“Miles,” he cut off my thoughts. “I’m happy for you.” He chuckled softly like I didn’t understand that part. “I’m so goddamn happy for you.” His body shook the whole table as his smile grew, and he laughed.
“Don’t fuckin’ laugh at me, dick,” I growled. Because, as brothers, I knew it was within his right to remind me later just how right he’d been.
I looked to Eli but didn’t find a different expression there either. A knowing and pleased smirk graced his sharp features and coffee-ground eyes. “You, too?”
“Happens to the best of us.” He clapped me on the shoulder even as his eyes flicked to his wife behind the counter. “I’m happy for you. And for Eve. The girl has got a heart of gold.” To be able to put up with me… didn’t I fuckin’ know it… “Whatever you want. Whatever you need,” he continued, looking back down to the papers. “Just say the word, and we’ll make it happen.”
I grinned. “Well, about that… I was wonderin’ if you to get me mockups done from your friend—nothing crazy, just some 3D renders of what this place will look like when it’s done,” I said, thumbing through to pull out a sheet of numbers and hand to him. “I have all the specs here for the first floor with what I want and colors he can use.”
Of course, it could all be changed to whatever Eve wanted, but I wanted to give this to her so she could see it—really see it—right in front of her when I told her I wanted to front the money for the house and repairs. And when I told her I didn’t want her to move out.
Eli scanned everything and nodded. “When do you need it by?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Normally, things like this took time—took planning. But there was nothing I could’ve done to plan for Eve or for the way I’d fallen so hard for her. And so, I wanted to give her this tomorrow after I pulled two more bullshit reasons out of my ass why these last two apartments weren’t good enough.
He gaped. “You’re kidding, right?”
I tried to stay calm. I knew it was a fucking big favor to ask for something in such a rush. “I’m not, and I’ll owe you one, but I need it for tomorrow.”
“Grand gesture?” Mick asked with a knowing smile.
I gave him the finger as he laughed and drank his coffee.
Eli shook his head with a long sigh, folding the paper and sticking it in his back pocket.
“You’re going to owe me ten, not one, for this,” he groused, and my smile split open my face because I knew that meant he’d make it happen. “Guess I have a phone call to make and some begging to do.”
“I’ll owe you anything for this,” I called out as he walked toward the back, leaving Miles and me alone at the table.
My laughter dwindled as I met my brother’s gaze, and for the first time since I could remember, even since I’d sworn I was in love with Amanda, he didn’t look worried about me.
Propping my chin on my clasped hands, I murmured, “What if I’m not enough? What if she finally sees whatever Amanda—”
“Don’t.” He pointed a finger at me and stared for a long second, like the surge of anger made it difficult for him to speak. “I think you’ve known from the second she took you home that night—and didn’t leave—that she didn’t just have a crush on you. I think you’ve known from the second she put aside what she wanted because she needed you more, that this has always been serious for her. And as far as Amanda goes?” He wiped a hand over his mouth as though even her name left something more toxic than rat poison on his lips.
“The only person Amanda ever saw was herself and the image being with you gave her. It made her forbidden fruit, and she loved being chased around for it. She put you aside—sacrificed you for the future she wanted. I think Eve has more sense and more heart in her pinky than Amanda had in her entire body.”
Funny how in one night, we’d both risked our ideas of forever, ideas that were complete opposites, for each other.
“You think?” I rasped.
“I know we’ve always agreed that I was the smarter twin, but I didn’t think you were that dumb, big brother,” he teased with a chuckle, and I flipped him off.
“I don’t know where this is goin’ to go, but I just know that as long as she’s there, I want to be along for the ride.”
Eve
I didn’t cancel the apartment visits.
Why?
Because I was too awkward and disoriented to know what to do, so I did nothing. And also because I might need one of those apartments in the future… I gritted my teeth and pushed the nagging negative thought aside and tried to focus on the latest tour in my floundering house hunt.
The first appointment Miles turned down because the place had too many windows too close to the street, and that was too unsafe.
I would’ve laughed. I would’ve laughed and my heart would’ve exploded if my insides weren’t encased with granite-like fear. Instead, I bubbled over nervously, like a teapot that was left on a flame, whistling and boiling with no relief.
“You alright?” Miles tipped his head toward mine and asked, concern mingling with an excitement I didn’t understand in his eyes.
It was an excitement that had been there from the moment we’d woken up and I’d almost blurted out my condition then and there. But then he’d kissed me—so tenderly, so lovingly—that I lost all my fears in the presence of his touch. And when he finally collapsed on top of me, both of us panting with his cock buried inside me, pulsing against my womb that was already claimed by him, my mind was too blank with pleasure to know what to say.
And as soon as coherency returned, he’d crushed a kiss to my lips, dressed, and bolted from the apartment with a huge grin on his face, saying that he had something to do this morning, but that he’d meet me at the first appointment.
“But I’m pregnant,” I’d whispered softly to Kona who climbed up on the bed with me and settled his head on my lap.
“Eve?” I blinked and returned to the present moment, my stomach grumbling while I stood in the potential space.
