6. All The Jealousy （Ethan） #2
She doesn’t move, yet the collision feels inevitable.
This primal need to taste her, just once.
To remind her who’s in control.
To know what it’s like.
To fix the fucking wires she’s crossed in my brain.
I must be insane, but it can’t stop the way my body responds to her.
Urgent, needy, and overwhelming.
Her lips part. My muscles tighten in anticipation.
Then the door flies open and I hear heels on the pavement as Margot charges through.
Hattie jerks back like she’s been hit by lightning.
I rip myself away, trying to clear my head.
Be happy, you fool. Margot just saved you a ton of fucking grief.
A brutal mistake.
Yes, that’s all it would be.
I’ve gotten too caught up in the past, too mired in the unexpected web of this fakery.
“Congratulations! You guys are a huge hit,” Margot squeals, taking Hattie’s hands and dancing her around in a circle. “See? I knew you’d kill it in that dress. I’m surprised no one has had a heart attack, especially the older guys. Right, Ethan?”
I glare at them, revealing nothing.
Hattie looks at me, her brows creased, like my opinion suddenly means everything.
Goddamn, my collar feels like it’s choking me.
Does she really need to hear it from me?
Isn’t it a given she looks fucking edible tonight?
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Pure knockout.”
“Ignore him. He’s a boring spoiled asshole.” Margot gives me the finger as she rolls her eyes.
I scowl back.
If she’s come here to disrupt everything, she’s succeeding.
My head throbs.
I turn my back to them, massaging my temples as Margot chatters away, complimenting Hattie and telling her how much everyone admires her outfit.
Playing it up to boost her confidence, I’m sure. But knowing Margot, it’s also because she picked the dress and the response fluffs her pride.
In Margot’s head, this is her win as much as Hattie’s.
Annoying.
“…the crazy part is, no one believes PopPop wouldn’t let us do a proper funeral. Lots of weird rumors floating around,” Margot says when I start listening again, twisting her mouth.
Right.
She would have wanted the big formal funeral, the final goodbye.
I hide a smile, knowing that’s not what the wise old man would’ve wanted at all. He saved his pomp and extravagance for when he had a pulse.
What damn good is it when you’re dead?
“That’s Gramps, though,” I say, rejoining the conversation. “He never wanted to waste a second on death. Don’t think he wanted anyone else to bother. Or fret too much about his body ghosting the entire business community.”
“Ugh.” Margot pouts. “Why are his eccentric hang-ups always our problem? We might get it, but everybody else, no. Funerals aren’t for the dead—they’re for the living. For us . And without one, people wonder. Then they open their fat mouths and speculate.”
She isn’t wrong.
I rub the bridge of my nose, watching her frown bitterly.
Maybe the real problem isn’t the lack of a public sendoff.
Gramps didn’t give anyone close to him a second to stop and grieve. Not with the way he checked out and barred all funeral arrangements. That stuffy lawyer drove the point home several times, and Holden Stick-Up-Ass would probably guard his remains against any mourners, if ordered to do so.
Like Margot said, funerals are for the living.
They’re for grieving and cursing God over what you’ve lost.
It’s like no one knew how to handle Gramps’ death because all the usual ways—knowing about it in advance, preparing, hardening your heart, making arrangements for that black emptiness—they’ve all been stripped away.
What’s left is his joke of a will, filled with insane terms and conditions.
If I had to guess, that might be why Hattie agreed to go along with this sham as well.
She certainly doesn’t like me . But what if this is her personal, fucked-up way of saying goodbye?
I tune back into the conversation to see Margot has traded her sadness for a smile.
“You know I’ll be good at it,” she says.
“Hmm, I don’t know.” Hattie’s face scrunches. “I don’t want anything too big. This isn’t a real wedding.”
“And I’ll work around that! Just let me start looking into venues, Hatgirl. Ignore the groom. He doesn’t have a romantic bone in his body.”
“I mean, it’s not meant to be. Not for real,” Hattie reminds her.
“All weddings are romantic! Even the phony ones. Come on, at least let me pick the flowers. And your dress . I know just the style for you.”
