TWELVE #2
“I don’t give a shit about an invite to any party,” he said, marching over. “And Dad would not be happy to know I’ve come here. I’ve exposed myself to—”
“Dad didn’t send you?”
He scoffed. “Are you crazy? Dad told me to play nice with Spurn, not to point out to you what an insane move it is to get involved with him.”
“Bram,” she said, rolling her eyes and turning toward the kitchen.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her back around. “Did he tell you about Gault?”
Gia had heard that name before, her father had said it. She couldn’t deny her curiosity. Brogan might be eavesdropping. And she couldn’t trust her brother. They had never been close; it was natural to be suspicious of his motives.
This whole situation was a Machiavellian mess. Trust was nonexistent. Each of the men were genuine and credible, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being used by all of them. She wasn’t cut out for this.
“I’m not involved in the business,” she said and held up both hands. “Yours or Brogan’s. Please don’t start talking about betrayals or telling me horror stories. I’m sure you have a few skeletons in your corporate closet, just as Brogan probably does.”
Catching her arm again, he pulled her across the room and pushed her down onto the couch.
“Dad wants us to play nice, but I came here because I care that you’re caught in the middle of this mess. Spurn is using you, Dad is using you.”
“And you’ve suddenly become a protective big brother?” she asked. “Since when? Bram, you’ve never given a crap about me or who I saw. Dad cared about who my boyfriends were, Mom cared about their bank balances, you never gave a crap. Why is Brogan different?”
“I’ve trusted you to make your own choices,” he said. “Just like you trusted me. I always thought we had respect, that we didn’t need to be in each other’s business.”
Yeah, she would agree with that. He was her brother, of course she loved him, but she’d never got the impression they liked each other all that much.
“Why choose now to change that?”
“Because Brogan Spurn is bad news,” Bram said. “I don’t want him to get you in trouble. To hurt you.”
Choosing to believe he was being sincere, she took his hand. “Brogan is not going to hurt me. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“You think that, but he is… and I’m worried Dad will too.”
“Because of this Gault,” she said. “They’re putting me in the middle of some business contract.”
He nodded and she got a sense of his desperation, though she couldn’t place its source. Was her brother worried about her, or did he have his own agenda? Maybe enemy territory made him edgy.
“He is! Spurn is putting you in the middle!”
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” she asked and rose to her feet. “If you give me a few minutes, I can get changed. I’ll ask Brogan to take us out to brunch, maybe if you got to know him better—”
“Get to know him? Have lunch with Spurn?” He was shaking his head again and pulled her back down. “No, Gia, I’m not interested in bonding with him or being his friend.”
“He’s coming to dinner for your birthday and your party too,” she said.
“I’ve already told Daddy, I sent him an email.
” Because she was a coward. It was what it was.
Harder for him to say no if she told rather than asked.
“If he has no objections to Brogan being in his home, and he’s willing to make the effort, you should too. ”
Bram snatched his hand back. “Make the effort with Spurn? I won’t.
I can’t,” he said. “Dad thinks this makes sense, but he’s only thinking about one business deal.
He’s not looking at the big picture. He’s not thinking about the future.
Once Dad retires, I’ll be the one who has to deal with the bastard.
Thanks to you, he’s going to have this to lord over me forever.
I’ll have to live with seeing his smug face in the boardroom. ”
“Lord what over you? Why would he be smug?”
“He’s screwed my little sister,” he said, disgust and anger on his face. “That bastard used you to humiliate me! Now whenever we’re in negotiations, he’ll be ridiculing my family with our peers, making snide comments, belittling me.”
Shame. That’s what he wanted her to feel. In other circumstances, maybe the notion that she’d been loose to the detriment of her family would do just that. How could her brother believe she could be?
Swallowing her anger, her fingers shook. Holding onto her irritation in Brogan’s home was important. This wasn’t the place to start a family disagreement.
“I think you should go now,” she said.
“Gia, you don’t get it. You don’t understand what he’s like.”
“Really?” she asked. “Because by your own admission, I’m the only one in the room who’s been intimate with him. I think if either of us have the right or the authority to talk about Brogan Spurn, it should be the one of us who’s bared their body for him. Don’t you?”
He surged to his feet. “Gia!”
“Don’t raise your voice at me,” she hissed.
“I want you to leave. Now. If you make me raise my voice, Brogan will come back down here. There’s too much conflict between you both already.
I don’t want to be the cause of more bad feeling.
This isn’t the place to argue. You don’t want me to be with him, I understand.
I appreciate your concern. Like I told Daddy, I’m old enough to make my own decisions. ”
They stared into each other. “Gia.”
“Please leave.”
Squeezing his lips together, he was clearly not happy with her request. It wasn’t easy to stand her ground. Huffing, Bram stormed past, almost bowling her over. She followed to watch him go into the elevator. When he turned, his eyes met hers, and he kept on glaring until the doors closed.