Her Brother’s Billionaire Best Friend (Her Billionaire #1)

Chapter SEVEN

(Charlotte)

I was in line at the breakfast buffet when I overheard it.

“You would not have believed it,” Aunt Pam’s scandalized whisper carried much farther than the small group of senior female family members clustered around her. “They were so loud. So loud.”

I cringed inwardly. My whole fantasy of an audience wasn’t so hot if some of those people were from our family. I’d thought they were all staying in the villas.

“And it went on and on,” Pam elaborated dramatically. “Finally, I called down to reception. I said, it’s two in the morning, if someone does not get those children into their rooms and under control—”

“Oh, thank god,” I exclaimed before I could stop myself. I looked over at the aunts. None of them had noticed my outburst. I looked up guiltily at the man in the chef’s hat who held a spoonful of scrambled egg poised over my plate, a questioning look on his face. I cleared my throat. “Thank god they have eggs,” I blundered on. “Because I certainly wanted eggs.”

“Is this enough?” the man asked, clearly envisioning some kind of hellish scenario in which he kept piling mountain after mountain of eggs onto the plate of an overenthusiastic weirdo. I nodded gratefully, taking the eggs and moving along.

I didn’t even like eggs.

After last night, I’d woken up totally out of sorts. Had all of that happened? Was there a gas leak in the villa? The soreness in my thighs and lower back from being bent over a chair for close to an hour was one of the few clues I had that yes, my unbelievable night with Matthew had happened. It was the part where it was supposed to happen again that seemed impossible.

He wasn’t actually going to get a guy to come have sex with us, right? That was all bluster. It had to be.

“Hey, kiddo!”

I turned at the sound of my brother’s voice, all my thoughts about Matthew shoved sharply into a locked cabinet in the back of my mind.

“Hey!” I could only give Scott a one-armed hug due to the plate in my hand, but he made up for it by crushing me like a boa constrictor murdering its prey. I gasped out, “Fashionably late to your own pre-pre-wedding breakfast?”

“I wish I was still asleep,” he groaned. “Matt made me go to that resort party last night. He completely wore me out.”

There’s a lot of that going around.

“Oh? Late night, huh?” It couldn’t have been that late, because I’d been with Matt, too. But my brother was born sixty-five years old. Or so I’m told. I wasn’t around then.

“I didn’t get to bed until midnight,” Scott said, keeping his voice low as if it were a scandalous secret. “I haven’t been up that late since college.”

“You’re truly the most boring person alive,” I chided him.

“You look exhausted, too,” Scott observed as I held out my plate for bacon.

“Can my brother get a plate?” I asked the server, dodging the comment. “He’s the groom, it’s okay if he cuts in line.”

Another server handed a clean plate over the glass barrier, and Scott took it with a “thanks,” but he didn’t get any bacon. He noted my surprise and said, “Diet. I’m trying to stay healthy. You know. Forty is coming.”

“Yes, it is.” And I knew that he was careful about his health. Why wouldn’t he be, after all he’d been through?

“Mom and Dad okay with the place?” he asked, glancing around the room.

“Yeah, haven’t you seen them?”

“I have, but you know they’re not going to complain about anything to me.” He held up a hand to refuse sausage from another server as we moved down the line. “Do they like the place?”

“Mom thought it would be too loud from the second we arrived. But other than that, I haven’t heard any complaints yet. And do you really want to know about them?” Sometimes, Scott’s desire to please our parents drove me up one wall, over the ceiling, and down the other. “Are you going to put them up in a different hotel? Move the whole resort somewhere else?”

“Fair, fair.” He let the subject drop. “How about you? Not that you’ve had much time to look around.”

“I saw an alligator. Kind of.” Klaxons went off in my brain. What if he’d talked to Matthew today and knew about the alligator? It didn’t have to be Matthew’s alligator that I saw. It could have been another alligator. There was more than one in South Carolina.

“Kind of?”

“It was under a bridge here on the resort. There were guys in a golf cart trying to remove it. I saw it while I was out looking for—” I cut myself off. “Seashells.”

“Right.” Scott sighed in resignation. “I’m sure if you ask any of the guys in my wedding party, they’ll have seashells. I’m sure they’d share.”

Oh, they would. At least, one of them would. I shook my head. “Nah. I found my own seashells.”

“Probably better. My friends are reprobates.” He looked over his shoulder and raised his free hand to wave to someone. My eyes followed the motion. I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t seen Matthew this morning and I almost jumped out of my skin every time I’d thought I’d caught a glimpse of him. But the man Scott waved to was a skinny Black man with a graying goatee and glasses with thick black rims. Exactly the type of nerd I’d expect Scott to hang with. Nothing that screamed “reprobate.”