My jaw clenches and I need more distance from them.
So much for Margot leaving the wedding alone, despite telling her point-blank she won’t be organizing shit.
Not for my wedding.
Fuck.
“Don’t look at me like that, dude,” Margot says, giving me a smug smile. “You signed up for this. Also, you get to deal with our parentals next week. They’ll be so excited to meet the bride.”
Bullshit.
My parents are secretly pissed I’ve inherited the company, as far as they know. They would’ve preferred it dismembered and sold off with the money distributed evenly, but they don’t want to piss me off by challenging Gramps’ explicit wishes.
Of course, they don’t know about this lunatic marriage clause, and I intend to keep it that way.
Unfortunately, that means we have to spend more time pretending to be a happy couple.
Hattie’s brows draw together. She hooks her bottom lip between her teeth.
It shouldn’t be such an effort to look away.
“When?” she asks. “When next week?”
“Wednesday. I figured we’d fly down to New York and make it quick. Get this crap out of the way.” When the concern on her face doesn’t ease, I fold my arms. “Do you have a problem with that?”
Margot fires a glare, but I ignore her. Hattie’s hold on her bottom lip deepens, turning it white.
“Wednesday,” she says.
“I’ll fly us out,” I say impatiently. “You won’t have to pay anything.”
“No, it’s not that.” She finally releases her lip and it’s fucking intoxicating, watching the blood rush back under her skin, redder than before. “It’s just… it’s kinda last minute to get time off. I don’t know if my boss will—well, I don’t want to disrupt the work schedule.”
“Seriously?” I snort loudly, wondering if I’m hearing this right.
We’re trying to organize an intro to convince my parents this is a legitimate marriage so I get my inheritance, and she’s prioritizing her job at a damn bookstore ?
Hattie peers up at me with eyes like green moons. “Do I really have to be there?”
“Yes. If I’m getting tortured over this marriage, so are you,” I grind out.
“ Ethan! ” Margot smacks my arm. “Don’t be a horse cock.”
“Then don’t let your friend be ridiculous,” I mutter, dropping the subject.
Hattie glares back with an offended green hellfire I haven’t seen in years.
Like the twisted freak I am, I fight back a smile, realizing how much I’ve missed it.
The rest of the evening goes smoothly enough.
I drop Hattie off at her place at the end of the night. She hurries to her apartment building, keying in the code and letting the door click shut behind her like there’s a demon on her heels.
She may be more correct than she knows.
Her hair has started to curl naturally again, but it looks good on her.
Everything looks damnably good on her now.
I don’t know how it happened.
One minute, she’s a nerdy, average-looking kid, and the next she’s a grown smokeshow. Incredibly, she doesn’t even know it.
Would I have kissed her if she hadn’t taken off?
If Margot hadn’t barged in, would I have been that stupid?
Loaded question. The easy answer is no, because all this is a game.
Neither of us have any real interest in each other.
Yet somehow, the bitter truth is always more complicated.
The way I felt back there at the event, so on edge and wound up—I’m blaming Daley.
He did that, made me behave like a caveman, ready to go to war to claim what’s rightfully mine.
But Pages isn’t.
Never has been and I don’t want her to be.
I just can’t stand a public humiliation ritual like a man I despise flirting with my new fiancée.
Would I have fucking kissed her, though? Before Margot showed up?
Honest answer: maybe.
And that pisses me off more than anything because I have no right.
Hattie has no right making me want it so bad.
Not even for a split second.
I don’t realize I’m staring at the closed door of Hattie’s apartment building until Margot punches me in the arm.
“What was that for?” I glower at her.
“You know what. She’s my friend , Ethan, and that’s not a nice look.”
“What the fuck ever,” I growl.
Back then, it was easy to ignore her.
Little Hattie didn’t have the spark she does now. The occasional flash of confidence that gives her just enough sass to grab my attention by the throat.
Not many people dare to sass me. Not to my face.
“Idiot,” Margot spits. “If you’re not careful, you’ll confuse her. Don’t make this silly wedding crap harder than it needs to be.”
“Now you’re just talking shit. I’m not making it hard on anyone. This was Gramps’ idea, after all.”
