Chapter 17
WILL
The morning after I’d very nearly lost control of myself and kissed her again in that bathroom, I caught up to Eliza as she was pulling on her rain boots to take her walk. Holly and Maeve were already ready, sitting in front of the door with their ears perked and their tails wagging.
“Good morning,” I said enthusiastically, sticking out one of my feet to show her I had come prepared. “Do you mind if I join you?”
She blinked at the shoes a little in surprise, but quickly regained her composure as she brought her gaze up to mine. “You’re wearing the wellies. Willingly.”
“Yeah, well, Aaron and I gave a tour yesterday. Well, actually, Aaron gave it. I just tagged along, but anyway, I had to double back for these. It made me realize you might’ve been right about my other boots.”
“Of course, I was,” she mused out loud, a slight smirk just starting to form on her lips before her face suddenly fell. “Wait. What? You gave a tour?”
“No, Aaron did.” I grinned, but then I realized the color was rapidly draining from her cheeks.
Clearly, that hadn’t been good news. “Miriam tried to stop us, but the old ladies visiting from America were too nice to say no to and they enjoyed my company while Aaron showed us all around. He’s very knowledgeable. Nothing to worry about.”
She held my gaze for a long beat, but when she seemed to realize I was being serious, she relaxed. The tension eased from her features and she even managed to give a smile. “I’m sure they did enjoy your company, but the real question is whether you enjoyed Aaron’s tour.”
“I loved it,” I said without even having to think about it. “I mean, the one you gave me was better. Way more extensive, but it was cool to see the castle and the estate as a tourist.”
She chuckled, seeming pleased as she finally finished pulling on her boots and stood. Those light blue eyes were bright and happy again this morning, her hair pulled into a loose, high ponytail and a heavy-duty raincoat cinched tight around her waist.
“Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it. Perhaps you’ll mention us to your friends,” she teased. Although she probably meant it at least a little bit too. “Of course, you can join us. Holly and Maeve will be happy for the company if it means a longer walk.”
“Only if it means a longer walk?” I sighed, pretending to be hurt. “They drive a hard bargain, but okay. I guess you can show me around the back trails too.”
She laughed. The light, melodic sound was like music to my ears after the state she’d been in yesterday. “Very well. I suppose you deserve to see the back trails before we leave.”
“Excellent.”
I grinned, following her out into the gray foggy morning and drawing in a breath of crisp, fresh air. Honestly, I could get used to this.
Easy morning walks through the fog without another person, building, or car in sight. Afternoons spent drinking tea and ensuring the castle didn’t cave in on itself. Chatting with excitable tourists and ordering supplies for the staff.
It was a good life. Quiet but busy in a way that was completely different to the life I had back home. Things felt more connected here. More meaningful.
Maybe it was just because I’d grown up with a strong sense of family and tradition, but I loved Eliza’s culture. It was a perfect fit for me. I genuinely felt like I could probably acclimate much easier here than she would to Chicago.
I was reminded that it wasn’t supposed to be my life when my phone rang on our way back. I glanced at my screen, my heart stammering at the sight of my brother’s name.
“It’s work,” I explained vaguely to Eliza when she glanced at me. “I’ve got to take it, but I’ll meet you back inside.”
“I’ll order a tea service.” She smiled, calling for Holly and Maeve to follow.
As they drew ahead, I slowed and swiped my thumb across the screen to take the incoming video call. “You’ve been dodging me for nearly two weeks, Jess. What the fuck? Why are you ignoring me?”
“I’m not ignoring you, per se,” Jesse protested with a grin on his lips that said he definitely had been deliberate about not taking my calls. “It’s more of an ignoring everyone in the family kind of situation.”
“Do you have any idea what I’ve been doing to cover your ass while you’ve been pulling this childish fucking disappearing act?
” My eyes narrowed as I stared into his and wished there wasn’t a screen and an ocean between us.
“I’m in England, Jesse. While all my work is piling up at home, I’m in goddamn England with your future wife so we don’t lose this deal just because you’re too much of an asshole to step up. ”
He rolled his eyes, waving a hand like none of it even meant anything to him. “Relax. I haven’t disappeared for real. I’ve just been busy negotiating with Alex about the extra gift I’m supposed to get for going through with this. You wouldn’t believe what they offered me.”
