Only a Millionaire (The Sinclairs #6.5)(16)

My sister and I had watched every episode of the program. I knew getting the right partner was everything. “Maybe you’ll get somebody hot,” I told her jokingly.

“More than likely, I’ll end up with a wannabe-alpha-male survivalist. You know how many of those they get on the show. Guys who want to play at being in the wild, but they don’t know a damn thing about how to survive.”

I was pretty sure that very few people were as serious as my sister about their skills, but I still wanted her to give it a try. “You might get lucky.”

She snorted. “I doubt it. So many people are getting into it because of the show, and they don’t really care that much about why they’re doing it. I do it because I want that connection with my ancestors. I want to know what it was like for them to cope in a world without cell phones, the Internet, and all of the other things we have at our fingertips now.”

“Then go kick some ass,” I advised.

“Like I said, I’ll think about it.”

“Are you okay?” I asked. It wasn’t like Jade to shy away from anything.

“I’m good,” she told me. “Maybe I’m just missing you.”

“I miss you, too,” I confessed. “How is everybody back home? How’s Owen doing?”

My youngest brother was gifted. He was barely twenty-five, and he was finished with med school. Right now, he was doing his residency.

“He’s excelling, as usual. He was home on break during the holidays, and he was so quiet. I tried to get him to talk to me, but he wouldn’t tell me what was bothering him,” Jade explained. “The only thing he mentioned was that he was having a hard time handling the human suffering of his job. But he’s good at it. He’s going to make an excellent physician.”

“I can see how that could happen. Owen’s always been the kindest one in the family. He’s wicked smart, but he wears his heart on his sleeve.”

“I know,” Jade agreed. “But I hope he never changes.”

Honestly, I didn’t want to see my little brother different because of his career choice. I could always count on him to be the voice of reason.

“Everybody else okay?” I probed.

“If you’re asking if our three older brothers are doing all right, I can report that they’re all still a pain in the ass. But they’re healthy for now. Until I kill them for trying to stick their noses in my business.”

I laughed, knowing that Jade could give as good as she got. She had no problem telling Noah, Seth, and Aiden when they were being intrusive.

Unfortunately, they were meddlesome almost all the time.

“Try to keep them in line,” I requested. “I’m sure they’ll have plenty of brotherly advice for me when I get home.”

I sighed. I spoke to all my brothers on the phone pretty often, and they were always full of advice.

“They’re worried about you, Brooke. We all are,” Jade said seriously.

I sighed again. “I know. But I’m coming home, and I’m doing better. I’m hoping things will get back to normal. It’s been a long year.”

“How are you going to leave your hot boss?” she teased.

I’d told Jade about Liam, and how I felt about him. She’d been the only person I could talk to about my insanely attractive boss.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Maybe it’s a good thing I’m leaving.”

“Brooke! I know that voice. You’re holding out on me. You slept with him, didn’t you?”

God, sometimes I hated being so close to my sibling. “I did.”

“Spill it, sister. Tell me everything.”

I gave her the brief version of what happened with Liam. I wasn’t about to tell my sister that Liam had completely rocked my world to the point where I’d never be quite the same ever again. She’d be trying to convince me to marry him.

“So you’re just going to go?” Jade asked. “How can you do that when you’ve found your dream man?”

“You’re such a romantic,” I accused.

“I’m not. I know that not everybody has a happily ever after. But you didn’t settle for less than you deserved. You waited to find him.”

I rolled my eyes. My sister could be a little dramatic about relationships, which was weird to me. Jade was so pragmatic in most other areas of her life, but she took finding the right guy to extremes.

“He’s not the one,” I told her, knowing that I was lying. Liam was the right guy, but the circumstances were impossible.

“I don’t believe you,” she challenged. “What’s wrong?”

“He thinks I have a boyfriend, remember?”

“You haven’t told him that it was Noah?”

“No. He’ll hate me for lying to him.”

“Brooke, you have to tell him now. You slept with him. Do you really want him to think that he screwed a woman who was already taken?”

I hadn’t quite thought about how Liam would feel. I’d been too busy worrying about how to protect myself from the one man who could make me completely lose my composure. “It’s probably better that he thinks that. The alternative is knowing I lied to him. He hates liars.”

“You didn’t have a choice,” she argued. “He isn’t going to blame you. If this guy is everything you think he is, there’s no way he wouldn’t want to know the truth.”