Chapter 3
WILL
Ileft Dad’s house with Nate still blowing up my phone. It almost certainly meant something was exploding at the office or someone had forgotten to sign something important—or both—but it definitely wasn’t happening in my department.
I dialed him back once I was in my car. “Nate, what’s going on?”
“Will, finally. Thank God. Why the hell did Alex just send an email asking to set up a massively generous prenup for a Winifred Roderick and Jesse? Am I reading this correctly?”
I scrubbed a hand over my face and sighed. “Uh, yeah, so apparently, that’s happening.”
Nate’s answering silence on the other end was immediately unsettling. It didn’t feel like his usual reserved calm, but more like he’d been stunned speechless, which didn’t happen often and wasn’t comforting when it did.
Thankfully, he didn’t let it drag on too long. “Does Jesse know what’s going on? Because, Will, they’re moving fast on this one. Like, faster even than Kate and me, and that was already ridiculous.”
I turned over my engine and shifted the car into gear, waiting for the call to connect to my Bluetooth before I backed out of the driveway. “He knows. He’s still at my place and I’m headed over there right now. I’ll talk to him and get back to you as soon as possible.”
Fuck, I hated that I was in the middle of this. Plus, I was still feeling a little off kilter about having just spent a whole hour with Eliza.
Eliza. Shit.
Lady Elizabeth Rose Roderick had aged like a fine wine, even more ethereally gorgeous now than ever before.
Golden brown hair cascaded in gentle waves past her shoulders, and her bright blue eyes were as soft, but intelligent as always.
She had classic, rounded facial features that reminded me of the aristocracy in historic period pieces.
Cheeks for days, man.
All I’d wanted was to catch up with her as me, but she’d thought I was Jesse. Even Alex had thought I was Jesse when I’d walked in, and that guy had built a career on strategy, observation, and patronizing little brothers.
It’d pissed me off more than I expected that he confused me for my twin today of all fucking days. I hadn’t even come to the house for any of that shit. Dad had called and summoned me, but I’d walked in as myself and out, apparently, as my brother.
Jesse was kind of a mess. In the best possible sense, but he barely buttoned his shirts correctly most days and wore mostly jeans instead of tailored trousers. Me?
I was the opposite. You’d think that after thirty-one years on this planet, my oldest brother would know that I was the one who was always put together and ready for action.
People noticed when I wasn’t there. I didn’t leave hurricanes in my wake. I left solutions. Fixed problems.
“Okay, man,” Nate said finally. “Just keep me in the loop, okay? I don’t like this. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“You’re telling me,” I muttered. “I’ll talk to you when I’ve seen him.”
Nate grumbled a quick response and ended the call while I inhaled a deep breath.
After finding out that Jesse and Winnie were the ones being set up, I had to admit I was a tiny bit relieved.
At least it wasn’t Eliza. I wasn’t sure how I would have felt about that, even if it had been years since I’d had that stupid crush.
Even so, I still had to get Jesse to involve himself, but when I got home, he was gone. Just like that.
The only thing that remained of him was an empty coffee mug on the kitchen counter and a note beside it, scrawled in his familiar, sloppy handwriting. Going back to Florida. Tell Alex I’m out. No deal.
I groaned and sank down on the nearest stool, briefly considering tossing the note into the fireplace to destroy the evidence, but instead, I called Alex.
“He’s gone, bro,” I said without any preamble. “Miami is one Jesse richer today.”
“No,” Alex said immediately. “That’s not possible. I just saw him. He—”
“You didn’t just see him.” I rolled my eyes. “That was me, Alex. You got us mixed up. Time to get your eyes checked.”
There was a long pause on his end. “Wait. What?”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking when it happened,” I said dryly. “Jesse, however, is in fact no longer in Chicago, which means this situation has officially become a train wreck. He said to tell you no deal.”
Alex huffed out an annoyed sigh. “God, you’d think he would’ve grown up a bit by now.”
“You would, but to be fair, I’d also think that you would know better by now than to spring something like this on him and expect him to go along with it.”
“Yeah,” he said after a beat, then groaned. “This has the potential to turn into a complete clusterfuck. Dad is pretty set on this marriage happening.”
“Well, Dad is going to have to get over it.”
“Or,” Alex said, and immediately, a stone dropped into the center of my stomach. I knew that tone and it rarely meant good things. It meant he was thinking, already seven steps ahead.
“Or what?” I finally asked. “Do I even want to know?”
“Probably not, but I’m going to tell you anyway because it involves you.”
My eyes slammed shut. “Of course, it does.”
“I have a plan and it’s just a little bit brilliant, even if I do say so myself.”
“You’d better say it yourself because I’m sure as hell not going to.”
“Oh, relax,” he said, and I could practically see him waving me off. “This will fulfill Dad’s greatest wish and it secures a marriage that will be beneficial for both families. Everyone wins.”
“Everyone wins,’” I repeated flatly. “Let me guess, everyone except me, right?”
“Don’t be dramatic. All you need to do is pretend to be Jesse for the time being. Just until I can convince him to return and do his duty to the family. It’s elegant.”
Elegant. Right. In the same way that stepping barefoot on Lego bricks is elegant.
“Do his duty to the family?” I scoffed. “You sounded exactly like Dad there.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“Pretend all you want, but the fact of the matter is that I have zero interest in capturing the attention of a twenty-three-year-old with a single brain cell. I doubt I could even endure her company for more than an afternoon. Do not underestimate how little I care about keeping that girl happy.”