“Yeah.” I nodded with a weak smile, turning back to the lanky, speckled landlord so Miles wouldn’t see how close that was to not being true.
I felt Miles’ hand on my back, gently tipping me back toward him when a breeze from outside blew through the window and tickled my nose, sending me into a sneezing fit.
“Sorry—” I broke off, assaulted by a third sneeze.
Miles stepped in front of me and stuck out his hand to the landlord who I couldn’t even recall what he’d introduced himself as. “Thanks for your time, but I think this place has too many allergens, and that’s goin’ to be a big problem.”
“It was just the wind—” The slender man began to insist at the same moment I spoke.
“I don’t—” I tried to protest and sneezed again, my nose apparently in on the plan for his latest denial.
“Thanks, again. We can find our way out.” Calmer and more imposing, Miles interrupted both of us and guided me back downstairs and out of the building; I’d had to take my glasses off so I could wipe the tears that pooled and ran down my cheeks.
“You alright there, Evie?”
“Yeah,” I squeaked and clung to his chest as he lifted me into the front seat of the Jeep. “Something got caught in my nose, it didn’t make me paralyzed.”
Still, I pulled his chest closer and took a deep breath of his warm wood scent before I had to let go.
“I know.” He grinned. “Sometimes, I just like holdin’ you.”
“Oh.” I blushed and adjusted my glasses to their normal seat on my nose.
He practically hopped up into the front seat and the urge to confess almost paled in comparison to the need to figure out just what was going on with him. Since the moment I got home after my class last night, he’d been like this—like someone who’d been happy with nothing and was just given everything.
I opened my mouth to speak but instead it was his voice that rang out before mind could. “Eve, we need to talk.”
My head jerked forward as my lips moved open and closed like a goldfish waiting for food.
What?
What was going on?
“Okay.” I folded my hands in my lap. “I was actually hoping that we could talk, too.”
He shot me a quirked smile that sent heat sizzling straight down between my thighs.
“Good.” He reached over and extricated one of my hands from where they’d been clasped on my lap and brought it up to his lips. “But let’s get back to the apartment first. Rumor has it there’s a pickle plate waiting for you.”
I whipped my eyes to his. Did he know? How could he? How could he know?
He laughed. “You were murmuring about it in your sleep this morning.”
The breath I didn’t realize I was holding rushed out of me like an avalanche.
“Oh. Oh my.” Talk about cravings.
“I don’t like hearin’ that you’re dreamin’ about anythin’ other than me.” He winked at me and my heart swelled with the warmth of his possessiveness and tripped all over his intoxicating lilt. “So, I told Benny to drop some stuff off for us.”
I smiled and nodded, unable to speak. I could feel the tears brewing again, so I put the window down in hopes it would set off another sneezing fit and I could blame the wet streaks on that.
Thankfully, we were less than a block away from the apartment which was about the limit for me being able to hold back my emotions.
This was it.
I stepped down from the lifted Wrangler and slung my purse over my shoulder. Of course, he waited for me in front of the vehicle, taking my hand to lead me upstairs.
My heart raced. I wasn’t sure if I was more anxious about what I had to say or what he did at this point.
Of course, I wanted all of this. I wanted every feeling that was buzzing through my blood like the sweetest sugar rush. But I’d promised him and myself that I would take forever off the table if it meant being able to be with him. And that meant ignoring these feelings of hope for something more, feelings that inflated my heart like a balloon filled too full and ready to burst if they were unfounded.
“Wait here a second,” he instructed.
“Wha—” I jumped, unable to even finish the question as the apartment door was shut in my face, leaving Kona outside to guard me. “Miles, what is—”
Not even thirty seconds later, Miles opened the door again and stepped to the side so I could come in, but before I could move, I just stared at him.
He hadn’t changed; he was in the same clothes and the same expression he’d worn just a moment ago.
But I wasn’t looking at him. I was memorizing him.
Stupid ridiculous romanticized notions had me soaking in every detail of his long, sandy hair. His eyes that were sun-soaked gold. His body that put Aquaman to shame. I breathed him in and held him inside me praying I wouldn’t have to let him go.
In a few moments, I carved every inch of him into my mind like one carves a name into the side of a tree. No matter what happened—no matter what grew or decayed from here, this memory of him and of everything we shared would always lay underneath.
“What was that about?” I asked quietly before he could wonder why I was staring at him like a besotted fool.
“I’ll show you.” His smile widened so beautifully as he stepped behind me and placed his hands on my waist.
“Wait, we need to talk—” His hand reached around and turned my chin up to silence me with a kiss, his tongue stroking its demands for my silence along my own.
“We will, Evie. Just wait one minute, baby,” he promised hoarsely and with those big pleading eyes, I couldn’t say no. I could hardly even stand up straight.
Leading me inside the apartment, we walked just past the kitchen when I saw what looked like a mess of papers all over the living room, resting on a sort of work bench someone must have brought in while we were out.
I tried to turn to look at him but his hands propelled me forward. “What is all this? What’s going on?”
He stayed silent as we first approached the mess and I could finally see what everything was.
Photos. Blueprints.
I bent down and looked closer. My house.
