Only a Millionaire (The Sinclairs #6.5)(39)

“I don’t believe you. Something is going on.”

Brooke and I had always had a twin kind of bond. Just like I could tell she was truly elated about finding the man of her dreams, she could sense that I was nervous.

I hated that connection right now.

“It’s just work stuff,” I answered. “Nothing important.”

I loved blowing Eli Stone off as unimportant. Maybe because he was insignificant to me.

Brooke put a hand on my arm. “I might be living far away, but I’ll always be around if you need me. Travel isn’t really an issue anymore.”

I laughed. “It’s not a problem if you have the money to travel.”

I wasn’t quite used to being a billionaire. Sometimes I felt like I was trying to play a role that wasn’t all that comfortable for me. But I did like calling my own shots, and I wasn’t going to let a prick like Eli Stone get in my way.

“Is it the money?” Brooke asked.

I nodded. “It’s weird, right? One day we’re struggling to survive, and the next we’re all living the dream.”

“It’s weird in a good way,” Brooke agreed.

My sister turned her attention to Liam, and my eyes strayed to the booth where Eli was sitting.

I hated myself for looking at him, but Eli Stone was like a bad train wreck. I shouldn’t be gawking, but I couldn’t take my eyes away.

I startled when I noticed that his attention was turned my way. Our eyes met, and he raised his tumbler—which I assumed was filled with hard alcohol—in a quiet salute.

My head snapped back to my family as I burned with irritation.

I should have kept my eyes away from him. The smirk on his face had been more annoying than welcoming, like he knew something I didn’t.

Not that Eli had any desire to be friendly. He never had.

We were enemies. There was no room in my world to see him as anything but a threat.

“Excuse me for a moment,” I muttered politely as I got up from my chair.

“Something wrong?” Brooke asked as she looked up at me.

I smiled at her. “Restroom,” I explained as I dropped my napkin on the table. “I’ll be right back.”

I needed a minute to pull myself together, so I escaped across the room and darted into the elegant lavatory.

I stopped at the vanity once I got inside the fancy bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror.

The dress I was wearing had cost more than most people spent on clothes in a decade. I’d loved it when I’d tried it on. Now, I was rethinking the black cocktail dress that left me feeling half-naked.

I put on a little more lipstick, and washed my hands just so I had something to do.

I didn’t need to pee. It had just been an excuse to get away from Eli’s penetrating gaze.

When I was finished, I tossed the paper towel in the trash and took a deep breath.

I can’t let him get to me.

Eli would love nothing more than to get me rattled. His objective was to see me fold, and I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction.

It wasn’t going to happen.

I had to ignore people like Eli Stone, rich bastards who thought they owned the world just because they had money.

Unfortunately, he made it really hard to ignore him.

I took a few more cleansing breaths, then exited the restroom, determined to enjoy my last night with all my family together.

Eli was a jerk, and I couldn’t change what years of recklessness and overindulgence had made him. I didn’t even want to try.

I slipped back into the chair at our table, trying not to draw any attention to myself.

It took an almost superhuman effort to not look his way again, but I managed.

By the time we got up to leave, he was gone.





EPILOGUE

BROOKE



Two months later . . .

I’d had plenty of help planning my wedding.

I talked to Jade every day by video conference, showing her samples of what I wanted for gowns, cakes, catering, flowers, and every other detail I hadn’t known existed for a bride.

In addition, I had every Sinclair wife helping me out. At least one of my half brothers’ wives had been around nearly every day, and more often than not, they were all with me at Liam’s house to help with planning.

I’d given up my apartment and moved in with him. We’d stopped trying to maintain separate residences since we were almost always together in the evenings, and every single night.

I’d become friends with every one of my half brothers’ wives, but the relationship I cherished the most was with my half sister, Hope.

She’d been the one to help me through a lot of the bad things that had happened to me. After I’d heard about her life as a storm chaser before she’d married Jason, and the horror she’d endured while she was in another country during a typhoon, my experiences had almost appeared tame. Not that Hope had ever made them seem like anything but a nightmare for me. She’d been patient and kind, empathetic since she’d been through her own trauma.

But my half sister was living proof that good things could come after tragedy.

Honestly, almost every one of the Sinclair wives had suffered her own private hell at one time, so bonding with them had been easy. They were so real, so easy to open up to that I felt like I’d known them all forever.