CHAPTER 5

Baxon's POV

“You got a minute, Liam?” I muttered into my phone as Tifania and I stepped back into the elevator. The ride down from the Cavendish Sky Tower Residence had been typical—Tifania chattering about St. Aurelia Academy and me pretending to listen while running logistics in my head. The ride back up was completely silent. She was focused on her triple scoop of dulce de leche ice cream, and I was focused on the unsettling tension I’d left behind.

The bro-code I shared with Basil was less about shared loyalty and more about carefully managed distance. We ran the business together, we defended Tifania together-but we kept our romantic and emotional lives strictly separate. It was the only way two identical, ambitious men could coexist without trying to murder one another.

“Yeah, Mr. Cavendish. Just finished the perimeter sweep,” replied Liam Calderón, one of our main security guards.

"I need you to pull the file on Kathy Montalvo. Full, comprehensive deep dive. Everything. College loans, past employment, Director Amelia Whitford's full report, and especially that Mrs. Honor Whitcomb client who accused her of poisoning her kid. I want to know if she's legit crazy, or just desperate."

“Already on it, sir. Mr. Basil asked for the same file twenty minutes ago. But he just wanted the quick scrub—credit score and basic employment history. I already started the deep dive on my own initiative, considering the urgent placement.”

My fingers squeezed around my phone. Of course, he did. Basil was never content with the surface. Whenever he wanted a file, that usually meant he was searching for something-a liability to use against or manipulate.

“Good, Liam. Flag any unusual financial activity for the past six months. Anything indicating she's more than a student in debt. And don't mention to Basil you're sending me the full file until I ask you to. This is just for my. due diligence.”

"Understood, sir. Encrypted file to your secure server by morning."

“Perfect.”

I hung up just as the elevator chimed, depositing us back onto the penthouse level. The door hissed open, and the silence greeting us wasn't normal. It wasn’t the comfortable quiet of an empty home; it was the tense, post-conflict silence of a room that had just seen a storm.

"Where's Mama Amanda?" Tifania asked, her voice small, a spoon halfway to her mouth.

“She went home to her girls, sweetheart. She had a long day,” I replied, but my eyes were already scanning the living room. The glass table was empty, the crumpled agency paper gone. Everything was tidy, except for this lingering scent of expensive men's cologne mixed with something floral and wildly alluring.

"Uncle Basil?" I called out.

“In his suite, Baxon,” Basil’s voice answered, calm and perfectly flat, carrying from the far end of the hallway. “Just finishing up some calls. Kathy Montalvo is here. She’s getting settled in the spare room. She’s already accepted the position.”

Already? I stared at the closed door of Basil's Royal Suite. An immediate interview and an immediate hire, without even a basic background check confirmed? That wasn't like Basil. Unless…

"Tifania," I knelt down, forcing a smile. "Go wash your hands. Your new nanny is here. Be polite. Be a good girl."

“Okay, Baxon.” She skipped off to the bathroom.

I walked down the hallway to Basil’s suite, stopping right outside the closed, mahogany door.

“She signed a full contract, Basil?” My voice was low, but my question wasn't soft.

The door creaked open an inch, and Basil's eye appeared in the gap, chilly and inscrutable as always. He was fully dressed, but his hair was faintly rumpled, and there was a faint, almost invisible flush high on his cheekbones.

“Yes. She’s highly qualified. She’s already unpacked and ready to start with Tifania tonight.” He didn’t elaborate, didn’t invite me in, and the look in his eyes warned me against asking more. “Any issues?”

"Just one," I said, leaning in close to the gap, dropping my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "The contract should have been joint custody. We need to be aligned on who's running the nanny. I don't want her coming to you every time the kid sneezes."

A genuine smile-cold, triumphant, and utterly devastating-curled upon his lips.

“Don’t worry, Baxon. The nanny won’t be coming to me about Tifania’s sneezes. She’ll be coming to me about the things that truly matter.”

