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My brother nodded once, looking thoughtful.
“What?” I said grumpily, my heart pounding harder. “Whatever you’re thinking, just say it.”
“I would say”—he began as he swished the ice around in his water glass—“unless you want Dad and Cynthia figuring out what’s going on between you, you should avoid being with all of them in the same room.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
We hadn’t slipped up. Hadn’t accidentally said anything about…us.
“When I got here, I saw him touch your hand. It wasn’t a boss-employee touch.”
“We didn’t—”
“I’m not here to judge you, Quincy. You know me better than that. But I’d have to be in a coma not to sense the feelings between you two.”
“There aren’t feelings,” I said automatically.
He chuckled quietly. “Oh, there are. Maybe you’re denying them to yourself, but they’re plain to see. On both sides.”
I stopped my denial before I could start it, curious. “Like what?” I challenged.
“The way Knox looks at you, for one. When you’re talking, he studies you, hangs on your words.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“And the way he knows you. You said you haven’t even known him a month, but he seems as if he’s known you for years. He gets you, lil sis.”
His words caused a warm rush and a surge of panic at the same time.
Knox didn’t have feelings for me.
I mean, of course he had the kind of feelings that made him want to sleep with me. And he trusted me with his baby. We got along well, but that didn’t mean love or those kinds of feelings. To him, I was a secret lover he didn’t want anyone to know about.
Before I could argue any of this out loud, my brother continued. “Are you going to tell me you don’t have feelings for him?”
I should. But this was my brother, and I trusted him. And though I didn’t know what my feelings were exactly, I couldn’t deny there wassomething.
I expelled a breath. “I have feelings. But that’s irrelevant. I’m going to school in two months.”
“An hour away. You could make it work if you wanted to.”
“That’s not what I want,” I said. I’d been over this in my head. I’d been over it with Piper. “I wasted years of my life with Mitchell, ignoring what was best for me. Ignoring my future other than Mitchell, and you see where that got me.”
“Okay.” Ryan straightened, his expression saying he surrendered. “I’m not trying to tell you what’s right for you. Only you can figure that out. If that’s focusing on school and waiting till afterward to get involved with someone, then that’s what you should do. Probably.”
I frowned at theprobably.
“That’s what’s right for me,” I said with a touch of defiance, toward what, I wasn’t sure, because I wasn’t upset with Ryan. “Why do you say probably? Of course it’s what I should do.”
“It’s a good plan…unless you find the right person along the way but don’t pursue it. Because who knows if that right person will still be there by the time you finish school and finally haverelationshipinked into your plan?”
I tilted my head and sized up my brother because I could swear it sounded like he had personal experience with exactly that. But I didn’t know of any right person or even remotely possibly right person he’d had in his life.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said to appease him, because I finally had my plan, and I wasn’t going to veer from it because of really good sex or even because of possible feelings that I couldn’t define. “He’s coming back, so drop it please.”
“Happy to. But me dropping it doesn’t mean you should too.”
As Knox came back to the table, I pasted my nanny grin on my face, cooed to Juniper, and ignored her father.
