Claimed by My Ex's Billionaire Brothers

1. Leah

LEAH

“Come on, Leah,” my best friend groans through the phone, as if sounding desperate will twist my arm more. “It’s not like you have big plans for tonight.”

“How do you know what plans I have?” I pout, feeling slightly insulted. “It just so happens that I do have something going on this evening.”

“Designing another book cover for a client doesn’t count as actual plans,” Delia calls me out on my typical nightly routine—stay at my apartment, work on my freelance graphic design projects, and chat on the phone with my boyfriend a bit while he’s traveling for work.

“Just because Kian is out of town doesn’t mean that you have to sit there waiting for his phone call.

Besides, I really don’t want to go to this charity gala alone. ”

“I’m not just sitting around waiting for Kian,” I say in defense of my current hermit status of staying inside my apartment getting work done in my pajamas. “Besides, aren’t you going to the gala to take event photos anyway? Why do you need me to tag along?”

“Because my plus-one just canceled, and I hate going to fancy gigs alone,” she bemoans.

“Especially ultra-fancy events like this one. I want to enjoy myself and have a few sips of expensive champagne after I’m finished with the photography.

It’s awkward mingling with strangers alone.

Come on, please… I promise you’ll have fun if you come along. ”

She’s probably not wrong. Some of the places that Delia gets invited to as part of her job as an event photographer are the kinds of parties that I could only imagine in my wildest dreams. And since I am finished with most of my work, and Kian did say that he probably wouldn’t be able to call tonight, I don’t really have a valid excuse not to go with her.

“Alright, fine, I’ll go.”

Delia lets out a little squeal of excitement over the phone. She’s satisfied that she gets to drag me out of my apartment at the last minute to go have a bit of fun.

“Yay! I’ll swing by and pick you up in an hour. Don’t make me late!”

“An hour? Delia, I don’t even know what to wear to this thing.”

“Not pajamas,” she teases. “Pull a cocktail dress out from the back of your closet and look your best. You’re going to be rubbing elbows with high society tonight, Leah. You can thank me later.”

High society, huh? I snort after she hangs up the call.

That’s not exactly a world that I’ll fit into, even for a few hours at some “fancy-shmancy” event. A former foster care kid like me, one who had nine foster homes under her belt before aging out at eighteen, doesn’t exactly grow up to be a twenty-six-year-old elite.

I get up and head to my closet, rooting around for something nice enough to wear before I run out of time to get ready.

Thankfully, I do have a dress that should work, one that Kian bought me a while back.

It’s tight, sequined, and the black silk material makes my green eyes pop.

Not that I’m feeling conceited about it, especially since I can’t wear a cocktail dress on the bridge of my nose to cover up the lacy pattern of freckles there.

A foster parent once gave me a backhanded compliment on my freckles.

He told me that it looked like I put my face too close to the fire and got kissed by the embers.

After that, all I could think about was putting his face too close to a fire.

By the time Delia gets here to pick me up, I’ve managed the dress and heels, a fresh application of makeup, and a somewhat polished attempt at sweeping my chestnut-colored hair into a presentable updo.

“Whoa,” Delia says in surprise as I get into her car. “You look incredible! Too bad Kian isn’t here to keep the wolves from circling you at the party.”

“Thanks,” I laugh. “But trust me, if there are any circling wolves, it will be because they fancy a meal, not a date with me.”

She rolls her eyes as the car pulls away from my apartment building. “You really shouldn’t joke so much at your own expense. You’re pretty, Leah. If you weren’t, I doubt you would have snagged a boyfriend as gorgeous as Kian.”

She’s not wrong about him being stunning. But his good looks aren’t the reason I’m dating him. Kian has no family, like me, and yet he still managed to crawl out of his own difficult backstory enough to offer me the world.

“Are you excited to be living in a luxury apartment now?” Delia asks on the drive to the event. “I still can’t believe that you gave up your other apartment for a guy—handsome or not.”

“Kian promised to pay for it,” I say as I look out the window at the city buildings whirring by. “How could I refuse an offer like that? Especially since he plans on living there with me soon.”

“Lucky girl.” Delia grins. “I know we’re best friends and all, but I’m still a little bit jealous.”

“Don’t be,” I chuckle as I don my familiar armor of humor to keep my true insecurities from unnerving me. “I’m still a foster brat at heart.”

Delia laughs and shakes her head. “Not tonight, you’re not.”

The event venue is nothing short of impressive.

Delia unloads her camera equipment from the car while I stare at the grand steps leading up to the entrance.

As soon as we walk inside the ballroom foyer, complete with an overhanging chandelier that looks like it’s made from a million sparkling crystals casting tiny rainbows on the walls, a woman races up toward us.

“Ms. Marsh,” she says to Delia, wasting no time ushering us toward the interior of the ballroom. “The event is just beginning. Mrs. Oliver is stepping up to the podium now and will begin speaking in a moment. I’d love for you to get a few photos of her before she starts to talk.”

“Sure thing!” Delia smiles, her bright red hair bobbing against her shoulders as we pick up the pace to head inside.

“Who is Mrs. Oliver?” I ask, trying to get my bearings before I am forced to socialize with strangers.

“The gala’s hostess,” Delia whispers. “She’s super rich.”

I suddenly feel completely out of place here.

Delia is supposed to be here. She was hired to take the event photos.