He shut the door, leaving me standing alone in the hallway with the phantom scent of sex and expensive cologne, a suspicion nagging in my brain that Basil hadn't just hired a nanny, but had laid first claim to a dangerous weapon.

Find out who she's been talking to, Kathy. And if she mentions the green file again, you come straight to me. It wasn't spoken aloud, but the words reverberated in my mind nonetheless. I didn't need to hear it. I knew my brother's game. And now, I had to play it, too. Kathy Montalvo was here for a reason, and if Basil was trying to control the access to the secrets, I needed to make sure I was her alternative path.

Baxon's POV

The residual heat and faint, alluring floral scent of Kathy Montalvo seemed to cling to the air around Basil's Royal Suite, a silent, damning testament to the reckless speed of their connection. I watched him disappear into the home office-our financial war room-and felt a complex mix of irritation, possessiveness, and genuine concern.

"Hey there, little brother," I said smugly, pouring him a generous measure of añejo rum, already knowing he was too disheveled to care about my teasing. "You look rough."

"Two minutes does not a little brother make, Baxon." He snapped the correction automatically, but his eyes were too bright, his posture too rigid. He was buzzing with the aftermath of what I now knew was more than just a quick conquest.

"Just going with the technicality. It's not important, though," I dismissed, handing him the drink. "What is important? You having a bit too much fun with the babysitter in there."

In an instant, his expression went defensive, and the Basil I knew fell into place. “You’re going to give me shit about going after a girl I found hot? Are you that petty and jealous?”

“It’s not that, man. It’s…” I hesitated, sipping my own wine. Obviously, I couldn't tell him I heard her scream his name, or that I heard the panicked question about contraception. I had to use the pre-agreed boundary—the financial one. “The fact that I heard you apparently planted some seeds, if you know what I mean.” I let the lie about the door crack hang in the air, a necessary cover for my snooping.

He raised an eyebrow, taking a slow sip of the rum. “It’s none of your business how I enjoy myself, Baxon.”

“But it is. Dude, we agreed. We hit it big. We're going to be smart about it. No buying dozens of Lamborghinis, no high-class call girls who cost thousands an hour, no stupid shit like caviar. Just functional stuff, like a nice place, relief for Mom, and all that. We go to school, we learn how to manage the money. All and all, be smart about it.” I set my glass down, forcing him to meet my gaze. “Fucking the babysitter and knocking her up so she can baby trap you seems pretty counter-productive to all that, don't you think?”

He shook his head, looking genuinely annoyed. “It’s not like that, man. Kathy’s not going to do that.”

“How do you know? We’ve barely known her for more than a few hours.”

“It’s just this feeling. This intuition.”

I crossed my arms, stifling a sharp laugh. “Really? Mr. Cold Logic Basil is going off the feels. Especially with a girl.”

"Man…she's different. I mean it. When I'm in the throes of passion with her, she feels like the one. Like I'm there with my soulmate. Like I want to build a future with her, all while doing dirty, nasty things to her." His confession was raw, a momentary glimpse into the vulnerability he usually hid beneath layers of strategy. It shocked me. Basil, the man who treated human emotion like a flaw in an algorithm, was talking about a soulmate after a single, reckless encounter.

“So you're trying to knock her up,” I concluded flatly.

He leaned in, his eyes sparkling with an unnerving, almost possessive challenge. “Dude, when you get around to fucking her, I’d like to see you try not to do that.” He knew; he knew I wanted her, and he was using her to play his loyalty game.

My eyebrow shot up. “When I get around to it?”

“I’m not blind, man. You were fucking her with your eyes as hard I was. This? This is just jealousy. I’m betting dollars to donuts you won’t be responsible either.” He leaned in further and whispered into my ear the ultimate toxic suggestion: “You’re not with her. You saw her. Now imagine her swelling with my child. Your child. Our child.”

