Surprise Delivery(80)

She nods. “I will. I absolutely will.”

“Oh, and don’t think that just because I enjoy seeing you naked – and I do, I really, really do – that you’re not going to be working as my office assistant,” I say and laugh. “It’s not glamorous work, but at least you can’t say later that it was a charity job either.”

“Hey, you’d never hear me complain,” she protests. “I’ve never been one afraid of a hard day’s work.”

“That much I know and appreciate about you.”

Her smile is brighter than the sun, and the look of not just gratitude – but hope – I see in her eyes is what makes my heart swell, knowing that I’m absolutely doing the right thing. And knowing that I can make a very real, very tangible difference in not just Alexis’ life, but in Aurora’s too.

The flood of emotion washing through me is intense and I can’t keep the smile off my face. Alexis is everything to me and I realize in that moment, there is nothing I won’t give to make her happy or make her life better.

“Well, this certainly looks cozy.”

The second I hear his voice, I feel a cold spike of dread pierce my heart. I look up into the face of my brother and scowl.

“Well, aren’t you going to introduce me, Duncan?” he asks.

I release Alexis’ hand and sit back in my chair, bristling. “Alexis, this is my brother, Henry,” I say. “Henry, this is Alexis.”

My brother leans over the small fence that separates the dining area from the sidewalk and extends his hand to Alexis. She’s obviously picking up on the tension in the air but reaches out and shakes his hand.

“Henry Clyburne,” he says. “And you’ll have to forgive my brother, the manners gene in our family seems to have passed him right on by.”

Alexis’ laugh is uncertain and her smile stiff. “Alexis Martin,” she tells him.

“Pleasure to meet you, Alexis,” Henry says smoothly. “I’m sorry to interrupt, I just happened to be walking by and noticed the two of you sitting here all cozy like. It’s cute.”

The tension in my body is building and with every word he utters, I’m growing more agitated. I can already feel Henry eyeballing Alexis up and down. He’s weighing, measuring, and judging her. And because I know my brother the way I do, I know exactly what he’s thinking – that she’s not going to be good enough.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” she says just as smoothly. “Duncan’s told me a lot about you.”

Henry laughs. “Oh, I doubt that,” he says. “Most of the time he likes to pretend I don’t exist. But, that’s okay, we have a very – unique – relationship.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Henry likes to pretend he knows how to live my life better than I do, and I pretend I don’t want to throw him in front of a bus.”

Henry’s laughter grates on my nerves and Alexis is sitting there, not sure what to do or say.

“Shouldn’t you be going, Henry?” I ask. “Don’t you have fortunes to plunder or something?”

He dramatically checks his watch. “Actually, I have a couple of minutes –”

“Good, spend them elsewhere,” I snap. “I’m trying to have a conversation with Alexis.”

“So, are you two seeing each other?”

I roll my eyes, not wanting to get into this with my brother. “That’s none of your concern, Henry. Now, move on and leave us to finish our lunch in peace.”

“So, Alexis,” he says, ignoring me completely. “What is it you do?”

I want to tell her that she shouldn’t answer the question because I know what he’s doing – he’s mining for information on her to use against me. He’s going to use it to make his case that she’s not “Clyburne material,” and that I shouldn’t be dating her. Which, of course, will lead to me beating him to a bloody pulp. I really don’t want to do that, if only for our mother’s sake. The last thing she needs is her two boys beating each other senseless. Or rather, her youngest son beating her eldest son senseless.

But I can’t tell her to not answer, simply because I don’t want her to get the idea that I’m ashamed of her in any way. I don’t want her to ever feel like she’s my dirty little secret. To me, that would be as unconscionable as what Henry does. And she’s not likely to understand the dynamics in play right now. She doesn’t know Henry or what he does. She doesn’t know that this is his way of putting together his list of reasons she’s not good enough – his way of not just pissing me off, but of trying to browbeat me into conforming to his way of thinking and being. After all these years, he still doesn’t seem to get that I don’t think the way he does, nor will I ever. So, all he’s doing is driving that wedge between us deeper and deeper.

“Well, for the moment, I’m a secretary at a legal firm,” she says.

I sit back in my chair, letting it all play out, knowing there’s nothing I can do to stop the snowball from rolling downhill in Henry’s mind. I know what’s coming. At least he’ll have the tact to not cause a scene in public. Always the image-conscious prick, Henry prefers to keep the asshole side of his personality under wraps and out of the public eye.