Besides, she’s much more outgoing, funny, and sociable than I am.

And it doesn’t hurt that she’s gorgeous and used to being around a crowd of people, who she always seems to fit in with, no matter what.

I, on the other hand, feel like a fish out of water.

Until I spot an unexpected and very familiar face.

Right there in the middle of the ballroom, standing just a few feet away from the podium where the fundraiser’s hostess is getting ready to speak, is Kian.

I’m shocked. The last person that I expected to see here is my own boyfriend, especially since he’s supposed to be out of town for work. But I’m so thrilled by the coincidence, and so ecstatic that Kian will be here at this event with me now, that my common sense doesn’t kick in at all.

“Hey!” I exclaim as I quickly cross the floor toward him.

The look of surprise, of subtle devastation on his face, doesn’t register with me at all—not soon enough, anyway.

“I’m so glad you’re here!” I say, reaching for his face and kissing him.

The instant our lips touch, the moment that I don’t feel my boyfriend’s arms wrap back around me in an equally excited embrace, I realize that something is very wrong.

I let him go and suddenly notice that the entire ballroom, which just moments ago had been bustling with an undercurrent of conversations and clinking champagne glasses, has now gone painfully silent. Almost as silent as Kian, as he stares back at me in horror.

For a moment, everything feels surreal. The stiff, cold look on my boyfriend’s face, the dropped-open jaw of the woman standing at the podium, and the countless sets of eyes burning into me from all around the ballroom.

I don’t understand what is happening. I don’t know why a simple kiss for my boyfriend has elicited such a frozen reaction from an entire gala.

But then, it finally dawns on me—what is Kian doing here, and why didn’t he tell me he returned from his work trip?

Before I can say anything, and before anyone in the crowd can react, another man steps forward. A stranger, with Kian’s exact face, reaches for my hand and smiles at me with a soft, sexy chuckle.

“Hey, baby,” he says, wrapping his arm around me as if I am his. “What did I tell you about champagne on an empty stomach? Alcohol makes it all too easy to mix up identical brothers.”

I stare back at him, this stranger who now has his arm around my waist with his body pressed intimately close to mine. And then I look back at Kian, the boyfriend who suddenly feels like more of a stranger to me than the man holding me.

The crowd laughs good-naturedly and returns to their pockets of conversation. The woman standing at the podium lets out a held breath as if she’s relieved beyond measure. And I feel as if I’ve stepped into an alternate reality.

Across the room, Delia is one of the only people who hasn’t moved yet. Her eyes glance between the woman at the podium, whom I can now see is visibly pregnant, and Kian. I look too, and I now see something that I hadn’t noticed before. My boyfriend is wearing a wedding band.

The room feels like it’s starting to spin, and I haven’t even had a sip of champagne yet. Honestly, I wish I had. It might make all of this easier to take. Part of me wants to run out of this ballroom as fast as my feet can carry me. I know now what this is—I know what I’ve walked into.

I’ve just kissed my boyfriend at a gala he wasn’t supposed to even be at, in front of a crowd of people and the wife that I never knew he had.

This could very easily escalate into a scene.

It would be a reasonable, perhaps almost expected reaction for me to create a scene in front of all these people, demand to know what the hell is going on, and accuse Kian of having an affair.

But something stops me.

I don’t know if it’s the hand around my waist, the look in the eyes of Kian’s double, or the resolve inside my gut to stand my ground while my whole relationship falls apart in public. But something pushes me to keep my shit together.

Instead of running, and instead of making a scene, I reach my hand up to grip the one at my waist. I turn to him and force a smile to my face and a small laugh to my lips.

“Silly me,” I say as I play along with this charade. “Thank you for saving me from an embarrassing mistake.”

“Of course,” he says.

There’s a hint of surprise behind his eyes that I don’t think anyone else can see, as if he’s impressed or maybe shocked that I’m going along with all of this with such restraint.

I can’t leave now. Leaving will make all of this even more awkward. Besides, Delia just started taking some of the event photos, and the hostess—Kian’s wife—just began speaking.

Leaving now would raise eyebrows, and it wouldn’t give me any answers as to why this is all happening to me. So, I suck in my breath, turn to the man who has finally dropped his hand from my waist, and make the decision to play this out.

“Now that we’ve got that sorted,” I say with a light laugh that makes my chest burn. “I think I’d like some more champagne now.”

“Of course.” He smiles as he reaches for a glass flute and lifts it from a passing server’s tray.

I put the glass to my lips and take a sip, a long sip. From the corner of my eye, I see Kian step next to his wife without giving a second glance back at me. The two men are identical—my ex-boyfriend and the man who now stands at my side.

There’s only one explanation for this: they must be brothers—twins. Which means that everything Kian ever told me is a lie.

In one night, in a moment faster than it took for me to agree to even come here tonight, I’ve learned that the man who I thought was my loving boyfriend, the man who told me he had no family at all, has a wife, wealth, and at least one identical brother.

“Rowan, I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting your lovely girlfriend yet,” an older woman says as she approaches us.

Rowan.

That’s the name of the man who now stands beside me pretending to be my boyfriend. He hesitates for a moment, not knowing how to introduce me.

With one hand, I keep a tight grip on my champagne glass, but with the other, I reach out to hold his.

“Pleasure to meet you,” I nod to the woman standing before us. “My name is Leah.”