Page 21 of Falling For My Ex's Older Brother

I have what I need from her. I know that much. The rest is just saying it out loud.

"There's something I need to discuss with you," I say.

Chapter Seven

Sutton

The door is closed.

That's the first thing I'm aware of — the quiet click of it behind me, the way it changes the room. I've been in Logan's office dozens of times in the past month. It has never felt like this. The difference is the door, and what the door means, and the fact that the floor beyond it has gone quiet for the evening and it's just the two of us on this side of it. I sit across from him and wait.

He looks at me for a moment the way he looks at everything he's about to address — directly, without preamble, having already decided what he's going to say and how. His hands are folded on the desk. His expression gives away nothing, which is standard. What isn't standard is the particular quality of the pause before he speaks, a half-beat longer than his usual delivery, as if even Logan Drake needed an extra second to frame this one.

"There's an event in Dallas next month," he says.

"The Drake Foundation philanthropy gala. Black tie. It's a significant room — major donors, foundation board members, people whose goodwill matters to this company in ways that extend well beyond a single evening." He holds my gaze evenly.

"I'll be presenting the foundation's annual infrastructure grant, which puts me at the center of that room for most of the night. Arriving alone sends a message I'm not interested in sending."

I keep my expression neutral. I'm listening.

"I need someone beside me," he continues.

"Someone who can hold a conversation in that environment, who already understands the business context, and who won't need to be managed while I'm managing everything else." A beat.

"I'm asking you to attend as my date."

The word sits in the air between us. He doesn't flinch from it and neither do I, though something in my chest does a thing I don't acknowledge.

"In what capacity, exactly?" I ask.

"What would that require?"

"Public appearances throughout the evening. Conversation with donors and board members.

Presenting as a couple in a way that reads as convincing." His delivery doesn't change — same tone, same steadiness, same Logan.

"Nothing beyond that."

I take a breath that I keep small enough that he won't notice it. The professional logic is clean. I can seeexactly why he's asking — I've been in enough rooms with him now to understand the social architecture of his world, and I understand equally that a man in his position arriving solo to a room full of people watching him carries an implication he'd want to control. I'm the obvious solution. I know the business. I've proven I can handle myself. From a purely strategic standpoint this makes complete sense.

From every other standpoint it is considerably more complicated.

I have a boyfriend. I work for this man. The boyfriend is this man's brother, which is a detail that has been living in the background of my professional life for a month and which has not become less complicated with time. And now Logan Drake is sitting across his desk from me in a closed office at the end of a quiet evening asking me to spend a night in Dallas on his arm.

He is watching me process this with the patience of someone who has already decided the answer and is waiting for me to arrive at it.

"All right," I say. "I'll do it."

Something in his posture shifts — barely, just a fractional settling, the specific release of tension in a man who doesn't show tension.

"Good. We'll cover the logistics this week. There are two briefings I want you in before we go — the donor list, the foundation board dynamics, the political landscape of the room."

"I'll clear the time."

He nods once. The meeting, if that's what this was, is over. I stand, smooth my skirt, and cross to the door.

I'm halfway through it when I become aware of something I can't name — a charge in the air behind me, the specific feeling of being watched without being able to confirm it. I don't turn around. I pull the door closed behind me, walk to my desk, and sit down. My hands are steady. The rest of me is taking a moment to catch up.