Which made me wonder how the hell a guy like Matthew had ended up in the same social circle.

“That’s Leo,” Scott informed me as the guy turned to reveal his cellphone was clipped to his belt.

How. How did Matthew Ashe end up friends with these dorks?

“Leo was in our chess club,” Scott went on. “He’s a very predictable player. He learned Ruy Lopez and never deviates.”

“Fascinating.” I rolled my eyes.

“I’m the groom,” he reminded me. “It’s my day. I can be as boring as I want.”

“Saturday is your day,” I corrected him. “And even then, it’s probably still Lauren’s day.”

“True,” he agreed. We slid down the line and he pointed out which fresh fruits he wanted to the gentleman behind the glass. “Fine, we’ll talk about your favorite subject instead. How are you doing?”

“I’m doing great. Never better,” I lied. “Unemployed. Mooching off our parents. You’re such a sucker for going out and getting a degree and a good life and big paychecks.”

“My paychecks aren’t that big,” Scott corrected me. “There’s no way I would have been able to afford this wedding on my own. All you need to do in life, little sister, is make friends with someone who’s super rich.”

“I’ll get right on that.” Poor choice of words. Because I had definitely made friends and gotten right on Matthew the night before.

“Come on,” Scott said as I collected my silverware. “I want you to meet Lauren’s parents.”

I recoiled inwardly. The Bear People. That’s what Mom called them. She and Dad had flown out to Montana for Easter, a holiday the Bear People celebrated but our family did not, shortly after Scott and Lauren got engaged. Our mother was a snob, so maybe her word shouldn’t have been the one solely trusted on the subject, but Lauren’s family sounded like the type of weird forest folk TLC would give a reality show to.

I followed Scott through the maze of tables in the dining room, alternately nodding to relatives and family friends I liked and pretending not to see those I did not like. Scott slapped guys on the back and thanked nearly every table for being there, something I knew he should do as the groom but also something that was making my hotel buffet eggs cold.

Even the swankiest resorts couldn’t make cold scrambled eggs appealing.

“There he is!” A woman called out from a nearby table, and Scott made a beeline in that direction. Every seat was already taken, thank god, so I wouldn’t have to sit with strangers.

Scott made his way over to the woman, who appeared to be in her sixties. She had a deep, leathery tan, long, hot-pink fake fingernails, and white-blonde hair in a short cut with a stacked back. She half-rose to hug Scott and kiss him on the cheek when he leaned down. “This is him. This is my new son.”

“Deena,” Scott said, straightening. “You got in okay, then?”

“Oh, honey. It was a dream. First class, all the way here.” She motioned across the table. “Roy! Roy!”

The man she’d waved to looked like he would be more at home in a recliner with something boring on the television. His white hair and beard combined with his red polo shirt to make him look like Santa’s brother who worked in IT. The shirt bore a little logo of a roaring bear. He nodded to Scott, less enthusiastic than his wife but not unfriendly. He seemed uncomfortable to be in his surroundings.

I sympathized. Deeply.

“Roy, Deena, I wanted you to meet my sister,” Scott said, putting a hand on my back to push me closer to the table. “This is Charlotte.”

Deena looked between Scott and me with an expression of joyous disbelief. “No. No! This can’t be little Charlotte. Oh my god.” She got up from her seat and hugged me while I held my plate out at my side to avoid sloshing breakfast all over her. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“I keep hearing that. From everyone,” I said, carefully stepping back. Scott gave me a look, and I realized what I’d said, but before he could ask who “everyone” was, Deena started pushing plates and cups around on the table.

“Scoot over, scoot over,” she told the elderly woman sitting to her right.

“Oh, no, that’s okay, I can—” I began.

“Nonsense, we’re family now,” Deena insisted. “Roy, get her a chair.”

“No, really I—”

But before I knew it, Scott had grabbed a chair for me and shoved it into place between the two women. I hesitantly sat and put my plate on the white tablecloth.

“We have heard a lot about you,” Deena reiterated. “Scott just loves you. I told Lauren she’s lucky you’re his sister or he’d probably be marrying you.”

“That’s gross,” I blurted in horror.

Scott laughed, overly loud. “Well, I’m going to let you get to know each other—”

I shot him a murderous look.

He refused to meet my gaze. “And I’m going to go find my bride.”

God, the way he said it. His bride. Gag. Insinuated incest aside, I was deeply offended at the notion that I would ever marry anybody who referred to me as his “bride.” It felt so old-fashioned.

Then again, I got the feeling the people at this table would be way into “old-fashioned.” None of them were under sixty, and all the women were wearing at least one piece of bear-themed jewelry.

