All Chapters of My Brother's rich best friends: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

PARKERThere’s a reason people don’t start new jobs the Friday before a long weekend.It’s weird.Everyone’s half-packed to escape the city, you’re overdressed in a blazer that’s already pilling under the arms, and the office smells vaguely like someone microwaved fish before they bolted out the door.But when Gavin Thatcher—the silver-haired legend of celebrity damage control and CEO of VT Global—tells you to come in on a Friday “to get a feel for things,” you don’t argue. You show up fifteen minutes early with anxiety in your bloodstream and exactly twelve backup pens in your tote bag.And you try not to throw up in your mouth when the elevator dings on the twentieth floor.“Hey, baby sister,” Phil says, standing there in his VT polo like a smug little gatekeeper to hell. “Ready to meet the wolves?”“Wolves,” I repeat, blinking at my brother. “You couldn’t just say ‘executives’? Or, I don’t know…people?”Phil’s already grinning like this is the best part of his entire week. “They do

JACKParker Simon is prettier than I remembered. And that’s a fucking problem.Not that I ever forgot her. I’ve spent the last seven years pretending she was just a blip, just one night of bad judgment. But the moment she stepped back into VT Global wearing that soft pink blouse and carrying a tote bag big enough to hold the secrets to my happiness, every lie I’ve told myself cracked down the middle.She’s still got those soft eyes, though her face has matured into something sharper, cleverer. Her brown curly hair is longer now. She had it twisted up on Friday, but it had fallen around her face and shoulders by the time we left the elevator. I remember exactly how those curls felt between my fingers.I also remember how she looked at me that night seven years ago. Eyes wide. Lush lips parted. Her voice shaking after we finished when she said, “I can’t believe we did that. Phil is going to kill us.”And I believed her. That she meant it. That it was a mistake.Even though I hadn’t been

GAVINMy office sits on the top floor of VT Global’s headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, walled in glass on two sides with a view that stretches from the gridlock of Wilshire to the smog-softened edge of the Hollywood Hills. It’s deliberate—everything in here is.The desk is black marble, clean and cold, custom cut to fit the space without dominating it. The shelves behind me are walnut, built-in and backlit, lined with handpicked art books, a few quiet accolades, and one photo of my grandfather and me on the day I signed my first contract. That’s the only personal item I allow.The floor is polished concrete, waxed weekly. There’s a bar cart in the corner—unused, mostly decorative—but it makes certain visitors more comfortable. The lighting is soft, adjustable, and strategically indirect, because I hate fluorescents and I like to see who sweats under pressure.In short, it’s perfect for me. Sadly, it’s the only perfect part of my day.My phone rings at 8:03 a.m., which is three min