“You may not care, but you’ll survive,” he said firmly. “We’ll talk more at the office tomorrow.”
That was it. The next thing I knew, there was a click and the conversation was over. I just sat there for a moment after, trying to absorb the sheer weight of the situation.
Jesse had tried to do this in the beginning—switch places, switch lives. The whole let’s confuse the world stunt.
Now, somehow, in a cosmic joke only a Westwood could truly appreciate, I was boxed into a corner. With nowhere to run and, apparently, only my brother’s identity to hide in.
The next morning, after spending most of the evening venting to Nate, who had been deeply unsympathetic in that calm, rational way of his, I went to the office. Up to my own floor.
One of the perks of being the COO was the illusion of autonomy, but in practice, it just meant people came to me instead of the other way around. Unfortunately, Alex was already waiting when I arrived, proving that perhaps it wasn’t so much of a perk as I’d thought.
Because now, I couldn’t even fake an emergency and rush back to my own office.
He was leaning against the edge of my desk, looking rested, composed, and way too pleased with himself for seven in the morning. Without even uttering a word of greeting, he launched straight into the crisis of the day.
“I assume you’ve spoken to Jesse,” he said.
I shrugged out of my jacket and moved around my desk to my chair. “Nope. He’s not taking my calls.”
Alex’s lips twisted like this was a minor inconvenience instead of a major disaster. “We’ll bring him back.”
I sank into my chair and leaned back, crossing my arms loosely over my chest as I stared back at him. “You say that like he’s a lost dog and not a fully grown man who’s actively avoiding all of us.”
“For now,” Alex said calmly, like he already knew how this was going to go. “He’ll come around. He has to. He’s family. This is where he belongs, Will. In this building with the rest of us.”
As much as I wanted to disagree purely out of principle, I couldn’t. Because Alex was right. As usual.
Jesse had always been the wild one. Even as a kid. Climbing things he couldn’t get down from, jumping off things that were too high, or charming teachers five minutes after getting in trouble with them.
All the while, I’d been right there behind him, trailing along like a shadow, cleaning up the aftermath. I’d been his protector as much as his twin.
If Jesse broke something, I helped fix it. If he got caught, I helped talk our way out of it. If he pushed too far, I stepped in before he fell.
Sometimes literally.
There had been a tree once, too high with branches that were too thin, but Jesse had insisted he could make it to the top. I’d followed him up, and naturally, he’d slipped on the way down. I’d caught him, hurting myself badly enough to leave a scar on my shoulder that still hadn’t quite faded.
Dad had yelled at both of us, but I’d taken most of the blame. That had been our pattern. But I loved him anyway. I always had and I probably always would. That was likely a twin thing.
Or maybe just a Jesse-and-me thing. It was really hard to say where one ended and the other began. Either way, he did belong here with all the rest of us. Things just didn’t feel quite right without him.
“Yeah, he would be good here,” I finally agreed. “He would be terrible at operations though. Disastrous at logistics. Probably a nightmare in finance. Nate would never survive, but sales? He’d be great at that.”
“Exactly,” Alex said, smirking now. “Jesse could sell water to a drowning man. He’s just that charismatic.”
“Yeah, but he can’t make the sale unless he actually showd up.”
“He will.” Alex said it with absolute certainty, like reality would rearrange itself to suit his timeline.
He was so confident that I found myself thinking about what it would be like, having Jesse back in the fold. Showing up. Actually stepping up.
It wasn’t impossible. Unlikely as hell but not impossible.
“In the meantime,” Alex said. “We’ll maintain the arrangement. James Roderick has money. Old money. It’s tied up in the estate, of course, but that’s not the point.”
“Then what is?” I asked.
“He has that old family mentality when it comes to his daughters. He’s dead serious when it comes to them marrying well.”
I barked out a laugh. “How much do you know about those daughters? Especially Eugenie. Do you have any idea what you’re dealing with there?”
Alex frowned slightly. “I’ve done my research.”
“Did that research include Eugenie?”
Alex waved a dismissive hand. “It did, but she’s not really relevant.”
I snorted. “Eugenie is always relevant. Trust me on that. She’ll make sure of it.”
“Well, let her try. I only have a few weeks to set this up before the baby comes and I want it done by then. I doubt she’ll be able to cause too much drama in such a short amount of time.”
My eyebrows shot up, Eugenie suddenly the least important thing on my mind. “A few weeks?”
“Yep. That’s our hard deadline. Jesse has to be married in one month, before the baby arrives. Period.”
“That’s not a timeline, Alex,” I said. “It’s a threat.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “What is it with you and the dramatics lately? Look, all you have to do is pretend to be Jesse and stay in James’s good graces until I can bring Jesse back to his senses.”
I groaned. “Does Winnie even know about this?”
Alex shrugged as if she was relevant either. “That’s on James.”
Of course. I scrubbed my palms over my face and inhaled a deep breath. Of course, no one had even bothered to tell the people who were actually involved what the plans were, and somehow, I’d become the glue holding this entire disaster together.
I slumped back in my chair as Alex left.
When Jesse had first suggested we switch places, I’d laughed him off, and then, very firmly, I’d talked him out of it, but now, he was getting what he’d wanted and I wasn’t so sure he was ever going to come back once he knew.