In my soul,” he says.

“But there’s so much I don’t know about you. You think that I deliberately keep you out?”

“I don’t take it personally,” Bray says. “And I’m not going anywhere. I’ll take what I can get from you. But I’m not sure Avril, or any woman, will feel the same.”

Avril.

I miss her. Is that possible? I haven’t known her long and she’s only been gone a few days. But it feels like a part of me is missing since she left.