Deena had little bear paw stud earrings.

The old woman on my other side put a veiny hand on my wrist. “Are you the one who gave Scott the bone marrow, dear?”

My stomach turned. “No. That was a stranger from the national registry.”

The old woman looked to Deena. “What did she say? I couldn’t hear her.”

“Not her, Sue,” Deena practically shouted past me. “They had her to give him bone marrow. But she wasn’t a match.”

My face burned with anger and embarrassment. Why the hell had he told them about that? Why did he think anyone outside our family needed to know that I’d shot out of our mom’s vagina a fully formed failure?

Worse, Sue, whoever she was, hadn’t heard correctly the first time, and Deena had to repeat it, louder. Loud enough that people at other tables heard it.

I should get a fucking T-shirt made.

“But that’s why they had her, wasn’t it?” the old woman responded, pointing at me with her other hand while still holding a firm grip on my wrist. “For the bone marrow?”

“Yes, but she wasn’t a match,” Deena said, enunciating every word painfully.

I wanted to sink into the floor.

“Charlotte?”

I looked up, not sure if I was grateful to see Matthew there or not. It all depended on if he planned to rescue me.

“You’re Charlotte?” he asked, and he was a good actor. Nobody would have suspected that we already knew each other. “I’m Matt. Ashe. I’m your brother’s best man.”

“Oh my gosh!” I squealed enthusiastically, jumping to my feet. “You’re Matt? I’ve heard so much about you.”

He gave me a quick hug and said, “Have you seen your brother?”

“He was here a second ago,” Deena put in. “Have a seat, we can make room.”

“I need to find Scott,” he said with an apologetic wince. “I’ve got a surprise for him.”

“More surprises?” Deena was aflutter with excitement. “Better than the honeymoon?”

“I think you’ll all be pleased.” He winked at her. “But I have to find Scott, first. Charlotte, do you mind—”

“Helping you look? Not at all.” I abandoned my breakfast and followed him before anyone at the table could stop me. When we were a suitable distance from the scene of my mortification, I whispered, “Thank you!”

“No problem.” He grimaced. “I met Deena yesterday afternoon. She’s a lovely woman but a little… overbearing.”

“Oh, ha ha.” I rolled my eyes, but he did get a smile out of me.

It was the first good look I’d had at his face in daylight. And he had freckles across his perfect nose. Subtle ones I hadn’t noticed in the low light on the rooftop.

“There he is.” Matt said, grabbing my hand to pull me along.

I jerked my arm back, hoping no one saw. “Remember?” I asked tersely, through my clenched jaw.

“Fuck, sorry,” he said under his breath.

My eyes darted around the room. Mom and Dad were too far away to have noticed the slipup, and Scott was—“Look, he’s over there.”

Following the direction of my pointed finger, Matt raised a hand and waved to Scott, who stood a few tables away.

“Hey, man. Where’s your fiancée? I have a surprise for her outside,” Matt called to him.

“I can find her. She can’t have gone too far,” Scott replied.

“Get her and meet me outside,” Matt told him, then turned to me and said, “You’ll want to see this too.”

A suspicious, foreboding feeling grew in my chest. I followed Matt out of the dockside restaurant, to the beach. A crowd of interested wedding guests and unaffiliated tourists stood on the grass, laughing and taking photos. And in the middle of the group was…

“Daisy?” Lauren shrieked, racing across the grass to the enormous grizzly bear sitting happily on her haunches, munching watermelon. As in, a whole, gigantic watermelon that she handled like a candy bar. Lauren launched herself at the beast and hugged her tight around the neck, but Daisy was clearly too drugged to concentrate on anything but her snack. The animal’s two handlers joined in on the bear hug. Their khaki uniforms were clearly emblazoned with the bear preserve logos, so I assumed they knew the bride.

“No way.” Scott stepped up beside us and clapped Matt on the back. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Look!” Lauren called back to Scott, as if he could have somehow missed the probably thousand-pound animal sitting right in front of him. “They brought my maid-of-honor!”

I echoed my brother’s statement, but not his enthusiasm. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“She wanted her bear here,” Matt said, watching as Scott went over to join Lauren and Daisy.

My jaw dropped.

Matt continued, with a gesture toward the restaurant, “There’s a linen storage room in the hallway, near the restrooms. Meet me there, but don’t follow me.”

Heat flooded my face, and my heart pounded in my throat, hard enough to choke me.

He turned to walk away, whistling, but he paused to say, “What do you think is harder to arrange? A threesome, or flying a grizzly bear from Montana to South Carolina?”

I didn’t have an answer.

“I guess we’ll see,” he mused cheerfully, then took up his whistling again as he walked away.