All Chapters of My Boyfriend's Brother: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

I spent most of the walk home rehearsing an apology I had no intention of giving.But then again he was my boss.Maybe I was too harsh with him. He hadn't earned the softness necessarily, but he also hadn't earned getting yelled at for asking a question that, if I was being fair, I'd been avoiding asking myself.I wasn't in the mood to be fair. Fair could wait.I let myself into the flat and stopped in the doorway.Candles. Actual candles, on every surface that could hold one without setting something on fire. Flowers I didn't recognise the name of, the expensive kind, arranged in a vase that hadn't been there this morning. Liam standing in the middle of it all in a shirt he'd clearly ironed himself, badly, one collar point curling up at the edge."Before you say anything," he said, hands up, "just let me get through this.""Liam, ""Please."I let him.He'd prepared something. That much was obvious from the first sentence, the way it came out too smooth, too structured, hitting beats

This week had been a long one, and Rhett had gone back to being, well, Rhett.Yesterday, he hadn't even looked up."Do the Henderson figures again. Properly this time."So much for being friends.Liam was leaving tonight, though. Three months without him. A dream, honestly, if I let myself think about it properly.I shouldn't have been this happy about it. I was anyway. Woke up thinking about it before I'd even opened my eyes properly, a bright stupid little spark that stayed with me through the shower and the Tube and the entire morning at my desk.When we got to the airport, we didn't have to wait in line for anything. It still shocked me sometimes, how rich they actually were.Eleanor had insisted the whole family come. Gerald checked his watch every ninety seconds like it owed him an explanation. Cole had bought a family bag of crisps from the newsagent and was eating them one at a time with real ceremony."Give me one," I said."Absolutely not. Emotional support crisps." He held

Sunday felt strange. No waking up beside Liam, no checking where he was before I'd even opened my eyes properly.I woke up with nowhere to go and nobody to perform for. After twenty minutes of not knowing what to do with that, I got dressed and walked to the bakery.I hadn't been inside in eight months, and it showed. They'd repainted, a soft sage green over what used to be a tired cream, new little chalkboard signs propped in the window advertising things that hadn't existed when I worked there. The bell above the door still had the same crack in its ring, and hearing it hit me harder than I expected.It was packed. A queue snaking almost to the door, the espresso machine going nonstop, someone's toddler having a full meltdown over a croissant that had apparently been cut in the wrong direction."Oh my God." Priya, behind the counter, dropped the tray she was holding half onto the counter and half into my arms out of pure reflex. "Nova Ellis.""Hi.""You've been gone forever. Are you

My phone rang while I was still doing my hair, dressed and ready for the usual Saturday morning start.Rhett, running late. Had to be. He didn't call otherwise."Hey, I'm nearly ready, I'll be there by, ""Don't come at ten." His voice sounded rougher than usual, thick round the edges. "Come at one instead.""Are you all right?""I'm fine.""You sound like you've swallowed gravel.""I'm fine, Nova.""Okay. One o'clock. Got it."He hung up before I could ask anything else, which told me exactly how fine he actually was.That left me with three extra hours and a dress hanging on the back of my door for tonight, the one good outfit I owned that wasn't office wear, and a rapidly shrinking window between a delayed work session and dinner with Dylan.Do the maths, Nova. If the session ran anywhere close to normal length, there wouldn't be time to come home and change before seven.I put the dress on. Stood in front of the mirror longer than the situation warranted.This is insane. I am not

I woke up on the sofa in Rhett's office, facing him, close enough that I could count the individual eyelashes on the side of his face still turned toward me in sleep.We'd talked till nearly three, the whole night blurring into one long conversation I could only half reconstruct now."You're telling me you actually won Junior Debate Champion arguing that pineapple belongs on pizza," I remembered saying, somewhere around midnight, deeply unconvinced."I argued the opposing side beautifully. That's the whole point of debate, Nova.""So you don't even believe your own argument.""I believe whichever argument is currently winning.""That's terrifying. You could argue me into genuinely anything.""Probably.""Try it. Argue me into something ridiculous right now."He'd thought about it for a second, entirely too seriously for the question."Cats are better than dogs," he said."That's not even a hard sell, that's just true.""I haven't started yet.""You had one job.""I'm building up to it