Too gleeful and too casual about it, he leaned toward the screen and widened his eyes. “It was ridiculous. They’re expecting me to give up my whole life and they wanted me to do it for next to nothing.”
I scoffed. “I’m sure it was a lot more than nothing, but are you actually even planning on going through with this? Because it’s all set up, Jess. But if I’m wasting my time here—”
“That’s not up to me,” he said, cutting me off with another roll of his eyes. “None of this was my decision, Will. Remember? You’re not there for me or because of me. In fact, I’ve got nothing to do with any of this.”
I ground my teeth together, speaking with my jaw so clenched it nearly cracked. “So you’re not going through with it.”
“That’s not what I said.” His grin widened. “I’m just not doing anything until Alex grovels for a while. You should see him, man. He’s desperate.”
As I looked back at him, I realized that this wasn’t about money. Alex had been wrong. Sure, Jesse did love cold, hard cash. He hadn’t been wrong about that, but Jesse had also always butted heads with Alex and Dad.
It was part of the reason why he’d never gone into family business and that was what this was about.
Sticking it to them and making them beg, but now, they’d dragged me into it.
My blood started simmering in my veins. I had too many memories of too many times when I’d had to do just this.
Those memories slammed into my mind one after the other.
“Are you really this fucking selfish?” I snapped in a harsh stage whisper, seriously not wanting to be overheard. “I’ve given up the last few weeks of my life for this and you’re just over there, having fun because Alex is groveling?”
“Yeah, man.” He held my gaze for another beat, then sighed, his lips almost immediately pressing into a pout. “I don’t know what you’re so upset about. You knew I hadn’t agreed to anything and you still went over there. This isn’t my fault.”
“You cannot be serious,” I muttered. “That allergy you’ve got to taking responsibility is acting up again in a big way, but you forget that this isn’t just about you.
There’s a very real woman here thinking she’s going to marry you, so just get your ass home and talk to Alex like a goddamn grownup. ”
“Or what?”
My eyes nearly bulged out of my head. “Excuse me?”
He shrugged. “You heard me, but look, man, I was just calling you back to let you know what was going on, but I can’t talk to you if you’re like this.”
I scoffed. “Are you out of your mind?”
“No, but you seem to be.” He pumped his eyebrows, but the look in his eyes was flat and I knew him more than well enough to know that meant he was just as pissed off with me right now as I was with him. “Give my bride a kiss for me, Jesse-ish.”
With that stunning bit of infuriating sarcasm, he hung up, his face disappearing from the screen. Aggravation rolled through me, tightening my insides and making rage bubble up like lava. A solid minute of deep breathing didn’t help at all. I needed to punch something. Someone, actually.
Eventually, I stomped back into the castle, heading directly to the sun room that Eliza lovingly referred to as the Fog Room.
She said it was more accurate because that was normally the view.
A fact I knew about my brother’s bride because I was here, getting to know her while he was the one who would get to have her. To call her his.
All without doing a single fucking thing to earn her respect or her love, and without even knowing anything there was to know about her.
It rattled around inside me like a brewing thunderstorm, the injustice of it all, but as soon as I stormed in and saw her pouring a cup of tea for me, my mood immediately faded.
It was like magic. One minute, I’d been ready to commandeer the closest jet to fly straight to Miami so I could put a fist through Jesse’s face, and the next, I was smiling, calm, and looking forward to my tea, like a proper fucking gentleman.
I took my seat opposite her, wondering how it was possible that just seeing someone could have such an immediate effect on my blood pressure.
“Something is up with you,” she said quietly, handing over the delicate cup with a glint of knowing in her eyes. “Don’t bother trying to deny it, Jesse Westwood. What’s going on?”
Surprised that she’d even noticed, I considered lying and telling her it was just an issue at the office, but ultimately, I found that I actually wanted to talk to her about this. “That was my brother.”
“I thought it was work?”
“Yeah, but I work with most of my brothers, remember?”
She gave me a serene smile as she leaned back in her chair, her fingers wrapped around the cup and her features open and relaxed. “Well, yes, but not because you’ve told me much about it.”
“True.”