“Uh-huh.” She scowls at me suspiciously. “You’re not being nice to her.”
“I’m being me, Sis.”
“You’re being a dick,” she throws back. “This is just as hard on her as it is for you. Harder, maybe. The least you can do is be more accommodating. Getting all huffy because she has a job and a life outside you and this goofy arrangement? That’s clownish.”
“If she didn’t want to do it, she could’ve said no. She knows her obligations. The ship has sailed.”
“Yeah, because when you tell her”—she puts on a falsely macho voice—“ if I’m going, you are too that gives her so much room to say no.”
“It’s Hattie. She knows me.”
“She knows how much of an immature jerkwad you can be. You used to bully her so much. You can’t do it again. I won’t allow it.” Margot flicks her hair over her shoulder. “You’re my brother, so I’m kind of forced to love you, but that doesn’t mean I like you. Especially back then.”
“We all had to grow up. But I was also a kid once.”
Margot rolls her eyes, checking her makeup with her phone camera. “I heard about you going off on Cooper.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“I’m not the only one. A few Boston big shots overheard you guys, too. They were laughing about it later.”
“And? So fucking what?” I scowl at her, then at my own reflection in the limo window. “Fuck them. Cooper Daley isn’t the golden boy everyone thinks he is.”
Even though he really does have everyone eating out of the palm of his hand. It’s nauseating how far a little contrived charm gets you. Just because he makes small talk and invests appalling sums in plastic surgery.
Few can look past the Hollywood grade smile and see the devil underneath.
“What makes you think he’s so awful, anyway?” Margot asks.
“He used Blackthorn’s market research to land his big breaks on Long Island. The ones that made him millions.” It stings, knowing he took advantage of Gramps like that. “They called it miracle real estate. That doesn’t happen for rookies like him with barely any capital.”
“Newsflash: you’re a rookie. Hardly a year in the game,” Margot reminds me, putting her phone away. “Why did you even come back?”
“Gramps wanted me to.”
“Yeah, but… he’s wanted you to do that for years . Why did you decide you wanted trouble at the eleventh hour?” She sighs in exasperation. “We could’ve sold our stake in the company and done basically anything else.”
“What, like started a shoe line?” I raise an eyebrow.
“ Yes! Don’t talk about it like that. I don’t even want to deal with whatever he has for me in the will.
I could’ve started a shoe line and you could’ve flown off to Greece or Hawaii for a year if you wanted.
You could’ve been baking under the sun sipping mai tais. Maybe it would’ve cured your bad mood.”
“Goddammit, Margot. Be serious.”
“I am being serious. Why did you come back?”
My lips stay sealed.
The limo hums quietly through the streets. This late, not many people are out in this sleepy little city.
We pause at the stoplights, long enough to notice the odd intersection of modern glass and two-hundred-year-old red brick buildings.
“Because I’ve been running away for a damn decade. Isn’t that enough?” I flare. “I’m done with that. This is my home, far more than New York will ever be. If I’d realized it sooner, I could’ve dealt with a lot of trouble.”
Margot stares. “And what trouble was that, my dude? What was so, so awful that you ran away from us and never came back? Gramps would never tell me.”
Good.
He kept his promise, then.
“Nothing,” I snarl. That rage in my voice is aimed at myself for cracking and bringing up the past. “Ancient history doesn’t matter now. Only the future, Margot. That’s why I’m putting up with this.”
For half a second, I think she’ll keep digging. That’s my sister, more excitable than Ares when she gets a bone.
But I guess she can sense a sore subject, because she chews the inside of her cheek and looks away quietly.
“Sorry,” she mutters.
Thank fuck.
The rest of the ride is dead silent.
When we finally pull up at the old house where I’ve been staying, Margot follows me inside.
“What?” she demands when I turn around and glare at her. “I just wanna see Ares. He’s my nephew and he likes me better.”
“Fucking hell.” I sigh, dragging a hand over my face. “You have five minutes to pet him, and then your ass is gone.”
I turn on my heel, not waiting for her to catch up as I storm into my study and slam the door.