I recognized the Sunflower house immediately, but it took a double-take for me to see that these weren’t exactly photos of the building. The paint wasn’t worn, the porch wasn’t missing spindles from the rails, the windows weren’t cracked, and the lawn wasn’t overgrown with weeds.
I grabbed two images, one in each hand and turned to him, asking breathlessly, “Miles, what is all this?”
“I wanted you to see what it could look like,” he began, taking the papers from me and setting them down, directing me to the ones on the ottoman. “I wanted you to see your dreams come to life.”
Only vaguely did I hear his words as I registered the images of the interior. Of the back kitchen and the hallway to the front door. Of the entryway. And of my studios.
A choked gasp slipped from my lips as I quickly cupped my hand over my mouth. The tears flowed like a stream after a rainstorm, relentlessly and full of force.
Even though I could hardly see them now, my hands shook as they sifted through all the images he’d had made for me. There were even some that had yoga mats laid out in them with little people on them, too.
“Miles…” I stumbled over his name, searching for him through the sea in my eyes.
He held out his hand to me, one last image between his fingers. My fingers still trembling, I reached for the scene that I quickly realized was the meditation room, facing the front windows. In the center of that windowed wall was a dog bed, the name ‘KONA’ emblazoned on the side.
“I wanted you to see your dreams because I want to be a part of them,” he rasped.
And that was when whatever it was holding my emotions back failed me, and I sobbed.
I sobbed so hard I thought I was going to send my glasses flying. I sobbed so hard it felt like I was shaking the world itself inside me.
This couldn’t be happening.
Not now.
“Oh, Evie,” he growled and pulled me into his arms, sheltering me against the hard heat of his chest. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, baby. Hell, I just wanted to tell you that I was wrong. I was wrong about you. About us. I want f—”
I reared back, stumbling over my feet in order to break away from him.
I couldn’t—I wouldn’t let him do this. I wouldn’t let him say words my heart wouldn’t let him take back if knowing the truth changed his mind.
“Eve—” The fear in his voice sliced right through my already bleeding heart.
Wrapping my arms across my front, I steeled myself as the words toppled from my unsteady lips. “I’m pregnant, Miles.”
And just like that, everything that he’d built here, every emotion that spun like the purest gold in his eyes, evaporated like water under pressure. No spark. No sizzle. No sound. Just gone.
My heart beat like the steady tick of a timebomb waiting for the words that would ignite its explosion. Ticking louder and louder in my ear until I couldn’t even hear my breaths, if I was still breathing at all.
And Miles? He just stood there, staring at my lips like he wasn’t sure if he was awake or asleep.
The moment of déjà vu was so profound, he was lost inside himself, like he was standing inside his home but needed a map to get back to the front door.
For a strange second, I’d wondered if he’d heard me.
Of course, he had, because everything had changed. But sometimes, the most traumatic moments are accompanied by memory loss to spare us from the pain, so I repeated, my voice slipping and cracking over the words like a glass of water falling on the floor, “Miles, I’m preg—”
“I heard you.”
Like a whip the words flung through the air and snapped my own back against the back of my throat. Eyes that had glittered with the promise of forever now glinted with the metallic blade of bitterness.
“I
don’t believe this, but I heard you.”
I winced. “I-I know this is a shock. Believe me, this wasn’t what I planned on happening—”
“Oh, no?” he sneered. “Tell me how, if you’re ‘on the pill,’”—the reflex of his fingers to make air quotes might as well have been pulling the trigger because it sure felt like I was being shot—“that this isn’t what you planned? Because last time I checked, the whole fuckin’ point of the pill was to prevent anything un-fucking-planned!”
I cupped my hands over my mouth and shook my head. “I am on the pill, I swear—”
“How can I fucking believe that when you just told me you’re pregnant?” he roared, yanking his hands through his hair.
“Because I was on antibiotics!” I yelled.
I didn’t care if I was a mess and he had every right to be angry, I was going to get a word in. I was going to tell him the whole truth whether he was ready to hear it or not.
“I-I was on antibiotics for a cold and, apparently, that makes the pill less effective. But I didn’t know that, Miles. I swear. I swear I didn’t know. I would never do this to you—”
“Oh no?” The vitriol in his voice was like boiling water on my skin. “Wouldn’t you?” He advanced on me, the sacrificial crunch of some of the images he’d had made under the weight of his step foretold what destruction was coming my way.
“W-What do you mean?” I demanded, shoving my glasses up higher like they could block out the livid betrayal in his eyes. “Of course, I would never—”
“Really?” His head cocked to the side. “Because you brought your yoga class to the beach and invaded my cove—”
“I didn’t know you were living—”
“And then you took a job and the only other fucking establishment I frequent in town—” he growled.
“Because I needed the money—” I cut back in.
“And after one night, all of a sudden, you have no place to live except above the fuckin’ bar or with me—”
“I was fine with living at the bar! You were the one who told me I couldn’t, you big jerk—” I yelled, shaking a finger at him as my other hand slid lower over my stomach.
Besotted: An Enemies-to-Lovers Small-town Romance (Carmel Cove Book 3) Page 23