I raked the fingers of my free hand through my hair as I realized how weird this was going to be. I wanted to be honest with her, but I would have to switch my own name for Jesse’s, and right now, that was the last fucking thing I wanted to do.
Still, as I looked into her eyes, I decided to just mentally grab my balls and jump in. After this, she wasn’t going to think much of me, Will, but it was better that way anyway.
“Will is a genius,” I started slowly. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s one of the smartest guys you’ll ever meet, and sometimes, I envy him for being exactly who he is, but he’s always had a hard time fitting in with our family.
He doesn’t follow our traditions and he acts like he’s doing us a favor sometimes for just showing up. ”
God, I hate this.
“Will,” she said thoughtfully. “Your twin, right?”
“Yeah, unfortunately,” I said before I could censor the reaction.
She frowned. “Unfortunately?”
Fuck.
I’d never really talked to anyone about the true nature of my relationship with my brother, but things just started pouring out now. It was like I’d opened the floodgates with that one careless word, and now that the genie was out of the bottle, there was no putting it back in.
The only thing I put any real thought into was substituting our names, telling Jesse’s story but with my name attached to it. It sucked, but at this point, it was what it was.
“He was stuck in the neonatal intensive care unit for three months after we were born,” I heard myself saying out loud for the first time ever.
I’d literally never talked about this before.
“Growing up, he needed all kinds of extra attention. Occupational therapy and speech therapy. Special tutors in school.” Shit, he’s going to kill me when he finds out I told her.
“I spent my entire childhood feeling like I had to protect my brother, but he never let those things get to him.”
Her lips quirked into a faint smile. “He didn’t?”
“No, he really didn’t. He breezed through it all,” I said. “Truth be told, he didn’t even just breeze through it. He thrived. By the time we hit college, he’d already made a small fortune in trading and he’d bought real estate in his own name.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it didn’t take him long to break away from the family after that. He found his own path and he took it without looking back.”
Shit, I need to find a way to spin this that brings me back into the fold somehow.
Once we got back, she was sure to find out just how deeply entrenched I was at W&S, which would make no sense considering I’d just told her that Will had taken his own path. Suddenly panicked, I lied through my teeth and I did it without skipping a beat.
“It was only recently that he came back into the proverbial fold,” I said. “When Alex appointed him as COO.”
“I thought you were in operations too?” she said, frowning slightly. “Why wouldn’t you get the COO position if you’ve been working for them all along and you help out in operations anyway?”
Double fuck. “Oh, I help out, but I’m really in sales. I preferred to have some free time instead of being chained to a desk all day.”
Another blatant falsehood.
In reality, I liked the rigidity of my job as COO precisely because I hadn’t had anyone to spend my free time with in a really long time, so I hadn’t wanted any. Still didn’t. Especially not after this.
“I remember Will from when you guys came to visit all those years ago,” Eliza said quietly, a fond smile forming on her lips. “Back when you were still dating Eugenie.”
My heart thumped several times, kicking hard against my ribs. “You do?”
“Yes, he seemed so quiet.” Her gaze seemed far away for a moment before she blinked and looked back at me. “It was very clear that he didn’t like Eugenie, though. At the time, I understood why he might be worried about you.”
I smiled, happy that she remembered me from that time since I sure as hell remembered her. That was why this felt so incredibly fucking hard. I’d never forgotten about her, and in the meantime, Jesse had barely even known she existed.
“We have to go to London to catch our flight back to Chicago tomorrow, don’t we?” she asked after a quiet beat.
I nodded but I didn’t really want to leave. I liked it here. With her. In this gray castle. I liked Aaron and Miriam. Holly and Maeve. This quiet, rural life.
Jesse had hated it here. After he’d broken up with Eugenie, he’d ranted about the estate almost just as much as he’d badmouthed her. According to him, it was too quiet, too old, too boring, too wet, and too far removed from modern life and civilization.
That was what wrecked me the most as I watched Eliza turn to stare out the window with a wistful sigh. It really hit me then that this wasn’t fair to her.
Hell, it wasn’t fair to me either and it sure as shit wasn’t fair to Jesse. This entire situation had turned into a complete shit show—and I was the only one who knew just how bad it really was.