The idea struck like a physical blow-the mutual fantasy of possession. It was manipulative and disgusting, and yet, in that twisted world of twins that shared everything from genius to fortune, it was terrifyingly potent.

Just then, she appeared.

Kathy Montalvo walked into the room, wrapped in one of Basil's expensive silk robes-the dark, sensual color emphasizing her skin. She had the flushed, slightly wobbly gait of a woman whose body was still settling after an aggressive climax. She looked like she had been thoroughly, wonderfully ravaged, and the sight sent a fierce, jealous pang through me.

“Where's Tifania? I suppose she's asleep already?” she said, still blushing and glancing around the room as if searching for the invisible spectators to her indiscretion.

"She's pretty punctual about passing out half past eight," I replied, taking a sip of the wine to hide the sudden dryness in my mouth. "Mark eight-thirty as your quitting time with her."

She turned to Basil. "I thought you had important things to do. Drinking is important?"

“I'm just loosening myself up before I get to the stresses of the day, dear.” Basil shot me a warning look, desperately trying to mask the celebratory rum as a necessary release. “But yes, I do have business to attend to. Trades and the like to confirm and deny. It never ends.” He finished his drink, gave Kathy one last possessive look, and strode off towards the office, leaving me alone with the woman who was already dividing us.

"Does he usually work this late?" she asked me, taking the stool across from the counter.

I leaned back, taking my time to reply. I had to establish myself as the counterpoint to Basil, the emotional refuge. “I do, too, sometimes. The day gets a hold of you occasionally, but things need to be done. Today? Our whole Elena-freaking-out-and-taking-off thing ate a lot of what we were going to do earlier. It’s why we need you, you know.”

"Taking care of your little sister is unmanly, huh?" she challenged, her eyes direct and perceptive.

“Nah, it isn't like that. It's just a time thing. We grew up poor, our mother never having time for us just due to having to pay the bills. Basil and I just learned to fend for ourselves, and it was rough. The last thing we want is the same thing for Tifania. We want her to have the caring upbringing we were denied.” I laid out the emotional core of our family, the vulnerability Basil never showed. This was the truth I offered, a soft spot she could leverage.

“People usually just say that about their kids, not their little sister.”

“The age gap is enough that she's sort of both, no?” I shrugged. “Like all brothers, we're her heroes, but we take care of her like a dad. Life is just weird sometimes. It's not going to turn out like a storybook, so you take the good as it comes.”

 "That's something very easy going coming from a guy in a collared shirt and khakis." 

"The collared shirt and khakis came my way, so I rolled with it." I matched her easy confidence. "I feel you'll get along fine here." 

“I haven’t even met the girl I’m supposed to be taking care of.”

 "Eh, Tifania loves everyone if you're not an asshole, and if you're getting along with my brother how you are, well, you're definitely no asshole. Basil usually has a stick up his ass." 

“Does he?” She cocked her head with the mischievous, knowing look in her eyes that told me she fully understood the implication of my question—and the answer to her own. 

"He does," I confirmed, setting my glass down. I looked her over, letting my gaze linger on the robe.

 "But sometimes, when he gets too stressed about the business, that stick gets. repurposed. You should probably make sure you have a few escape routes planned for when that happens." 

I gave her a half-smile, a warning wrapped in a flirtation. I wanted her to know that when it came to protection from my cold, calculating brother, I was it. 

"I'll keep that in mind, Baxon," she said, her eyes locking with mine, suddenly deep and serious. 

"I'm good at finding ways out." I knew she was lying. She wasn't looking for escape routes; she was looking for access points. And I was about to give her one. 

“The wine is good tonight. If you need anything for your room—or anything else at all—just send me a message on the house intercom. I'm usually the one who answers.” 

I paused, leaning closer, dropping my voice to the same whisper Basil had used hours earlier. 

“And if you need to talk about anything that makes you nervous about this job, you don't have to go to the man with the stick up his ass, Kathy. You can come to the one who knows how to listen.”